Recreating the Womb Space: The Unborn Narrator and the Female Body as a Site of Power Struggle in The Fourth World by Diamela Eltit

This research looks at the novel The Fourth World by the well-known Chilean writer and professor Diamela Eltit. Reading Eltit's novel in the way I propose sheds new light on understanding her work, and understanding the sociopolitical and gender issues discussed. My focus on the development of a pre-linguistic narrative voice from inside the womb of the male protagonist's mother elaborates strongly on theoretical considerations from Irigaray, Butler, and others while pointing to the womb as a type of rhizomatic space resistant to hierarchical power structures that are markers of the most arborescent narrative. I run into some contentious debates regarding the question of the narrative voice of the fetus from inside the womb. I argue that the incestuous relationship outside the womb begins within the womb with the dominance of the male fetus over the twin sister, who has no voice or develops no voice. The investigation provides some intriguing ways to understand the role of experimentation in Eltit's novel, as well as how she engages questions of familial/ideological power structures, issues related to feminism and the female body as a site of power struggle. Already in utero, the male twin exerts both cognitive and sexual control over the female twin. I engage with this through the integration of Irigaray's ideas about women's experience of amorousness, and the inherent biological/genetic origin of the male within the female body. At the same time, I extend the discussion into questions of time and linearity, exploring how the space of the uterus and fetal narration unhinges the linear as a foregone traditional conclusion.