Negotiating with Subalternity: Catalina and the Voice in Rosario Castellanos’s Oficio de tinieblas

Abstract

Catalina Díaz Pujilá, the protagonist of Oficio de tinieblas, by Rosario Castellanos, embodies multiple categories of subalternity: she is a woman, indigenous, and infertile. However, because of her role as an ilol or shaman, she is widely respected and listened to in her community. This article uses Gayatri Spivak’s arguments in the text “Can the Subaltern Speak?” to analyze Catalina’s character. As a complex subject, her identity is in constant flux due to the tensions caused by the coexistence of different identity categories. On a narrative level, Castellanos reflects these tensions through the use of free indirect style. On the level of building a character, she does so by telling Catalina’s story. The ilol negotiates with the positions of power and subordination she occupies, sometimes simultaneously, to find moments and conditions that enable her to speak.