University of Pennsylvania Press Hispanic Review

Ximena de dos caminos, Self-Representation, and the Power of Language
Author(s): Carmen Tisnado

Source: Hispanic Review, Vol. 67, No. 4, Lloyd Homage Issue (Autumn, 1999), pp. 535-547
Published by: University of Pennsylvania Press
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XIMENA DE DOS CAMINOS, SELF-REPRESENTATION, AND
THE POWER OF LANGUAGE
CARMEN TISNADO
Franklin & Marshall College
' S it possible to conceive of a self-representational

S* text written in the third person? Would this
not contradict the basic idea of what self-
representation is? How could we consider a text

* . ? self-representational if it actually lacks the auto-
*j biographical I? Laura Riesco's novel, Ximena de
dos caminos [Ximena at the Crossroads]1 (1994)
invites us to posit these questions, and at the same time, the novel
itself constitutes an attempt to respond to them. However, because it
does not reach definite conclusions, we end with even more issues to
ponder and with more questions on which to reflect.
Ximena de dos caminos stands out as one of the most cele-
brated pieces of current Peruvian literature. Riesco wrote this sec-
ond novel after several years of public silence and it has earned her
accolades in both the United States and Peru.2 The story tells about
Ximena, an only child living with her parents and her "Ama Grande"
1 All quotes in this paper are my own translations from the original.
2 Laura Riesco, born in Peru in 1940, has lived in the United States since 1959. She
is a Spanish professor at the University of Maine in Orono. Her first novel, El truco de
los ojos, was published in 1978. Although Riesco never stopped writing, her second
novel came out in print only in 1994. She has been awarded the 1995 Latino Literature
Prize, given by The Latin American Writers Institute, based in New York.
535
536 Carmen Tisnado HR 67 (1999)
[Big Nanny] in a mining town in the Andes of Peru, where her father
has an executive position.
Although Ximena de dos caminos is a self-representational text,
it does not follow the conventions of autobiography. First of all, it is
not the presentation of Ximena's whole life from the time of her birth
until the moment of writing. We have access to only a few years of
her childhood. Furthermore, the episodes narrated do not constitute
a chronology of events, but rather, a series of isolated vignettes that
in one way or another are meaningful for the development of the
protagonist. Yet those vignettes do not suggest any progression or
continuity in the narrative. Moreover, there is no autobiographical I.
The narrative is in the third person, following the established pattern
of an omniscient narrator. However, in the last chapter of the novel,
in an episode that has definite elements of literature of the fantastic,
two different times converge in the same narrative space, and Xi-
mena the child encounters a woman, who is herself as an adult. One
day, when the child and her parents are soon to leave their house in
