DISCURSIVE MECHANISMS RELATED TO CORPOREALITY IN THE PRESTIGE OF BEATY BY PIEDAD BONNETT AND FORBIDDEN TO GO OUTSIDE BY CONSUELO TRIVIÑO

Abstract

The female Bildungsroman novels by Colombian authors Piedad Bonnett and Consuelo Triviño constitute a privileged field for the analysis of identity construction processes from a literary and linguistic perspective. In The prestige of beauty (2010) and Forbidden to go outside (1998), the protagonists’ subjectivity is shaped in close relation to their physical, emotional, and social development, with corporeality emerging as a central discursive axis. The representation of the body functions not only thematically but also structurally within the text through linguistic mechanisms such as sensory descriptions, embodied metaphors, and introspective passages that blur the boundaries between inner self and social mandates. In narrative contexts marked by cultural norms that regulate the female body, these rhetorical strategies make it possible to explore the tensions between external impositions and subjective experiences. Both Bonnett and Triviño employ literary language as a tool for critique and re-signification, turning the body into a symbolic space through which categories such as femininity, sexuality, and identity are questioned and redefined. Their textual productions thus become territories of resistance and rewriting, where the protagonists, through the discursive appropriation of their corporeality, challenge hegemonic discourses and reclaim autonomy. In this sense, the novels function as literary devices that render visible and complex the experience of being a woman within specific historical and cultural contexts in Colombia.