Embedded Files
Feminism:
As a female, Latina author, Enriquez is no stranger to the underrepresentation of people inherently similar to her. Stories in which a female character is displayed heroically are not seen as often as they should be. In fact, it is common to see many stories featuring “damsels in distress” or women who are incapable of functioning as the only character able to achieve success. This blatant disregard for equality does not support women in society. So, in a fight against normalized misogyny, many of her novels and short stories feature strong females to make up for the large lack. In Enriquez's short stories “The Dirty Kid” and “Under the Black Water”, the female protagonist worked to help people around them in need, something seen as adventurous and ambitious. The characters shown are intelligent, often thinking and observing their surroundings intensely, the characters aren’t portrayed explicitly, in fact nothing is explained about their looks and the influence that has on their existence, and the characters are entirely independent from men. All of these character traits show a powerful fight against common gender stereotypes that are seen in not only literature, but also life. Enriquez's strong portrayal of female characters is empowering and the ability to showcase her characters in every piece of her writing shows her power as an author and her moral character as an activist. (Self)
The Gothic Fiction Genre:
Often misunderstood as skeletons, zombies, bats, spiders, and people dressed in black, the gothic genre offers a symbolic and political vision into more broad issues seen in the world. Gothic ideas started in the romantic period to accentuate tales of death, decaying or mystery, but have morphed into something much more political in the 1970’s. The newer vision of goth is based on the idea that the ominous is among us throughout the world. This is seen through military dictatorships, state abuse, ecological collapse, and drug cartels. More specifically to Enriquez’s stories, these issues were seen in Argentina during her lifetime in the country. She uses the ideas of unrealistic corruption, abuse, death, bodily horror, and many more inside fictional stories to present the horror of reality to her readers in a deceptively real way. The symbolic usage of historical events hidden inside her extreme stories supports the fight against the issues in a poetic way. In addition, the gothic genre can be tied into Enriquez’s fight for feminism. The genre is used to portray the limitation of women's independence, the social and political disregard for women, the ignorance of women's work, and a rejection of maternity, all of which support the need for empowerment that Enriquez focuses on. Overall, the thought of integrating the unknown and ominous into everyday life, provided by the gothic genre, is a significant player in Enriquez's writing style. (Cuiñas)
Grotesque Scenes:
Enriquez makes her mark on the horror genre with her ability to draw her readers in with disturbing stories. It is in human nature to want to know more about death, because the concept is so unknown, but Enriquez takes readers' curiosity to a whole new level. From the supernatural to excruciating deaths to polite children asking for help, Enriquez has a wide variety of stories. Unfortunately, a large issue found within intense gore scenes is that the authors go too far or make the scenes feel like a gimmick. Not being able to write a story that is believable will not have the same impact on an audience. The goal of many of Enriquez's stories is to give insight into the lives of people who see the ominous daily and who are oppressed, and if she wasn’t able to make her writing believable, she would not be able to offer the same weight of symbolism. But, as seen in “Black Eyes”, Enriquez achieves a subtle, impactful story of children politely asking to be let into the narrator's car. The story is eerie, weird, and terrifying until the end, where the most disturbing plot twist out of the entire story collection is revealed. So, Enriquez’s writing of grotesque, disturbing scenes strengthens her ability to speak out about her beliefs through symbolism. (Self)
Challenging Readers:
Activism doesn’t come in the form of direct action taken, but it can also come from more artistic forms of expression. Writing is a very large way for authors to express discontent with global issues. Enriquez, having grown up in the Argentinian dictatorship, is a fantastic example of an author sharing their discontent with societal issues through creative means. Her characters reflect feminist ideas, and her settings reflect the exact place she was exposed to harm in; Argentina. She employs her characters and settings in profoundly horrific stories in order to challenge her readers to understand political, economical, and moral issues that society often turns a blind eye to. This style of writing makes readers educate themselves on disturbing topics because of their instinct to want to learn more about death and the unknown. Ultimately giving the opportunity of compassion, understanding, empathy and sympathy to more people to widen the support given to those who need it the most. (Amatto)
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