Literature as a Testimony of Authoritarianism: A Feminist Reading of Leonora Carrington’s The Debutante, Down Bellow and The Hearing Trumpet
Published by Women: a cultural review
Abstract
Leonora Carrington was a British-born, Mexican-naturalised surrealist painter, sculptor, and writer. In this research, Derbez executes close reading literature analyses of three of Carrington’s texts from a historical gender perspective: The Debutante (1937), Down Below(1944) and The Hearing Trumpet (1974). She argues three main points. First, she maintains that Carrington criticizes the construction of femininity as an authoritarian mandate and that her stories problematize gender identity. Second, her forced institutionalization in Spain shaped her criticism of ‘total institutions’ (Goffman 1956) and she is critical of medical violence within these institutions. Third, she argues that Carrington condemns the authoritarianism of fascist governments, particularly the Nazi State and Franco’s dictatorship. Neither her feminist critique nor her anti-authoritarian thinking (two strongly interlocked matters) are subjects that have been studied intensely.
Citation: Derbez, E. (2025). Literature as a Testimony of Authoritarianism: A Feminist Reading of Leonora Carrington’s The Debutante, Down Bellow and The Hearing Trumpet. Women: A Cultural Review, 1–25. https://doi.org/10.1080/09574042.2024.2479989