the Andes, she is by herself at home, trying hard to write her very
first words. She suddenly sees a strange woman who has appeared in
a way that defies all verisimilitude: "[Ximena] levanta los ojos ... ve
que una mujer la esta observando desde la mecedora. Se cohibe
porque no la ha sentido llamar a la puerta ni la ha visto entrar" (215)
[Ximena raises her eyes.., .she sees that a woman sitting in the
rocking chair is observing her. Ximena feels uneasy because she
hasn't heard the woman knocking the door nor has she seen her
enter]. And both characters start talking.
The woman never states that she is Ximena herself, but there are
enough narrative signs that lead us to understand that she is. The
woman knows in detail what is going to happen to the girl in the
future, but does not remember some events of her past. Her goal is
to make the girl tell her what she, the woman, has forgotten. Only
when the adult woman recaptures all the events will she finish her
task of writing them. By the time she meets the child, in her paper
pad "hay muchisimas hojas ya escritas" (216) [there are many sheets
that have already been written].
When Ximena the child begins her narrative, the adult helps her,
giving her some details, and providing more information. At times the
child is reticent to tell more, and the woman insists that she continue
her telling: "Necesitas acordarte por ti y por mi, sino [sic] todas estas
piginas que he escrito quedarin inconclusas" (229) [You need to
The Power of Language 537
remember for your own sake and for mine. Otherwise all these pages
I have written will remain unfinished].
Are "all those written pages" the pages we, as readers, are read-
ing? If so, we can only conclude that it is Ximena as an adult who
reconstructs experiences from her childhood and then tells them.
Laura Riesco presents to us a text that at first seems very conven-
tional, but in which only at the end of the reading is it possible to find
the twist. It is as if Ximena were still resorting to magic for the
completion of the stories she so much likes telling. Yet, now it is
Ximena the narrator-not Ximena the child-who surprises her nar-
ratees. At the end, there is the hidden presence of an I that belongs
to the narrator, despite her choosing the third person. However, we
are left with a question: could this still be considered an autobio-
graphical I?
Riesco seems to follow Foucault's concept of writing in that "[it]
unfolds like a game that inevitably moves beyond its own rules and
finally leaves them behind" (139). Her text defeats the expectations
created by the text itself when readers realize that the story is
actually told by Ximena, but as if she were dissociating herself from
her own childhood.
The next question to ask ourselves is, then, could the represen-
tation of self in literature-namely, autobiography-not assume mul-
tiple forms? Leigh Gilmore seems to answer that it could with her
concept of autobiographics. Gilmore offers this term
to describe those elements of self-representation that mark a location in a

