Kanost - Pasillos Sin Luz Reading The Asylum in 'Nadie Me Verá Llorar'

Pasillos sin luz: Reading the Asylum in "nadie me ver llorar" by cristina rivera garza
Author(s): Laura Kanost

Source: Hispanic Review, Vol. 76, No. 3 (Summer, 2008), pp. 299-316
Published by: University of Pennsylvania Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/27668849
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Pasillos
in Nadie
Rivera
Sin
Luz-.
Reading
Me
Ver?
Llorar
the
Asylum
by Cristina
Garza
Laura
Kansas
ABSTRACT
Kanost
State University
Mexican
and
Rivera
historian
literary writer Cristina
not as a monolithic
of
the
mechanism
the
space
approaches
asylum
of bodies
and
of rigid control and silence, but as a continual
negotiation
in her 1999 novel Nadie me ver? llorar improvise
their
words. The characters
Garza
own
structure of La Casta?eda
unique
asylum
paths through the physical
its narrative
the sociocultural
illness. Through
tech
space of mental
its readers, too, in an indeterminate
the novel positions
interpretive
niques,
and
are as
space. Readers'
paths through the fixed structure of the novel
cratic as the characters'
trajectories
through La Casta?eda
and fostering such maneuvers?which
society. By representing
Certeau
has
termed
me
"tactics"?Nadie
ver?
America,
of
health
1990s mental
the "tactics"
at work
care
reform
inNadie
me
viduals
who
de
the subject/
Rivera Gar
and writing
subjects and
in the
subjects. Viewed
initiatives
Latin
throughout
llorar reflect the reality of
as well as the
hospitals,
potential
ver?
living in psychiatric
to resituate both concepts
are identified as
ill.
mentally
individuals
currently
for reform movements
idiosyn
Porfirian
Michel
llorar challenges
concepts of madness.
inherent in conventional
object dynamic
a
not of reading
za's novel manifests
relationship
mutable
voiceless
objects, but of interdependent,
context
and
of mental
illness and
indi
through an imposed system," proposes Michel de

Certeau in The Practice ofEveryday Life (169). In writing her novel Nadie me
"To read is towander
ver?
llorar,
Cristina
Rivera
Garza
acts
first
and
foremost
as
reader,
as,
through extensive archival research, shemakes her way through the imposing
?^
299
Hispanic Review (summer 2008)
?
2008
of
University Pennsylvania Press.All rightsreserved.
Copyright
300
<(y? Hispanic
review
: summer2008
physical and discursive structures of the long-closed La Casta?eda asylum on

the outskirts of Mexico City. La Casta?eda?indeed,
any asylum?might
seem to resist any sort ofwandering: it is a remote, highly structured institu
tion, founded on a medical model ofmental
and
"reads"
sane
between
distinctions
subjects
Yet,
objects.
this place,
represents
subsequently
illness that depends upon rigid
insane
and
Certeau
as Rivera
Garza
she
suggest,
might
inevitably takes unexpected detours and drifts away from established path
ways.
Her
characters
the
do
same
as
both
they navigate
of La Cas
the space
ta?eda and their experiences of being identified as mentally ill.My own

reading of these "wanderings," inspired by The Practice ofEveryday Life, dis
cerns
the extent
to which
Rivera
Garza
and
her
are
characters
to
able
diverge
from the ingrained, interdependent structures that correspond to themedical

model ofmental illness. The fictionalized La Casta?eda and the novel itself
are represented as indeterminate spaces, inscribingmultiple possibilities for
interaction
between
individuals,
and
structures,
physical
discourses.
Contemplating the dynamics of cultural consumption, Certeau hypothe

sizes a constantly shiftingweb of relationships amongst individuals and their
contexts. The Practice ofEveryday Life suggestsways of appreciating the cre
ative potential of unexpected individual routes through existing spaces, texts,

and
structures.
Certeau
the
adopts
act
speech
as
a theoretical
since
model,
"speaking effects an appropriation, or reappropriation, of language by its

speakers; it establishes a present relative to a time and place; and it posits a
contractwith the other, (the interlocutor) in a network of places and rela
tions"
In
(xiii).
life, consumers
everyday
trace
out
"'indirect'
or
'errant'
tra
jectories obeying their own logic," forming "unforeseeable sentences, partly

unreadable
paths
across
space"
by the systems in which

prescribed
sumers
nacy
direction,
of
"space"
relationships
correspond
into
and
the
is a "place,"
(117).
Thus,
between
to controlled,
"space,"
places
captured
puts
inscribe
and
spaces,
of
of
indetermi
changeable
into practice,
constantly
strategies
of
variables
its various
that place
a
con
"places,"
element
network
between
reading
"stories"
rational
This
complex
interaction
but
nor
determined
(xviii). Rather than following the
"tactics."
improvisational
time,
text, then,
a
producing
to
place
velocity,
A
elements.
pattern
resort
often
transforms
neither
they develop"
that
"strategies"
that "are
changing
and
tactics
isolation from the

