Límites del deseo: incesto y familia en El lenguaje de las orquídeas de Adriana González Mateos

• Main Author: Anca Koczkas
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Prof. Dr. Vittoria Borsò, Prof. Dr. Frank Leinen, Jun.-Prof. Dr. Yasmin Temelli, Prof. Dr. Guido Rings 2018-02-01
• Series: iMex. México Interdisciplinario/Interdisciplinary Mexico
• Subjects: incest; pedophilia; ethics; Adriana González Mateos; family
• Online Access: https://www.imex-revista.com/xiii-limites-deseo-incesto-familia/

This article employs Igor Primoratz’s ethics of sexuality to analyze the incestuous relationship between a thirteen year old girl and her uncle in the novel El lenguaje the las orquídeas (2007), by Adriana González Mateos. My critical inquiry starts with a basic question: What hides behind the multiple ways in which incest is represented here? The obvious answer would be: the disintegration of the family. By analogy, if the family falls apart, so does the whole country. The Mexican nation here, as Doris Summers would say, no longer needs incest to consolidate itself, perhaps because this concept is undergoing profound transformations. Due to continuous social and cultural shifts, as well as the profound mark feminist and gay liberation movements have left on the Mexican society, the novel discussed here posits a new vision of incest. One that leaves behind the pater familias in order to reveal the growing importance of women in society and their role in the formation (or disintegration for that matter) of the family nucleus.