text where self-invention, self-discovery, and self-representation emerge
within the technologies of autobiography-namely those legalistic,
literary, social, and ecclesiastical discourses of truth and identity through
which the subject of autobiography is produced. Autobiographics, as a
description of self-representation and as a reading practice, is concerned
with interruptions and eruptions, with resistance and contradiction as
strategies of self-representation. (42)
What would seem more contradictory than to talk about oneself but
not referring to I? Riesco is making her character discover herself,
and reinvent herself in the process of self-discovery. Ximena de dos
caminos proposes a revision of what autobiography is, or rather,
offers an alternative to the conventional concept of autobiography,
and it is through autobiographics we can better understand this text.
Ximena is, above all, a fictional character. For some this would
already discard the idea of thinking of the text as autobiography

since "autobiography unfolds as a special case because of the
reading situation it creates. ... the reader polices the writing, makes
sure the rules are followed, judges the authenticity of the name on
the title page, and certifies whether or not the truth, the whole truth
and nothing but the truth is told" (Gilmore 71). In Riesco's novel,
however, there is no "reality" with which the text can be confronted.
Yet, as Jeanne Perreault states, "much contemporary self writing
does not fall within the parameters of familiar modes of 'I' writing
(autobiography, life writing, memoirs, etc.), and various feminist
theorists and critics have been grappling with unwieldy generic
terminology that does not fit women's texts" (2). What terminology
would fit Riesco's text? Would it be of importance to find a term?
Above all, Ximena de dos caminos is a text of self-representation
and it both assumes and rejects aspects of the autobiographical
genre. Riesco makes her narrator construct her self through the
discovery of the power of language from the perspective of the
child-protagonist.
The novel is the narration of a number of episodes that have been
significant for Ximena. All episodes involve a certain transaction
between Ximena and other people besides her parents or the "Ama
Grande." Yet in the very first scene Ximena appears alone, with an
encyclopaedia, looking at the pictures and pretending to read when
she actually cannot read or write.
What I find captivating in Ximena de dos caminos is the active,
performative value of language as the underlying idea in the novel.
Related to this value of language, Tzvetan Todorov, in his book The
Poetics of Prose, affirms that in Adolphe, by Benjamin Constant
"nothing is more violent than language" (90). We could certainly say
the same about Laura Riesco's novel. In Ximena de dos caminos
nothing is more violent than language, but nothing is either more
nourishing or liberating or consoling.
Like most any child, Ximena has toys, but she prefers to play with
words. Words allow Ximena to construct a world of her own-a
hermetic world in which one can hardly notice any laws of veri-
similitude or any boundaries between the real and the imaginary. A
very meaningful part of Ximena's experience consists of adults con-
tinuously telling her stories. While her parents tell her stories from
the Greek mythology, her "Ama Grande" makes her aware of Andean
myths. And this combination of stories marks the origin of the girl's
fascination with words. Ximena listens to stories that are told or read
to her and she repeats them, almost by heart, sometimes pretending
that she is reading them out of a book and always adding or changing
details here and there. She also likes to invent new stories from
beginning to end.
Ximena's experience is not limited to a self-centered make be-
lieve game with the creative value of words. The more Ximena
includes others in her world, the more she acquires awareness that
words may affect people, that words may hurt. Todorov, in The
Poetics of Prose, gives us an instance of the effect of words when he
refers to Charles Perrault's tale "Les F~es" [The Fairies]. In this tale
a fairy gives a special gift to two sisters. One part of the gift goes to
one sister and the other part goes to the other. To the first one the
fairy indicates that each time she utters a word a flower or a precious
stone will come out of her mouth. To the second the fairy says that
each time a word comes out of her mouth a snake or a toad will
jump out.
Todorov says:
All of us have received this gift, and the words which come out of our
mouths are infallibly transformed into palpable reality. An unsuspected
responsibility is laid upon us: we cannot speak for the sake of speaking,
words are always more than words, and there is a great danger in not
taking into account the consequences of what we say. By speaking thus
we commit ourselves to a path whose end we cannot foresee. (98)
And the word "path" leads me to the title of Riesco's novel, "Ximena
de dos caminos," whose literal translation would be "Ximena of Two
Paths."
What are Ximena's two paths? One of them is that of her fasci-
nation with words. On this path, however, she still experiences
words as an absolute. She is fascinated by how words assign
meaning to things. She marvels at the way stories can be told, retold
and modified with words. When Ximena pretends she is reading the
encyclopaedia, "las palabras escritas a grandes letras en negro to-
davia no le traen el eco de las cosas, y se quedan solitarias y sin
sombra, ancladas en un sonido" (11) [those words written in big
black letters do not yet bring to her the echo of things, and they
remain solitary, shadowless, trapped in only a sound]. Those words
in the encyclopaedia remain solitary, but so does Ximena. Thus,
Ximena's first path is that of solitary imagination, where she may find
others, but only as she cares to fashion them. In an exemplary way,