(118). It is impossible to think of a text?or a place?in
context of a reading (170). In practice, then, there are no fixed places, only
maneuverable
Mexican
spaces.
historian and literarywriter Rivera Garza approaches
the space
: pasillos
Kanost
sin
?^
luz
301
of the asylum not as a monolithic mechanism of rigid control and silence

but as a continual negotiation of bodies and words. She argues that the for
mer view, popularized in part by the antipsychiatrymovement of the 1960s,
does not correspond to the real conditions within asylums, which typically
the resources
lacked
to enforce
necessary
such
control.
Rivera
Rather,
Garza's
historical research investigates the tactics at work within La Casta?eda asy

lum: "together, crossing frail bridges fraughtwith misgivings and mistrust,
asylum doctors and inmates authored polys?mie, multivocal, and heteroglot
narratives with which they captured the fluid reality ofmental illness, how
ever fleetinglyor fragmentarily" ("Beyond Medicalization"
269). Nadie me
ver? llorar takes itsnarrative cues from this historical dialogue, representing
La
as
Casta?eda
a mutable
site
of
amongst
exchange
and
interdependent
subjects.
changeable
Accordingly, Rivera Garza's doctoral dissertation and other scholarly pub

are
lications
intertexts
crucial
for Nadie
me
ver?
llorar.1
The
dissertation,
titled "The Masters of the Streets: Bodies, Power, and Modernity

studies
1867-1930,"
the
state's
to confine
attempts
prostitutes and "the mentally ill" who

tivist
of modernization
discourse
twentieth-century
Mexico.2
that would
form Nadie
later
This
me
in
and
control
inMexico,
the bodies
of
threatened and negotiated the posi

and
late-nineteenth-century
study
contains
ver?
llorar.
most
Rivera
of
Garza's
the
early
"ingredients"
characters
are
adaptations and composites of real-life people studied in her dissertation; the

key setting of La Casta?eda insane asylum on the outskirts ofMexico City is
a
major
focus
of the dissertation
chapter
on
the
insane;
and
the novel's
tem
poral span of roughly the 1880s to the early 1920s corresponds to the disserta
tion's scope of 1867 to 1930. Furthermore, the novel delves into thematic
i. These intertexts are especially important because, to date, few critical studies
(Rodriguez, Irwin)
have been published dealing with the full range of Rivera Garza's scholarly, narrative, and poetic
works. This seems to be changing. A cluster of articles on Rivera Garza (see Castellanos, Chavez
P?rez and Saenz) appeared in a 2004 issue of Revista de Literatura Mexicana Contempor?nea, and
the author's blog has received critical treatment as "ciberliteratura"
(Choi). Rivera Garza has
Premio Nacional de
gained recognition by winning several national literary prizes inMexico?the
Cuento
(1987), the Premio Nacional de Novela Jos? Rub?n Romero (1997), and the Premio Sor
she has participated in various published interviews dealing
Juana In?s de la Cruz (2002)?and
with her work.
2. Rivera Garza's
studies participate in the "new cultural history" ofMexico, which examines the
intersections of culture, politics, and power. For an overview of this contentious trend, see Deans
Smith and Joseph's Mexico's New Cultural History: Una Lucha Libre, a special issue of Hispanic
American Historical Review.
c??
302
hispanic
: summer2008
review
issues central to the dissertation, such as the sociopolitical implications of

