Lo fantástico intertextual en "La muerte me da" de Cristina Rivera Garza

This essay studies the function of the fantastic element within the detective novel "La muerte me da" by Cristina Rivera Garza. I analyse the novel through Jaime Alazraki’s theory about neofantástico and Rosemary Jackson’s theory about the fantastic as transgression. "La muerte me da" is a detective fiction, because it deals with a detective investigation about some men found castrated in the street. However, the novel transcends the classic rules of the detective fiction. A complex intertextual relationship with the poems by Alejandra Pizarnik and with "Gulliver’s Travels" by Jonathan Swift, disturbs the linear plot and displaces constantly the reader from the real world to the fantastic world. The main fantastic character is Grildrig, a very small woman who seems to be an alter ego of the detective. La muerte me da is a fragmented book, castrated by its own subject turned into the same fragmented form by which the novel is constructed.