Re-staging Femininity in Ana Caro's Valor, agravio y mujer

Caro's play, Valor, agravio y mujer, displays many of the characteristics of the cloak and dagger play and has, therefore, been viewed as just another conduit of the values of that genre. According to this perspective, the protagonist's employment of a masculine role is socially objectionable. Leonor's disguise can only be condoned as a means to accord her an honorable status within the domestic sphere, a status which Leonor is ultimately able to achieve at the end of the play when she becomes Juan's wife. It is my contention in this study, however, that Caro applies the conventions of the genre she imitates only to invert the values upon which they rest. Caro draws on a variety of performative techniques in the second act of the play in order to expose the deauthorization of the feminine and, simultaneously, to permit the protagonist to transcend, up to a point, the representational boundaries that define and limit her.