Study on Metaphor and Chronotope in La perra by Pilar Quintana

Authors

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.64301/fc.v3i6.97

Keywords:

Pilar Quintana, La perra, chronotope, metaphor, motherhood

Abstract

This article analyzes Pilar Quintana’s novel La perra (2017) from a semiotic perspective that integrates the notions of the chronotope and conceptual metaphor. Drawing on Mikhail Bakhtin’s theory of the chronotope and the conceptual metaphor framework proposed by Lakoff and Johnson, the study examines how spatial and temporal structures, along with figurative projections, shape the meanings of frustrated motherhood and female identity. The analysis demonstrates that the novel’s central chronotope is structured around Damaris’s impostured maternity and the border space between the jungle and the Pacific coast of Colombia. Furthermore, it identifies core metaphors that express lack and abjection, articulated through the dog as a symbol of frustrated motherhood, the jungle as an image of violence, and the sea as an archive of trauma. Taken together, these elements reveal how the narrative constructs a discourse of impossibility and loss through the interplay of the natural, the symbolic, and the corporeal.

Downloads

Download data is not yet available.

Author Biography

Fernando Candón-Ríos, Universidad de Valladolid

In 2014, he begins his predoctoral period (University of Cádiz) under the supervision of Professor José Jurado. The case study focuses on the poet Benjamín Prado and his environment. Through a theoretical framework based on Pierre Bourdieu's theories, the research analyzes the hegemony of the poets of experience in the cultural field over the last 30 years. During his predoctoral period, he completes 2 international research stays (11 and a half months). In December 2017, he defends his doctoral thesis, obtaining the qualification of outstanding Cum Laude and international mention.

His teaching experience includes more than 900 hours taught in various undergraduate and master's degree programs, and he has mentored 4 final degree projects. He has worked as a professor at the Universities of Almería, Jaén, Valladolid, and Seville, respectively. He is part of the working team of the national project "Poetics of the Transition (1973-1982)" Ref. FFI2017/84759/P and the research group "Contemporary Spanish Literature Studies" (HUM-330).

He has made a total of 34 scientific contributions: 4 books (3 edited), 13 book chapters, 9 articles published in indexed journals, 3 reviews, and 6 contributions to teaching innovation manuals, one of which is in the process of being

published. He has delivered 24 oral presentations at both international (mostly) and national conferences, organized and directed 3 seminars, served as chairperson at 5 international conferences, and holds the presidency of 3 international conferences.

He is part of the scientific committee as a reviewer for the journals “La Nueva Literatura Hispánica”, "Cuadernos de Aleph", and "Ala Este. Revista de Teoría de la Literatura", and has been a guest editor for issue 25 of the aforementioned journal "La Nueva Literatura Hispánica", all indexed. He has also been a reviewer for the University of Cádiz's publishing house. He currently serves as secretary of the association of Hispanists "Siglo diecinueve" and is president and founder of the association for feminist literary studies and contemporary thought "Pandora". He is accredited as Assistant Doctor (ANECA and DEVA) and Contracted Doctor (ANECA and DEVA) for Literary Theory and Comparative Literature and for Spanish Literature.

He is the editor-in-chief of “FemCrítica. Journal of Literary Studies and Feminist Criticism” (publishing its first issue in June 2023) and director of the “Literature and Feminism” collection of Dykinson publishing house. In 2021, he directed the proposal for the Master's in Feminist Literary Theory and Criticism (UDIMA). As president of the Pandora association, he has coordinated 2 seminars - I Seminar - Representations of violence against women in recent literature, 2021 (funded by UVA and published with Universitas Castellae publishing house); II Seminar - The subversion of the female role in contemporary literature, 2021 (funded by UAL and published with Universitas Castellae publishing house) - and presided over the I International Congress of Feminine Literary Studies and Feminist Criticism (2023, USAL, published by Dykinson S.L.). In 2023, he will preside over the II Congress of Feminine Literary Studies and Feminist Criticism (2023, University of Almería) and the I Congress of Young Researchers in Feminine Literary Studies and Feminist Criticism (2023, University of Granada). Both congresses will have publications at the end of 2023, where the researcher is listed as editor in a monograph with Peter Lang (Literatures, Women, and Silence: Forms of Female Silencing in Recent Literature), and two with Dykinson S.L. (Women and Text: New Critical Proposals; The Legacy of Calliope). 