the novel shows that in a thoroughly imagined world, Ximena may
enjoy absolute freedom and control but she is also condemned to
absolute loneliness; she may be the equivalent of a happy creator,
able to bring into some form of existence everything s/he names; but
in some significant way, Ximena has not yet learned that words are
always more than words, that they have consequences and implied
commitments, that they are our fundamental bond with others.
Soon enough Ximena starts walking along a second path, where
she finds others and faces the responsibilities and consequences of
uttering words. There are several examples of how Ximena enters
this second stage but two of them can perfectly illustrate her expe-
rience with the power of language. One day Ximena's father gives her
three large stuffed animals. These toys become everybody's admira-
tion, but Ximena does not find in them the playful possibilities she
finds in words. Still, one day when she goes to the market with the
"Ama Grande" she decides to bring the toys with her. Seeing the little
girl with those big toys changes the everyday rhythm in the market.
People stop to stare at her, Indian women giggle in delight looking at
her and children follow her, attracted by these toys bigger than any
they have ever seen before. When one boy tries to touch one of the
animals, Ximena immediately tells him: "iEs mfo!" (17) [It's mine!].
This claim of ownership is more eloquent and powerful than a mere
"Don't touch it!" The narrator explains:
La mano del nifio no ha tocado sino el aire, sus dedos no han sentido
nada sino las dos palabras que Ximena siente a su vez clavindose fijas y
duras en el espacio. Al instante quiere darse vuelta y borrar esas silabas
que ain le suenan en los oldos, deshacerlas a manotazos, volverse atras y
regalarle los juguetes. Pero no dice nada. Ajustando los labios porque
teme echarse a ilorar, tratando de respirar con cuidado porque teme
ahogarse, sigue muy derecha y abraza contra si al oso aturdido y al perro
bobo. (17)
[The boy's hand has touched nothing but the air, his fingers have not
sensed anything but Ximena's two words, those two words that she
herself feels piercing hard in space. She would like to turn away and
erase those syllables that are still clicking in her ears, undo them with a
few slaps. She would like to go back to the boy and give him the toys.
But she says nothing. She continues walking very straight, hugging the
confused bear and the stupid dog. She closes her lips very tight because
she is afraid she might burst into tears at any time and she makes efforts
to breathe slowly and deeply because she is afraid she might choke.]
Yet it does not occur to her to say, "It's O.K. It's mine, but you can
touch it." Ximena says nothing but she thinks of many possible ways
to free herself from her guilt and isolation, like giving the toys to the
boy. In Ximena's mind the toys should be either hers or the boy's,
without any space for a common ground. The concept of sharing is
not yet part of her universe of words.
Another revealing episode in which Ximena discovers the power
of words to affect others takes place when she is spending a vacation
at a sea resort. There is a retarded man-Anacleto-working at the
hotel where Ximena and her parents are staying. Ximena likes to talk
to him and to tell him stories pretending she is reading them to him:
"Ximena sabe que a Anacleto le gustan tanto las liminas como las
historias y que en un principio mis le interesaba contemplarlas que
enterarse de los relatos. Poco a poco la trama ha surtido su efecto de
magia y ahora puede contarle el mismo cuento una y otra vez" (155)
[Ximena knows that Anacleto likes the pictures as well as the stories,
and that at first he was more interested in looking at them rather than
in listening to the tales. Little by little storytelling works out its magic
and now she can tell him the same tale over and over without ever
tiring him].
One day Ximena sees a calendar with the picture of a beautiful
woman. Ximena becomes so obsessed with this woman that she
forgets she has only seen a picture and firmly believes that she has
seen her in person. Ximena embarks on an intense search for the
woman, whom she calls "La Forastera" [The Woman Stranger], and
she asks Anacleto to help her in her search. Of course, all her
attempts to find "The Woman Stranger" at the sea resort end in
failure, and finally Ximena turns her anger against Anacleto. She says
to him:
Para que sepas, para que sepas, ya se quien es la forastera de los ojos
claros y la estrella de mar en el pecho. Es la sirenita del cuento que te
gusta tanto, y porque te demoraste en buscarla se va a morir aquf en la
tierra y nunca mais podrn regresar a su reino en el mar, ni casarse con su
prfncipe que tambien la ha estado buscando. Ahora ya no vale. Es
demasiado tarde. Y es culpa tuya. (193)
[You want to know? You want to know? I already know who she is, she,
the woman stranger with light eyes and the starfish on her chest. She is
the little mermaid from that story you so much like, and because it took
you so long to look for her she is going to die here, on land, and she will
never marry her prince who has also been looking for her. It doesn't
matter anymore. It's too late, and it's your fault.]
Ximena expects Anacleto to speak up, to protest, but he does not

