An Allegory of Violence Against Women in Art: "La pesada valija de Benavides" by Samanta Schweblin from a Critical Feminist Perspective

Abstract

The short story “La pesada valija de Benavides”, by Argentine writer Samanta Schweblin (1978-), develops a critique of the elements that constitute the process of artistic communication: the author, the work, its intermediaries, and the audience. To achieve this, the story utilizes the resource of allegory, enabling the extrapolation of the narrated story to the communication process of Western art. Moreover, the use of allegory allows for the denaturalization of the aesthetic object by pushing the roles of those who have designated it as “art” to the point of absurdity. In this way, “The Heavy Suitcase of Benavides” is an example of how it is possible to denounce the aesthetic process from a feminist critical perspective, capable of naming cultural realities that have long been obscured. Among these are the justifications of violence against women in the service of an artistic dimension, supposedly isolated from the adverse socio-historical conditions in which they lived but which, in reality, the aesthetic object itself can cover up or reproduce.