Regarding the internationalization of the researcher, in addition to the 11-month predoctoral stay, from February to May 2023 (3 months), he carries out a postdoctoral stay funded at the Università del Salento with Professor Diego Símini. The research objective is to study the "sick female identity" in the poetry of Claudia Ruggeri and its connection with the case of Alejandra Pizarnik. He also highlights his published collaborations abroad (Aracne edit rice and various international journals) and his collaborative relationships with researchers from several Italian, British, and American universities through the Siglo diecinueve association and the FFI2017/84759/P project.

In 2013, he organized a poetic-photographic exhibition (University of Granada). He is the author of 1 novel and 2 poetry collections and directs the university theater company "Poetas del desacato".

References

Bajtin, M. (1989). Formas del tiempo y del cronotopo en la novela. En Teoría y estética de la novela. Taurus, 1975.

Carosi, M. (2021). Reproductive Debility and the Animal Within: Narrating Black Womanhood in Pilar Quintana's La perra. Hispanófila, 193(1), 3-16.

Español Casallas, J. (2020). Pilar Quintana y Melba Escobar. Disensos y consensos en las novelas La perra (2017) y La mujer que hablaba sola (2019). Catedral Tomada: Revista de crítica literaria latinoamericana, 8(15), 252-279.

Forti, P. (2024). Espacio verde: fertilidad y muerte en La perra de Pilar Quintana. Polifonía, 14(1), 19-35.

Hurtado, J. G., Álvarez, T. O. y González, E. H. (2025). Devenir mujer, devenir animal: A propósito de las materialidades presentes en las obras literarias La perra de Pilar Quintana y Se resfriaron los sapos de Marcela Guiral. Revista Debates, (93), 16-31.

Kristeva, J. (1980). Pouvoirs de l'horreur. Editions du Seuil.

Lakoff, G. y Johnson, M. (1980). Metaphors We Live By. University of Chicago Press.

Leonardo-Loayza, R. A. (2020). Maternidades proscritas, mandatos sociales y violencia en la novela La perra, de Pilar Quintana. Estudios de literatura colombiana, (47), 151-168.

Leonardo-Loayza, R. A. (2022). La madre no normativa en Los ingrávidos, de Valeria Luiselli; La perra, de Pilar Quintana y Casas vacías, de Brenda Navarro. América sin nombre, (27), 70-87.

Novoa Romero, A. (2022). Violencia y animalidad: devenires-moleculares en la novela La perra, de Pilar Quintana. Revista Poligramas, (54).

Paricio del Castillo, R. y Polo Usaola, C. (2020). Maternidad e identidad materna: deconstrucción terapéutica de narrativas. Revista de la Asociación Española de Neuropsiquiatría, 40(138), 33-54.

Przybyla, G. (2019). La naturaleza y la violencia en La perra de Pilar Quintana. Cuadernos de Literatura del Caribe, (30).

Quintana, P. (2017). La perra. Random House.

Quintana, P. (2023). La perra. Alfaguara, 2017.

Register, C. (2024). Interlocking Oppressions and Violence Towards the Animal Other in Pilar Quintana's La perra. Confluencia: Revista Hispánica de Cultura y Literatura, 40(1), 124-136.

Rosenberg, F. J. (2023). Maternar: familiaridades extrañas en Los niños de Carolina Sanín, La hija única de Guadalupe Nettel, La perra de Pilar Quintana y Mugre rosa de Fernanda Trías. Revista Iberoamericana, 89(282-283), 175-194.

Vanegas Vásquez, O. K. (2020). La pesadilla de la felicidad en La perra, de Pilar Quintana. Cuadernos del CILHA, 21(2), 43-68.

Vanín, A. (2017). Las culturas fluviales del encantamiento: Memorias y presencias del Pacífico colombiano. Editorial Universidad del Cauca.

Downloads

Published

14-12-2025

How to Cite

Candón-Ríos, F. (2025). Study on Metaphor and Chronotope in La perra by Pilar Quintana. FemCrítica. Journal of Literary Studies and Feminist Criticism, 3(6), 160–170. https://doi.org/10.64301/fc.v3i6.97

Issue

Vol. 3 No. 6 (2025): Words Against Silence: Feminist Literary Practices and Epistemic Justice

Section

Miscellany

License

Copyright (c) 2025 Fernando Candón-Ríos

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.