say anything. Shortly after, Anacleto falls ill. Ximena is intrigued by
how quickly and how easily Anacleto's illness gets worse. Ximena
feels so remorseful and confused that she also gets ill. Both Anacleto
and Ximena eventually recover from their illness, but they do not
exchange words anymore. Everybody is happy and relieved at
Anacleto's recovery, but "solamente Ximena parece notar que esta
mucho mas acabado y que la expresi6n se le ha vuelto hurafia y
resentida. Ya no puede como en un comienzo divisar las claridades
de nifio en su rostro arrugado" (198) [only Ximena appears to notice
that he seems to have aged and that his expression has turned
resentful and elusive. She can no longer see in Anacleto's wrinkled
face that transparency that can only be seen in the face of a child].
Ximena knows that she will never talk to Anacleto again, and she
also knows that her words were the cause of his pain and illness.
Ximena "ha comprendido que tendra que vivir con ese recuerdo que
le rasgufia el pecho cuando piensa y cuando se convence de que
nunca mis se volverin a hablar" (198) [has understood that she will
have to live with that memory that breaks her heart each time she
thinks and each time she realizes that they will never talk to each
other again].
Both episodes show Ximena facing the effect of language. Xi-
mena has crossed the threshold of the solitary imagination and she
now relates to people, and with her words she can please them, bring
joy to them, hurt them, and heal them. Ximena is entering the world
of the ethics of language.
The last stage in Ximena's discovery of language occurs at the
end of the summer vacation, when she says farewell to innocence as
a foreshadowing of the farewell she will have to say to the house
where she grew up. The last chapter of the novel is, precisely, "La
despedida" [The Farewell]. There is political unrest in the mining
town. There have been a few incipient terrorist attacks and Ximena's
parents decide to move to Lima. Ximena has to bid farewell to her
dear house. This is when the two times connect. On one level there
is Ximena, the child, at one of her last moments in her house. She
"trata de no llorar y de escribir con claridad las letras de su primera

palabra" (215) [tries not to cry and to draw clearly the letters of her
first word]. By writing, Ximena trieS to establish new links with
others, links that can only exist through inscribed words, links that
actually go beyond verbal exchanges. Therefore, writing represents
bonding to a community on a larger scale. On a second level, Ximena
as an adult woman makes a sudden appearance in the same narrative
space. The woman has the task of writing a collection of "recuerdos
imaginados" [imagined remembrances], and she needs the child to
tell her of a last event in the mining town, an event long forgotten,
buried.
The child, with a lot of effort and pain, begins her telling: during
an act of political protest and in the middle of a fire in the mining
camp, Ximena walks to the town. She is scared and enters the house
of one of the miners. There she starts talking to a boy with whom she
feels totally at ease. Soon they have to leave the house. Outside a
miner recognizes Ximena and speaks to her. At exactly that moment
the police arrive. They accuse the miner of kidnapping Ximena and
they arrest him. She insists on saying he is innocent but no one
believes her. She feels responsible for whatever may happen to the
miner. At the same time she learns that words, even if they tell the
truth, have no value if they are not accepted by the person to whom
they are addressed. The effect of words thus depends not only on
their being chosen and uttered, but on their being heard and ac-
cepted.
When Ximena the adult realizes the child's anxiety and pain at
telling the episode with the miner, she helps her remember, calms
her, consoles her. And she also predicts what will happen to her: "Sin
poder evitarlo viviras por mucho tiempo anclada en esa 6poca de tu
vida" (234) [For a long time you will not be able to live without being
anchored in this moment of your life], and she adds: "Un dia tendris
que arrancarte de esos afios para seguir adelante en camino de otros
cuentos" (234) [One day you will have to remove yourself from those
years in order to walk the path of newer stories]. And the woman
disappears in the same mysterious way as she appeared.
The cycle of Ximena the child is complete. She is aware of the
two paths she can take with words. Writing marks the rite of passage
to the second path:
Entonces Ximena toma entre los dedos el lIpiz y contempla el papel

blanco que inm6vil y en espera resalta contra la madera oscura de la
mesa. Las rayas ligeramente azules la reclaman y ella comprende que no
puede evadirse, que tiene que continuar y se concentra en la forma
imperturbable de la pr6xima letra. (235)
[Ximena then takes the pencil in her hand and looks at the immobile
white paper that shines bare against the darkness of the wooden table
waiting for her to fill it. Those pale blue lines demand something from her
and she understands that she cannot escape, that she must continue. She
then concentrates on the imperturbable shape of the next letter.]
Ximena's second path, then, is that of a life in a community, that in