how people considered mentally ill are represented and represent themselves.
The dissertation's reading of verbal exchanges between psychiatrists and pa
tients recorded in the patients' files is an attempt to listen to the remnants of
disenfranchised voices with new ears, a project that continues through Rivera
Garza's
novel
and
her
subsequent
historical
research.
me ver? llorar takes its title from the character Matilda
Nadie
Burgos's
repeatedly expressed determination to remain strong and outwardly stoic in
the face of numerous hardships throughout a long and difficult life.As the
novel progresses, bits and pieces ofMatilda's life story accumulate, mainly
through analepses branching out from a moment inwhich Matilda is living
in La Casta?eda. Although the reliability of some of the information pro
vided in the analepses is questionable, the following seems to be Matilda's
story. As
teenager,
she
is uprooted
from
her
rural,
indigenous
community
when her alcoholic parents send her toMexico City to livewith her uncle, a
physician who uses her to testhis theories of hygiene as a social panacea. As
a young adult, Matilda takes part in a political resistance movement and
works as a prostitute and performer. Although she becomes well known for
her performances mocking the prostitution clich?s of Federico Gamboa's
popular novel Santa, Matilda herself eventually falls in lovewith and marries
a client. After her husband, a foreign engineer involved in themining busi
ness, commits suicide, Matilda spends the remaining decades of her life in
La Casta?eda.
There, she becomes
the obsession of asylum photographer
Joaqu?n Buitrago.
Throughout the novel, readers are also challenged to piece together the life
story
of
Joaqu?n,
a young,
upper-middle-class
art
photographer
who
be
comes addicted tomorphine and, cut off financially by his parents, degener
ates to photographing corpses, prostitutes, including young Matilda, and
prison inmates. Finally, he settles in as the resident photographer at La Cas
ta?eda, where he reuniteswith Matilda and becomes obsessed with shedding
light on her mysterious past and inner life. The stories of these two main
characters merge for a brief period in 1921when Joaqu?n and Matilda live
together in Joaquin's newly inherited family home, but Matilda soon tires of
Joaquin's persistent efforts to know her innermost thoughts and take care of
her, and she retreats to a hermetic innerworld back within the protective
walls of the asylum. Parallel to and influencing the stories of these characters
are
the great
events
of
late-nineteenth
and
early-twentieth-century
Mexican
history, from the Porfirian era through the aftermath of the Revolution, and
: pasillos
Kanost
the ongoing processes ofmodernization,

a
and
tervention,
?^
luz
303
in
foreign political and economic

structure.
socioeconomic
changing
sin
In addition to these interwoven personal and national histories,Nadie me

ver?
llorar
el's
narrative
how
contemplates
intensely
is nonchronological,
style
can be narrated.
stories
such
leaves
unresolved
ellipses,
The
nov
and
care
fully avoids the first-person point of view. Over the course of the seven
chapters, the third-person narration is most frequently focalized through
a few minor
through
briefly,
and, even
the psychiatrist Eduardo Oligochea,
loaquin, but also Matilda,

more
characters.
At
seems
the narration
times,
to be filtered through an outside observer with a historical perspective. In

addition to themultiple focalizers, the novel incorporates epigraphs from a
of sources,
variety
and
actual
interposes
medical
file
from
passages
excerpts,
history books, Matilda's own letters,and fragments of literary,scientific, and

popular texts from the period. These multiple narrative strategies point to
and
reinforce
the
ethical
a central
problem
individual's
private
sin
history
escaleras
luz,
and
can
person
access
The
perspective.
in the novel:
levels
and
another
represent
fo
narrator?ambiguously
at one point, "En los edificios del lenguaje siempre hay pasi
calized?asserts
llos
one
of how
on many
at work
preoccupation
s?tanos
imprevistas,
escondidos
detr?s
de
las puertas
cerradas cuyas llaves se pierden en los bolsillos agujereados del ?nico due?o,
el soberano rey de los significados" (110-11). Through Certeau, my reading
fleshes out this relationship between space, language, and subjectivity in
me
Nadie
ver?
llorar.
ideas
Certeau's
about
and
"spaces"
dynamic
improvisational
"tactics"
provide a fruitfulapproach to considering ways of reading in the broadest

sense.
Rivera
mentation
reads
Garza
La Casta?eda
and
its occupants
through
the docu
official files and records leftby the medical

authorities. This reading process is evidenced implicitly by the novel as a
whole, and is documented more directly through the "Notas finales" on
sources
lum
that remains?the
and
acknowledgments
authorities
sify, and
used
impose
following
and
writing
degree
the novel's
photography
of control
on
conclusion.
as a means
residents,
Rivera
to
While
asy
clas
diagnose,
Garza
reads
these
records against the grain, seeking instead to understand what the patterns in
the
doctors'
use
of
language
and
management
of
information
can
reveal
about their own participation in discourses of gender and modernity. The

novelist
does
not
use
the official
documents
in an attempt
to reconstruct
the
patients' lost voices?this would only reinforce the doctors' privileged claim
to authority?but to document and meditate on the loss itself.
??
304
Justas Rivera Garza's

the
structures
textual
: summer2008
review
Hispanic
reading of the asylum is shaped but not dictated by

its historical
of
her
records,
trace
characters
out
their
own idiosyncratic trajectories in their daily liveswithin the formidable con

straints
of
walls
the asylum
and
me
Nadie
procedures.
ver?
llorar
represents
the asylum as a multidimensional
"space" that acts and is acted upon by the

range of complex subjects who occupy it. The novel projects no hope of
these
recovering
lost forever
voices,
subjects'
because
they
were
never
almost
granted the status of being recorded. Rather, just as the characters find some
degree of leewaywithin the oppressive structures of the asylum, the space of
the novel includes narrative "pasillos
into
indeterminacy
Rivera
Like
experience.
the
sin luz" that purposefully introduce
representation,
mirroring
Garza
readers
herself,
silences.
me
Nadie
ver?
llorar
have
no
choice
readerly
to accept
but
through the novel's maze
the darkened passageways and wander

