Post-war writers facing the mirror: Defeats and achievements of some anti-heroines

Abstract

This article takes as a starting point the autobiographical material of two writers of the post-war era: Carmen Laforet and Carmen Martín Gaite. Following the method of historical genealogy, this research deals with the weight exerted on their lives by the socialization processes, forms and strategies that these authors made use of, where they could, to break with the device of feminization – understood as a program of women´s domestication. The article also explores the different images that they developed of themselves as embodiments of their more or less successful struggle to gain greater independence and autonomy.