Sexuality in Goytisolo’s Antagonía

Abstract

Antagonía is Luis Goytisolo’s masterpiece. In this article I present a quantitative and qualitative study of his prose with regards to sexuality. Through an analysis of keywords, concordances, dispersion, and discourses, I show that Antagonía feeds from two historical periods, namely the ending dictatorship and the new democratic transition. Some of its discourses are the product of the Spain of the 1970s and 80s. Among them, we find sexist, male chauvinist, and homophobic discourses latent during those times. Women and queer people are frequently characterized in a negative fashion. However, we also find more subversive discourses that empower women. In sum, I consider Goytisolo’s tetralogy a “fluid” or “transitional” novel in that it is imbued with contradictory discourses rooted in different historical periods.