and
own
the author's
thus predisposes
to view
readers
of voices
and
expe
rience the asylum and the lives of itsoccupants through tactics that challenge
the subject/object dynamic inherent in conventional concepts of madness.
the characters'
Together,
varying
of the space
readings
of La Casta?eda
vide readers of the novel with a multifaceted and open-ended

as a
It is represented
asylum.
and
marginal
hermetic
pro
tour of the
that can
enclosure
also
be a refuge, and as a highly structured space that is nevertheless negotiated

consumers.
by
The
narrator
external
a historical
possessing
em
perspective
phasizes that themarginality of La Casta?eda as aMexican institution repli

cates the isolation of itsoccupants from the restof society:Matilda's writings,
filed away, "se quedan en los m?rgenes de los d?as y del lenguaje, como
Joaqu?n, como elmanicomio mismo" (27). After the fanfare of its inaugura
tion by Porfirio D?az, the asylum, meant to be a beacon of progress and
has been neglected over the course of the Revolution, and

has become "el bote de basura de los tiempos modernos y de todos los tiem
modernization,
pos
por
qu?n]
Este
Eduardo
rounds,
tico
venir.
era
el lugar
se acababa
donde
estaban conscientes de este hecho"
como
el
observes
interior
de
that the asylum

una
nuez"
(96).
el futuro,
(29). While
seems
For
"tan
Joaqu?n,
[Eduardo
making
peque?o
at
least,
y Joa
his night
y tan herm?
this
sense
of
enclosure offers security; returning from his five days of research in the
Biblioteca Nacional in the city, he realizes for the first time that the asylum
"es
su
santuario.
La
guerra
perpetua
de
la ciudad
lo cerca
entero"
(85).
The
physical and social isolation of the asylum is thus presented as both disem
powering
and
therapeutic.
Individual trajectories are limited but not controlled by the highly ordered
: pasillos
Kanost
sin
??>
luz
305
structure and regulations of La Casta?eda. Repeatedly, Joaqu?n and Matilda

forge theirown paths within the asylum,moving inways that are supposedly
forbidden. In one instance, Joaqu?n approaches Matilda, who
near
gardens
Ella
the gate:
no deber?a
un
necesitan
fos no
estar
de
ah?; ninguno
permiso
tienen
ocurre:
is out in the
pretexto
la encuentra.
cruzar
para
especial
deber?a
los patios
Los
estarlo.
del plantel
a ellos.
acercarse
para
alguno
los dos
De
internos
y los fot?gra
manera
cualquier
(27)
Similarly,Matilda knowingly defies the institution's rules by spending several

nights in Joaquin's room (120). In practice, these asylum consumers find
opportunities to make unpredictable moves within the constraints of their

situation.
In one
significant
the novel
passage,
takes
on
readers
an
tour
extended
of
La Casta?eda, quickly diverging from the conventional representation of the

asylum as a rigidly structured place. Eduardo has invited Joaqu?n to join him
for a walk around the asylum, yet the description that follows does not seem
come
to
from
either
of
them.
its source
Rather,
is a narrator
resembling
Rivera Garza herself: an external narrating agent with a historical perspective

and a detailed knowledge of La Casta?eda. This orientation to the asylum
begins by focusing on the technical aspects of its structure:
El manicomio
cuadrados.
tiene
Dentro,
y los casta?os
veinticinco
edificios
por
sombras
sobre
protegidos
sus
proyectan
en
diseminados
altos muros
y rejas
lugares
141.662
apartados
metros
los
de hierro,
del
locos
tiempo.
(37)
Even here, the technical discourse meanders off into reflective imagery. Still,
the asylum is presented first as a large, exact, distinct place marked by a fixed
boundary.
tour
The
continues
as
the
describe how La Casta?eda

various
activities.
Again,
external
historian
narrating
agent
goes
on
to
is divided and how its residents specialize in
the presentation
wavers
between
a Foucauldian
view
of the asylum as an instrument of socioeconomic discipline and, alternately,

a concept of the asylum as a dynamic space that is interpreted in varying
ways
by
its occupants.
Thus,
while
the men
work without pay in separate workshops,
and women
inmates
are made
to
the asylum also houses "poetas
c??
3o6
que
arquistas
a Dios;
cartas
escribi?ndole
: summer2008
review
Hispanic
han
mec?nicos,
a
renunciado
farmac?uticos,
ladrones,
polic?as,
Ocurren
la violencia.
historias
de
an
amor"
(37-38). And although the imposing and symmetrical building ismeant to

