• DOI:10.1111/TLA.12102
• Corpus ID: 148798608

La Malinche: The Shifting Legacy of a Transcultural Icon

@article{Tate2017LaMT,
  title={La Malinche: The Shifting Legacy of a Transcultural Icon},
  author={J. Tate},
  journal={The Latin Americanist},
  year={2017},
  volume={61},
  pages={81 - 92}
}

• J. Tate
• Published 1 March 2017
• Art
• The Latin Americanist

The figure of la Malinche (also known as Malinalli, Malintzin and Doña Marina) is an important and contested icon in Mexican history and cultural expressions. Many texts, including chronicles, novels, essays, plays and poems, have participated in the varied and conflicting constructions of the young indigenous woman who is best known for her roles as Hernán Cortés’s translator and concubine during the conquest of Aztec Mexico. Among other things, she has been portrayed as slave, traitor, villain, lover and victim. In 2006, the popular Mexican author Laura Esquivel entered into the intertexual conversation and construction of this contested figure with her novel, Malinche: Novela. By examining Esquivel’s portrayal of Malinche, the intent of this study is to elucidate the continually evolving legacy of the indigenous woman, known symbolically as the mother of mestizo Mexico, and her historyaltering transcultural encounter with Hernán Cortés. As Ingrid Enkvist reminds us in Iconos latinoamericanos, “(l)os iconos sirven para reflexionar sobre nuestra cultura y nuestra manera de pensar” (15). Esquivel’s engagement with the crowded field of representations of Malinche is a deliberate attempt to shape the direction of the conversation and public attitudes not only toward Malinche, but also toward mexicanidad. The following pages will address how Esquivel’s portrayal of Malinche alternately conforms with and contests previous representations, as well as the implications for understanding the interplay of gender and national identity in a 21st century Mexican context. Through the novel Esquivel joins a vast league of writers from diverse backgrounds and with varying intentions who, as Rachel Phillips puts it, “without apology” have used Malinche “as an empty vessel ready to be filled by their formulations” (98-99). For this reason the novel can only be understood in relation to other literary formulations of Malinche. Thus let us begin with an overview of Malinche’s evolving representation in literary texts in order to situate Malinche: Novela in the intertextual conversation about this key figure in the conquest of Mexico. Considering Malinche’s undisputed importance in Mexican history, relatively little is known about her. This dearth of information owes in part to Cortés’s relative silence about her in his letters to the Spanish Court. According to Sandra Messinger Cypess, in her thorough examination of Mexican literary representations of Malinche, Cortés refers to Malinche only twice in his letters and only once by name (26). He acknowledges her as his