Girls are weird and clever (but mothers aren't): paradoxes of children's literary discourse in the work of Carmen Martín Gaite

Las chicas son raras y listas (pero las madres, no): paradojas del discurso literario infantil en la obra de Carmen Martín Gaite

Abstract

Abstract:

Carmen Martín Gaite has a short corpus of children’s literature: El castillo de las tres murallas, El pastel del diablo and Caperucita en Manhattan. Although maternal-filial bonds are a major theme in all of them, the last two works are characterised by their somewhat schematic portrayal of conflictive and polarised relations between mothers and daughters. Thus, this paper aims to demonstrate that in El pastel del diablo and Caperucita en Manhattan there is a problematic assimilation of children's literary discourse, especially regarding relationships between mothers and daughters. This tendency is, however, absent in El castillo de las tres murallas, where children's literary tradition is rewritten in a freer and more innovative way.

Key Words

Carmen Martín Gaite. Children’s Literature. Motherhood.