SOURCE: "Power and the Text: Rebellion in Rosario Ferré's Papales de Pandora," in The Journal of the Midwest Modern Language Association, Vol. 17, No. 1, Spring, 1984, pp. 70-80.

In the following essay, Vélez details the narrative structure of Ferré's story "Sleeping Beauty" to demonstrate how the protagonist undermines patriarchal authority, a recurring theme in Ferré's short fiction.

Rosario Ferré is a Puerto Rican feminist who has published a considerable number of essays, short stories, and newspaper articles. At present she lives in the United States and is working on a novel. "Sleeping Beauty" ("La Bella Durmienta"), the short story whose narrative structure I will discuss here, appears in a collection of short stories entitled Papeles de Pandora, which I have translated as Pandora's Sisters.¹ The broadest questions I shall address concerning this text are: what are its narrative strategies, and how and to what extent do...