divide patients neatly by sex, class, and condition, the people also interact
this
structure
algunos
cuerpos
with
otros
se mueven
las planicies
sepultados
ways:
con
inm?viles
permanecen
dentro
mas
in unforeseeable
las bancas
sobre
de
p?rpura
en las
paredes,
de madera
la melancol?a.
con
las voces
contra
chocando
nerviosismo,
Sus
observando
del
aire.
hacia
con
hablan
ojos
di?fanas
los muros;
fantas
(38-39)
is presented as a
the rigidity of its structures, then, La Casta?eda
can
be experienced actively in diverse and inventive
negotiable system that
Despite
ways.
This degree of flexibilityis also apparent in the representation of the voices

of asylum residents. Repeatedly, the asylum is described as a noisy place, but
individual utterances typically blend together in what Joaqu?n considers a

"griter?o incesante," and their distinct meanings are lost (28). Through the
use
of such
narrative
techniques,
enacts
the novel
an
extended
and
partially
successful attempt to recognize the individual voices of Joaqu?n,Matilda,

and Eduardo. Just as Rivera Garza's historical research resists the illusory
goal of distilling intact voices of historical asylum residents, her novel con
fronts readerswith prominent narrative filters that feature the indeterminacy
and tactical potential inherent to the asylum itself and its representations.
Readers may struggle in vain to shed light on these narrative dark spots, but
ultimately they are obliged towander, mirroring the errant spatial "readings"
that
the characters
carry
out within
La Casta?eda.
Further reinforcing the necessity and usefulness of this indeterminate

mode
of
reading,
the novel
explores
the
counterexamples
of frustrated,
in
flexible readers: Joaqu?n, and to a lesser extent, Eduardo. Although only Joa
quin's reading process is narrated at length, both characters fail in their
attempts to read and representMatilda's identitybecause they are incapable
of accepting "pasillos sin luz," and instead strive to impose external systems
of narration.
In other words,
using
Certeau's
vocabulary,
Joaqu?n
and
Eduar
do attempt to fit a complex and dynamic space into the fixed structures of a
place. It is through the narration of these frustrated efforts that themajority
of the plot unfolds; readers receiveMatilda's
story principally through nar
: pasillos
Kanost
sin
??>
luz
307
rated accounts of how Joaqu?n and Eduardo construct theirmarkedly limited

versions.
by a fascination with Matilda and a sincere desire to take care

of her, Joaqu?n strives to fill every gap in his understanding of Matilda's
identity, resorting to representational systems ranging from photography to
Motivated
own autobiographical
historical and medical narratives to, finally,Matilda's

narrative.
the novel,
Throughout
Joaqu?n
undergoes
learning
process
that
improves his understanding ofMatilda and also of how best to gain access
toMatilda's thoughts and memories. Joaqu?n never realizes that his goal of
a perfect representation of Matilda's

identity is doomed to fail, however,
to
he
is
conceive
unable
of listening to her narration without
because
smoothing out the patchy areas with his own interpretive systems. Joaqu?n
ultimately fails at readingMatilda because he relies too heavily on totalizing
strategies
than
rather
Nevertheless,
accepting
gaps
and
development
Joaquin's
in the narrative.
detours
as
reader
writer
and
throughout
the course of the novel is considerable. Before meeting Matilda, Joaqu?n has
complete faith in his own ability as a photographer to capture from the out
side a person's innermost identity and thoughts. He firmly believes that he
can
perfectly
and
represent
accurately
a woman's
true nature
without
any
participation on her part:

las mujeres
mas
laba
quer?an
conocer
a s?misma.
se volv?an
verse.
y detener
hacia
?se
adentro,
era
para
hacia
precisamente
siempre.
El
donde
se ve?an
el lugar que
lugar
en que
como
ellas mis
el fot?grafo
una
mujer
anhe
se acepta
(19)
Joaqu?n stillbelieves "en lo imposible" when he photographs Matilda for the

first time, in the brothel. As she will later do in the asylum,Matilda returns
Joaquin's authoritative gaze, not only asking him how he became a "fot?
grafo de putas" but also "buscando sus ojos tras la lente" (19).3Although it
is suggested that this first encounter with Matilda profoundly affects Joaqu?n,
3. As Rivera Garza acknowledges in the novel's "Notas finales," Joaquin's photographs of the
prostitutes correspond inmany ways to the images compiled by Ava Vargas in La Casa de Cita:
Mexican Photographs from the Belle Epoque. These stereoscopic plates were apparently created
during the Porfirian era by a photographer with the initials J.B. in collaboration with theworkers
in a high-class brothel. Curiously,
in the photographs
space depicted
subsequent research (S?nchez Arteche) has suggested that the

