Bajo la piel de la enfermedad: dos cuentos de Mariana Enríquez

This study aims to examine the symbolic ambivalence (Galimberti, 2013) of disease in Mariana Enríquez's short narrative through the analysis of the stories “Dónde estás corazón” and “Carne” (Los peligros de fumar en la cama, 2009). This ambivalence determines an exchange between subject, body and society, which violates the restrictions and measures of isolation and control that characterize its treatment from the modernity (Foucault; Sontag; Le Breton). The ambivalence, instead, makes the disease an ally with the character, as they push beyond social restrictions and constructions, and also faces the unresolved element that exceeds the present in which it is inserted, the supplement that has been silenced. Therefore, this study will highlight the two-headed condition that disease acquires in the author's narrative, since it is presented as a vehicle to question current knowledge and practices related to the body, and, at the same time, as a silent trail of the traumatic past of the last Argentine military dictatorship.