Challenging the Myth: Maria de Zayas\u27s \u3cem\u3eNovelas amorosas y ejemplares\u3c/em\u3e

The texts of María de Zayas, a seventeenth-century female writer who is considered by many critics of her works to be Spain’s first feminist author. In her first framed novella collection, Novelas amorosas y ejemplares (1637), she speaks out against the injustices early-modern women endured as a consequence of strict patriarchal rule. The widespread prevalence of myths surrounding women in patriarchal societies have allowed for continued cruelty and subordination of women. By using myths as a pretext, men have been able to carry out such treatment for centuries, free from blame, and maintaining a sense of validation in their wrong-doing. This paper analyzes a selection of short-stories from Zayas’s collection using the feminist theories of Simone de Beauvoir as developed in her book The Second Sex. Beauvoir goes into great detail in her analysis of myths and their function throughout history. Her fundamental point is that by attributing woman to Nature, man is able to conquer, control, violate, and ignore her, just as he would any other entity pertaining to it. When he is not able to achieve his goals, he attributes his misfortune to an inexplicable mystery hemmed in Nature. Specifically, in this paper I examine Novelas in order to show how men operating in Spain’s seventeenth-century patriarchal society do not view women as individuals capable of expressing the anguish they feel, but rather are disregarded by men as unexplainable creatures that only exist to satisfy heterosexual male desire and maintain the home