which words are addressed to "another" in a world that is shared,
common, a world in which words do have an effect, a consequence.
Writing represents much more than that, though. Both child and
adult are determined to write something. The adult needs closure,
and she writes. The child needs to belong to a community, and she
writes. At the very end, when the adult has already listened to the
girl's telling of the episode with the miner, and has taken notes of it,
she leaves saying: "Ya me voy, Ximena, mi labor ha terminado aquf'"
(235) [I'm leaving, Ximena. My mission is now accomplished]. Yet the
child continues writing. She will assume the adult's mission, but she
is just learning how to proceed in order to accomplish it in the
distant future.
Ximena de dos caminos is not only the telling of the reconstruc-
tion of that first imaginary world that Ximena constructs with words.
Topics that may seem simple in this novel touch deep complexities.
Laura Riesco's novel puts us in touch with the most complex ethics
of language, and therefore with the ethics of life because, as Speech
Act Theory claims, we "do things with words."3 And what the novel
also tells us is that it is language that plays the most significant role
in the construction of identity, and therefore, in the construction of
self and subjectivity.
For Ximena, the awareness of language, in its verbal form, gives
her a sense of her self in a community. But it is through the written
form of language that Ximena is able to gather the fragments of her
3 I am quoting from J. L. Austin's title, How to Do Things with Words, in which he

presents the basic principles of Speech Act Theory.
life and piece them together. In this sense, writing assumes the most
meaningful role in Ximena's "reinvention" of her self. The text of
Ximena de dos caminos, then, is probably more likely to fit under the
category of autography, defined by Perreault as "a writing whose
effect is to bring into being a 'self that the writer names 'I,' but whose
parameters and boundaries resist the monadic. Autography invites
the reader to reconsider the imbrications of subjectivity, textuality,
and community" (2). Riesco's novel "resists the monadic" in more
than one way. First of all, Riesco, the writer, creates Ximena, the
narrator, who tells her story in the third person. Neither writer nor
narrator brings into being a 'self which they can name 'I.' For that
matter, Riesco herself does not name anything. Yet by pursuing the
task of writing her "imagined remembrances," Ximena brings herself
into being. Ximena the child, by writing her very first word, joins the
world in which the adult lives. It is as if the act of writing linked the
fragmented Ximenas into one self. It is only then that Ximena's two
selves are free. And the novel ends:
[Ximena] se agacha y se distancia de todo lo que la rodea. Se agacha para

volcarse en los signos que el dificil silabeo le dicta, borra, para volver a
empezar. Y mientras Ximena se ausenta, las palabras, en su ir y venir de
la vida a la muerte, de la muerte a la vida, van fij~ndose y llenando su
primera pagina. (236)
[Ximena bends down and distances herself from all that surrounds her,
she bends down in order to throw herself into the signs dictated by the
difficult spelling. She erases so that she can start all over again. And while
Ximena becomes absent, words, in their coming and going from life to
death, from death to life, get settled and fill in her very first page.]
Words, therefore, will always be important for Ximena. After her

realization process, she now knows about the power of language. It
has taken her longer than her childhood years to come to this full
awareness. Only when Ximena, the narrator, is able to connect with
her childhood-or with the child that still lives within her-is she
able to walk freely on her second path, the path that will allow her
to be present and freer in the world.
Ximena the narrator needs that connection in order to piece
together the remembrances, or still more, in order to retrieve for-
gotten episodes or anecdotes in her life, episodes that the child
needed to silence. Adrienne Rich says, quoted by Perreault, that
"amnesia is the silence of the unconscious.... Lying is done with

