SOURCE: Cypess, Sandra Messinger. “Visual and Verbal Distances in the Mexican Theater: The Plays of Elena Garro.” In Woman as Myth and Metaphor in Latin American Literature, edited by Carmelo Virgillo and Naomi Lindstrom, pp. 44-62. Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1985.

In the following essay, Cyppess discusses how Garro's plays affect the constructed image of Mexican women in literature.

The concepts developed by Michel Foucault regarding the use of discourse bring to our attention the fact that implicit in a system of discourse are rules and restrictions, privileges and exclusions.¹ The rules that govern the production of discourse and the procedures that control, select, organize, and redistribute it are expressions of a culture handed down from generation to generation. In Latin American culture, women have generally been considered silent figures, submissive to the patriarchal powers that govern their society, whether they be the fathers of the family or...