Camilo's M(O)ther Women

In this essay, Rebecca Atencio argues that a recurring theme in Camilo Castelo Branco's work is the trope of the dead mother and the act of matricide itself. Theoretically informed by the pertinent and complementary theories of Luce Irigaray and Julia Kristeva, she analyzes two "matricidal narratives," the popular narrative Maria! Não me mates! and the novella "Maria Moisés," as exemplary of these driving motifs in Camilo's work. Moving away from the widespread tendency of biographical readings of Camilo's gallery of fictive women, this essay proposes an innovative critical reading of these female protagonists, and relates matricide, a founding act and key plot element in these and many of the author's texts, to gender-related issues, the repression of female desire, the submission of women, the female identification with the mother or father, and the alternatives available to women in a patriarchal society

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