words, and also with silence" (42). Perreault proceeds to explain:
"Connections within self, or of self with self, are damaged, disrupted,
with the lies/betrayals of silence. These disruptions create an inter-
nal silence that Rich calls amnesia-very simply, one could be said to
forget one's self' (42).
Ximena breaks her internal silence in order to accomplish her
task. The act of writing, then, in Ximena de dos caminos, represents
the act of recovering "one's self." In this sense, Ximena's writing
could be considered autography, since "[autography] is not neces-
sarily concerned with the process of unfolding of life events, but
rather makes the writing itself an aspect of the selfhood the writer
experiences and brings into being" (Perreault 4).
Having approached Laura Riesco's text through Gilmore's con-
cept of autobiographics, to which I have referred earlier, we can say
that Ximena de dos caminos corroborates that autobiography un-
derstood as the revealed truth is only a mental construct. As Gilmore
exposes: "Autobiography demonstrates that we can never recover
the past, only represent it; yet it encodes the possibility of recovery
as desire and the possibility of representation as its mode of produc-
tion" (86). Ximena seems to suggest that in representing one's past,
memory and imagination intertwine in such a way that at the end it
is hard to draw a line between them. Ximena herself mentions the
need to write her "recuerdos imaginados" [imagined remembrances]
(my emphasis).
Returning to my very first question, "is it possible to conceive of
a selfrepresentational text written in the third person?" My imme-
diate first response would still be, "formally not." Yet if we accept
that one's past is not recovered, but represented, the autobiographi-
cal I loses its strength: it is no longer the holder of 'the truth, the
whole truth, and nothing but the truth.' Riesco's novel questions the
authority of the I. It is as if throughout the whole text, the unspoken
issue were, 'who am I to state that this actually happened, or even to
state who I am?' Furthermore, it presents the challenge for readers or
interlocutors to doubt everything; it invites the question, 'How can I
believe that what you say, or even what I say to myself, is the truth?'
Having an autobiographical text--or any self-representational
text-in the third person would seem to honor the idea of unrelia-
bility of the I.
Ximena de dos caminos is a thought-provoking novel. Laura
Riesco, in an eloquent manner, and in a beautiful and elegant

Spanish, invites us to ponder variations on the theme of self-
representation, and also on the value of language as the most impor-
tant element that enables one to construct one's self, or even to be
oneself.
WORKS CITED
Austin, J. L. How to Do Things with Words. Cambridge: Harvard UP,

1962.
Foucault, Michel. "What is an Author?" Critical Theory since 1965.
Ed. Hazard Adams, and Leroy Searle. UP of Florida, 1986: 135-48.
Gilmore, Leigh. Autobiographics. A Feminist Theory of Women's
Self-Representation. Ithaca: Cornell UP, 1994.
Perreault, Jeanne. Writing Selves. Contemporary Feminist Autog-
raphy. Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P, 1995.
Riesco, Laura. Ximena de dos caminos. Lima: Peisa, 1994.
Todorov, Tzvetan. The Poetics of Prose. Ithaca: Cornell UP, 1977.

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Ximena de dos caminos, Self-Representation, and the Power of Language

Author(s): Carmen Tisnado

' S it possible to conceive of a self-representational

representation is? How could we consider a text

to describe those elements of self-representation that mark a location in a

already discard the idea of thinking of the text as autobiography

others, but only as she cares to fashion them. In an exemplary way,

Ximena expects Anacleto to speak up, to protest, but he does not

"trata de no llorar y de escribir con claridad las letras de su primera

Entonces Ximena toma entre los dedos el lIpiz y contempla el papel

Ximena's second path, then, is that of a life in a community, that in

3 I am quoting from J. L. Austin's title, How to Do Things with Words, in which he

[Ximena] se agacha y se distancia de todo lo que la rodea. Se agacha para

Words, therefore, will always be important for Ximena. After her

"amnesia is the silence of the unconscious.... Lying is done with

Riesco, in an eloquent manner, and in a beautiful and elegant

Austin, J. L. How to Do Things with Words. Cambridge: Harvard UP,

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