Volume 30 (2011) - Cincinnati Romance Review

92 DOROTHY E. MOSBY
and social conventions, but she also displays insecurity and subordination to cultural
expectations. She is, as DeCosta-Willis notes, “acted upon as she acquiesces to the
textual and sexual desires of others;” nevertheless, I contend that she also acts and the
erotic gives her the power to act. The personage of Rebeca challenges stereotypes and
representations by claiming sensuality, desire, and the language to express them. The
erotic provides space for Rebeca to experience the positive, internal, and sensual feeling
that encourages her to look at her life outside of institutional limits. Ultimately her
trajectory takes her from object to subject. Unlike the image of the “hot,” sexually
available mulatta in negrista poetry or the marginal black woman whose sexual
subjectivity is absent or desire suppressed, Rebeca uses the erotic as a way to express
herself and her subjectivity.
Similar to Luz Argentina Chirboga’s novel Tambores bajo mi piel, the
protagonist in the multi-layered short story “Marina y su olor” by Mayra Santos-Febres
recalls crucial moments in the life of the title character’s adolescence. The protagonist
in “Marina y su olor,” like Rebeca Gonález, moves toward visibility from invisibility and
also engages with a political charge for self-definition and self-representation using the
erotic as a source for empowerment. As Marina París grows into adulthood, she not
only experiences physical and sensual changes but she also begins to understand the
intersectionality of race/color, sexuality, and class in contemporary Puerto Rico. The
young mulata protagonist engages with the erotic first through the sensory experience of
growing up in and around the many sights, smells, and tastes of the kitchen. As she
transitions from pre-pubescence into adolescence, Marina discovers that she possesses
an extraordinary gift – her body emits aromas that she is eventually able to control with
her emotions. The story opens with an image of a mature, forty-nine-year-old Marina
who still possesses the magical powers she discovered in her youth:
Doña Marina París era una mujer repleta de encantos. A los cuarenta y
nueve años expiraba todavía estos olores que cuando joven dejaba a los
hombres del solar embelesados y buscando cómo poderle lamer las
carnes a ver si sabían a lo que olían. Y todos los días olían a algo
diferente. A veces, un delicado aromita a orégano brujo le salía de por
las grietas de la entrepierna; otras, perfumaba el aire a caobo macho, a
limoncillo de quemar golondrinos, pero la más de las veces olía a pura
satisfacción. (Santos-Febres 43)
We learn through this well-crafted story that this satisfaction is the product of
the title character’s ownership over her own body and control over her sexuality
through the empowering force of the erotic. By being in touch with the internal – her
desires and her sense of “feeling” – Marina resists imposed constraints, suppression,
and oppression in order to assert her freedom and agency. In the process, “Marina y su
olor” through the protagonist’s bodily experience as a poor, Afro-descendant, Puerto
Cincinnati Romance Review 30 (Winter 2011): 83-98.