La mujer frente al espejo: La representación de la edad de la mujer en cuentos de escritoras españolas del siglo XXI

Little investigation has been done in literature on the relationship between sex, age and agency. This dissertation examines the representation of women\u27s age and the effect it has in their agency in short stories written by Spanish women authors of the 21st century. It is difficult to categorize with absolute exactitude something as subjective as age because it goes hand in hand with the internal growth of the individual, which is why the exact age of characters is not what is important in this research, but rather the age group to which they belong. Under this predicament, I propose making the following division of the stages of life: childhood, adolescence, youth, middle age and old age. In this same manner, I am dividing this dissertation into five chapters focusing on the literary figures of the child, the teenager, the young woman in her thirties ( treintañera ), the woman in her forties ( cuarentañera o cuarentona ) and the elderly woman. Through the short stories I analyze—written by Lucía Etxebarria, Espido Freire, Nuria Barrios, Marta Rivera de la Cruz, Ángela Valvey, Clara Sánchez, Beatriz Gimeno, Pilar Bellver, Karmele Jaio and Esther Tusquets—it becomes apparent that age does affect the characters\u27 agency and, in some cases, limits it. With the exception of Jaio, the younger authors present young characters that lay out the issue of patriarchy, but don\u27t offer solutions, whereas the older authors introduce older characters who either openly criticize patriarchal society or propose solutions to the problems that a phallocentric society poses. These women authors use mechanisms such as metaphors, humor, irony and silences to offer their particular view of patriarchy, creating through their literature a unique perspective of the important role that age plays in the literary representation of women\u27s agency