Under my (editorial) thumb: hegemonic masculinity and text ownership in the works of the Mexican Onda

Abstract

Connell and Messerschmidt's article 'Hegemonic Masculinity: Rethinking the Concept' (2005) re-evaluates the popular term to produce 'a more complex model of gender hierarchy' (829). The notion of hierarchy influenced by power redistribution is the foundation of the present study of the works of the Mexican Onda movement. Instead of adopting an expected gender perspective, this article presents a study of text ownership based upon a narratological interpretation of the concept of hegemonic masculinity as a mechanism of controlling the text. The analysis will examine the power struggle between the first-person narrator and editor with a view to determining the effect this struggle has on character (re)creation. The study will employ Ricoeur's interpretation of non-linear narrative, and various studies of transculturation and its effect on the interpretations of literary texts. The texts analysed in this article include the story La tumba (1964) by José Agustín, Gustavo Sainz's novel Obsesivos días circulares (1969), and Parménides García Saldaña's short story 'Goodbye Belinda' from the collection El rey criollo (1971).