The monsters of two Mariana Enriquez’s short stories

Abstract

This article intends to undertake a reading of the Mariana Enrique’s shot stories, “El pátio del vecino” e “Bajo el agua negra”, taking into account three points of analysis: its afiliation to the literary fantastic tradition; the configuration of the horror and of the monster figure; and the interpretation of social conflicts that takes place in Las cosas que perdimos en el fuego (2016). In both short stories, the female protagonist finds herself faced with a monstrous figure who embodies deep social issues, such as the gaslighting in a married couple and the geographic and social alienation of a miserable population on the outskirts of Buenos Aires. These short stories start from the representation of the abject, the horrifying, to finally recognise the protagonist’s feelings of guilt, whether intimate or social, for the monstrosity she witnesses. To do so, it is necessary to investigate the concepts of physical monster and moral monster, eventually resorting to other titles from the fantastic tradition for comparison purposes.