is actually a private residence.
??
3o8
Hispanic
his reaction toMatilda's

evidence
such
: summer2008
review
theymeet
behavior when
in the asylum does not
change.
Reflecting on thatmeeting, Joaqu?n recalls being surprised thatMatilda

se convierte uno en fot?grafo
spoke to him as he took her picture: "??C?mo
de
locos??le
los
hab?a
que
sujetos
preguntado.
fotografiaba,
se trataba
que
pens?
a o?r
desacostumbrado
Joaqu?n,
su
de
la voz
de
conciencia"
propia
(15). Joaqu?n still expects his subjects to accept passively the visual represen
tation he creates of them without asserting their own agency and voice. By
verbally turning the focus back on Joaqu?n, Matilda destabilizes his ap
proach. This effect is heightened byMatilda's active participation in shaping
the story that the picture will tell about her, in contrast with Joaquin's cus
control:
tomary
frente
Ah?,
uniforme
sentada
?l,
azul,
la mujer
sobre
el banquillo
deber?a
que
haber
de
los
estado
un
vistiendo
locos,
inm?vil
con
y asustada,
los ojos perdidos y una hilerilla de baba cayendo por la comisura de los
se
labios,
recargarse
hacia
la pared
formul?
con
su
para
posando
sobre
la c?mara,
tores,
en cambio
comportaba
rita de alcurnia
y mirar
primera
tarjeta
en silencio
el largo
y acomod?ndose
la ?nica
la socarroner?a
que
pregunta
el vac?o,
cabello
de una
y altivez
...
de visita.
En
se hab?a
ella
con
de caoba
lugar
de
inclinado
gestos
la muerte.
le recordaba
se?o
La
seduc
suya.
(15-16)
Joaquin's reaction toMatilda's demeanor and question clearly shows that he
has been deeply disturbed by this experience, because it so directly challenges
his basic
understanding
of his
role
as a cultural
reader
and writer.
When
he subsequently becomes obsessed with understanding and taking

care ofMatilda, Joaqu?n shows a changed way of thinking by askingMatilda
to tell him about her life from her own perspective, thereby relinquishing
part of his interpretive control and invitingMatilda to participate in her own

representation. Yet Matilda's fragmentary style of speaking and her frequent
use of ellipsis?notably, also characteristics of the novel itself?do not meet
sentido.
for a coherent
expectation
Joaquin's
Matilda
se escapa
narrative:
a mitad
de
"sus
charlas
pocas
la conversaci?n
luego
carecen
de
se confunde
entre las otras internas" (27). Unsatisfied, Joaqu?n seeks to fill in these gaps
and
impose
order
by
researching
secondary
da's diagnostic file from Eduardo,

and
spends
days
poring
over
historical
sources.
After
obtaining
Matil
Joaqu?n goes to the Biblioteca Nacional

documents
to reconstruct
a coherent,
: pasillos
Kanost
sin
??
luz
309
contextualized narration ofMatilda's
life. It begins objectively, with excerpts

from a reference book describing Matilda's place of origin (62-65). Yet as the
novel's narration shiftsbetween Joaqu?n reading in the library and detailed,
intimate descriptions of the lives ofMatilda's
is no
there
clear
as
indication
Joaquin's own drug-addled

appearances
Joaquin's
times,
the asy
imagination. At the very least, Joaquin's several

in the
interventions
Joaqu?n
herself,
books?
sources?library
story he
he projects his own feelings about Matilda

At
parents and Matilda
the extent towhich the narrative has been filtered by
lum file?Matilda??or
or
to
seems
to be
reconstructs
it clear
make
that
onto his interpretation of her life.

as Matilda's
"watching"
story
ac
out
plays
cording to his expectations, and occasionally, he goes so far as to literally

inserthimself into the story:
Justo como
de
lo quiso
un
y le dio
. . .Entonces,
y
...
curiosidad.
energ?a,
manos
Joaqu?n, Matilda
le ofrece,
cariz
sin darse
a
trav?s
La
del
soledad,
un
tiempo,
vez,
la tom?
a su rostro.
Nadie
la ver?a
sombra
baja
a llorar. Una
empez?
todav?a
sola,
primera
por
valor
de fingido
cuenta,
las escalinatas
baj?
pa?uelo
de
inmaculado.
blanco,
llena
de
las
llorar.
lo lejos
J.B.
(76,
original emphasis)
Scenes such as this one indicate that, although Joaqu?nmay not realize it, the
personal motivations and expectations of the biographer inevitably become a
part of the biography. As Joaqu?n struggles to execute a coherent reading of

