The voice and the invisible violence in the contemporary Caribbean short story

Some short stories by Caribbean women writers feature a female protagonist speaking in her own voice, telling her own story and coming to understand herself and her circumstances. In other texts, the protagonist\u27s voice is challenged, overwhelmed or replaced by other voices, and she continues suffering psycho-logically. We examine the relationship between changes in the narrative voice and the female protagonist\u27s fate in twelve texts, demonstrating the consequences of her ability or inability to tell her story. Each text displays a distinct correspondence between the protagonist\u27s life and how it is narrated. In Masticar una rosa , El lado frío de la almohada and Rondeles a first-person narrator reflects on her mistreatment and begins to understand her situation. In Una semana de siete días and De tal astilla, tal palo a first-person narrator recounts being abandoned or betrayed by her mother but never overcomes her feeling of abandonment or resentment. In Un poema para Alicia a first-person narrator tells of sexual abuse by her father, framed by other voices. In Remordimiento and El cuento envenenado , others tell a woman\u27s story. In Remordimiento , a white woman tells the life of a former slave who barely speaks in the text. In El cuento envenenado the stepmother comments on a fictional version of her stepdaughter\u27s life. In Bumerang , first-person and third-person narrators tell the story of the protagonist\u27s mistreatment, but she barely recognizes her abuse. Although the protagonist\u27s voice predominates in Así fue mamá , her abuser has the final word. In Los mundos de Teresa , a third-person narrator reveals Teresa\u27s fate after her teacher raped her. We hear the neighbors\u27 comments but not Teresa\u27s voice. A third-person narrator reveals Elba\u27s preference for imaginary worlds in Más allá but Elba never expresses herself in tangible ways. These texts demonstrate a relationship between unheard voices and unseen violence in selected literary works from Cuba, Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic, illustrating the complex interactions of gender, violence and voice in the Caribbean region today