Sentimental education as political weapon: From Montserrat Roig to Marta Sanz

Abstract

This work traces the affinities between Montserrat Roig, and Marta Sanz, to show a continuity between the patriarchal structures of Francoism and those of the Transition as illustrated in two of their novels. It reflects on the heteropatriarchal legacy of Franco’s regime by analysing the importance of the role of sentimentality when subverting the distance that goes from representation to self-representation of women’s bodies and subjectivities within a cultural (literary) canon that remains ostensibly masculine. This comparison between both authors brings to light the way in which they problematize their own internalization of a patriarchal male gaze, and how they mobilize strategies to counter the social discourses that have led to that internalization.