Matilda's life, readers of the resulting ambiguous narration must also grapple
with
their own
Joaquin's
Matilda's
or "tactical"
"strategic"
as a reader
development
approaches.
when
peaks
he
own narration of her life story.While
out
seeks
and
transcribes
the two live together in the
asylum, Joaqu?n
noche
a noche
ci?n mental.
sin puntuaci?n,
transcribe
Su condici?n.
frases
algunas
Son
sombras
apuntes
entrecortadas
de
la vida
escritos
y fragmentos
de Matilda.
a toda velocidad,
organizados
Su
afec
garabatos
sin m?todo
alguno que s?lo ?l ser? capaz de entender despu?s. (122)

Ironically, then, Joaquin's written narrative is just as hermetic as Matilda's
spoken
words.
Prompting
her with
questions?"?Qu?
pas?
entonces,
Ma
tilda? ?Qu? nos pas??" (122,my emphasis)?Joaqu?n

again reveals that his
own perspective is inextricable from his documentation of Matilda's
life
c??
310
: summer2008
review
Hispanic
story.Kind as his intentionsmay seem, Joaquin's inability to relinquish con

trol over Matilda's narration is an inability to conceive of her as a speaking
subject, and Matilda therefore eventually shuts him out completely, empha
sizing her own ultimate authority through her silence. Although, as we have
seen,
Joaqu?n
use
makes
in negotiating
of "tactics"
the
space
of the asylum,
he is unable to extend this flexible approach to his reading ofMatilda.

Eduardo stands as an additional example of the limitations inherent in a
strategic reading. He does not realize that his faith in his own (pseudo)scien
tific authority and his unquestioning acceptance of contemporary gender
norms make
it impossible for him to access or representMatilda's inner life

objectively, accurately, or respectfully. Pointing to the true instability of the
ostensibly fixed system of scientific representation, the novel stresses the nar
rative and aesthetic qualities of Eduardo's
clinical writing:
Hay vocablos por los que Eduardo Oligochea siente especial predilecci?n.
El adjetivo implacable, por ejemplo; las s?labas de la palabra delirio que,
una
pronunciadas
tras otra,
le recuerdan
las perlas
artificiales
de un
collar.
(102)
pleasure in the manipulation of language, it is significant
that his written assessment ofMatilda's symptoms focuses on what he deems
Given Eduardo's
inappropriate language use:

La
interna
rentes
exc?ntrica
cansa
es sarc?stica
y grosera.
e interminables
de
t?rminos
una
y tiene
contar.
acerca
Pasa
rebuscados
de
tendencia
de
un
Habla
su
inventar
a otro
pretende
Hace
. . . Sufre
pasado.
clara
asunto
a los cuales
demasiado.
historias
sin parar.
dar otro
discursos
de una
incohe
imaginaci?n
nunca
que
Proclividad
significado.
se
a usar
(110)
This file excerpt makes it clear that Eduardo's adherence to strategy leaves
him unable to find meaning inMatilda's tactical approach to language. To
gether, Eduardo and Joaqu?n serve as examples of the failed narrating and
reading strategies that the novel hopes to avoid and discourage.

Nadie me ver? llorar juxtaposes these problematic outward narrations of
inner lifewith the novel's own tactical approach to representing
Matilda's
the unconventional perspectives of both Joaqu?n and Matilda. Through its
Localization, the novel confers upon the drug addict and the asylum inmate
the ability to tell their own stories, and yet, the consistent use of third-person
: pasillos
Kanost
narration
tension
constant
promotes
reminder
For
for themselves.
truly speaking
tive
remains
readers
that Matilda
and
this unresolved
that
instability of the space of the text.

Although much of the novel's narration
a
his
addict,
morphine
311
are
Joaqu?n
not
narra
the necessary
acknowledges
is focalized through Joaqu?n,
seldom
perspective
?^
luz
of the novel,
approach
reading
sin
the
conveys
unconventional
thought processes thatmight be expected with such heavy drug use. The high
degree of filtration involved in conveying Joaquin's perspective occasionally
becomes clear when the novel hints at his trueway of speaking or thinking.
assessment
Eduardo's
of
narrative
Joaquin's
is one
style
of
those
key
mo
ments:
Hablar,
para
a otro.
en
lo escucha
los cabos
fechas.
Omite
pronombres.
biendo
es desvariar.
Joaqu?n,
El pasado
tratando
sueltos
de
en
de
sus relatos.
tercera
de
a
refiri?ndose
dice
"El,"
lo refiere
silencio,
el tiempo
Confunde
los verbos
persona.
el marasmo
organizar
descri
s? mismo,
Eduardo
de
y los
Oligochea
las palabras,
(33-34)
Curiously, Eduardo's observation that Joaqu?n uses the third person instead
of the firstperson opens up the possibility that all of the third-person narra
tion focalized by Joaqu?n is actually directly narrated by him. The novel
never clarifies this narrative ambiguity, but by leaving it unresolved, it calls
attention to thesemultiple possibilities for representation.
The novel gives another glimpse of Joaquin's perceptions by presenting his
thoughts directly before and after a morphine fix. Immediately beforehand,
Joaquin's
no
que
thoughts
puede
olvidar,
at their most
calles
que
tartamudear.
Mesones
35"
and
fragmentary
unstable:
Vicario. Un
sucesos
"hay
en su memoria
permanecer?n
luminosos. Diamantina
Agujeros
hace
are
para
siempre.
s?bito de nervios lo
ataque
(141).
Subsequently, under the influence of the drug, Joaqu?n can literally seeMa
tilda
and
Vicario
Diamantina
as
the former
describes
the
two women's
rela
tionship:
Mientras
ci?n
la voz
a oscuras,
paredes
a la casa
aparece
de Matilda
sigue
efectivamente
Joaqu?n
la imagen
de Columba.
cayendo
de Matilda
pausada
logra
y neutra
sobre
En
la pantalla
verlas.
caminando
de
la casa
de
la habita
de
sus
los Burgos
(141)
<??
312
hispanic
review
: summer2008
This scene hints at Joaquin's idiosyncraticmodes of perception, but the novel

limits this type of direct insight.
Similarly, the style of the narration focalized through Matilda
to other
correspond
assessments
characters'
of her
does not
This
processes.
thought
discrepancy suggests an unresolved difficulty in how to represent the uncon

ventional modes of perception identified as mental illness.Matilda focalizes
much of the narration, especially the narration of her lifebefore entering the
asylum, but these passages do not typicallydisplay the hallmarks ofMatilda's
disorder,
voice?fragmentation,
use
playful
of
language,
and
profanity?
observed by Joaqu?n and Eduardo. One of the few instances of an apparently

direct insight intoMatilda's thoughts challenges Joaqu?n and Eduardo's view
ofMatilda by presenting her apparently deteriorating mental health as a logi
cal and conscious decision. Through Matilda's focalization, her return to an
impenetrable innerworld and to the asylum is an intentional act, a way of

exerting authority over her own life and withdrawing from a society thatwill
cease
not
Ante
vivir
to see her
as an
sus miradas
en un
historias
inquisitivas
universo
perseguido
sin ojos,
de
relatadas
toda
object:
noche.
la vida.
Con
lugar donde
El
silencio.
Las
o con
deseo
a?ora
Matilda
y amorosas,
un
m?s
que
lo ?nico
importante
miradas
masculinas
exhaustividad,
nunca
sean
las
la han
animadas
por
la
lujuria o por el af?n cient?fico, los ojos de los hombres han visto,medido
y evaluado
su cuerpo
primero,
su mente,
y despu?s
hasta
el hartazgo.
En
la
luz h?meda de julio, lo ?nico que desea es volverse invisible. (236)

the novel makes literal the commonly held notion that insanity is a
in
which people, particularly women, protest and subvert oppressive
way
Here
sociocultural
norms.
And
yet, Matilda's
retreat
into
"madness"
constitutes
not an empowering way of speaking freely,but a real silence: the events of

the remaining decades of her life are a gaping ellipsis in the novel capped
only by news of her death.
It is not until the very end that the novel presents Matilda's
thoughts
directly, in the form of letters she has written during her confinement in the
asylum.
These
hermetic
letters
do
not
adhere
to
conventions
of
order
or
structure, and thus display the characteristics that Joaqu?n and Eduardo have
observed about Matilda's speech all along. Significantly, the letters are not
accompanied by any externally imposed interpretation,but are allowed sim
ply
to
speak
for themselves.
Because
Matilda's
words
are
placed
near
the end
: pasillos
Kanost
of the novel,
novel's
confront
these
of tactical
modes
readers
exploration
sin
"pasillos
sin
?^
luz
as a culmination
luz"
of consumption.4
Matilda
has
313
of the
a
created
dark textual space, and it is the readers' task to findways to negotiate it.
Both Matilda and Joaqu?n act as "writers," then, at given points in the
novel, but only Matilda's written text is presented directly to the readers of
In addition,
the novel.
the
two
of a performance
in the creation
collaborate
that is observed by Eduardo and, indirectly, the readers of the novel. As they
are both considered mentally ill by their contemporaries, Matilda and Joa
qu?n are constantly being diagnosed and read by powerful others, and they
an
demonstrate
awareness
of this process
by
creating
parodie
performance
of insanity. By exaggeratedly playing out Eduardo's own interpretations of

them as mentally ill, theyflaunt their authority not only to execute the same
reading but tomock its inaccuracies. During the brief time they live in Joa
quin's family home, Matilda and Joaqu?n transform the conventional place
into
an
artistic,
space:
performative
un
m?scaras
y maquillaje,
copal.
comprado
papel de china y
fon?grafo,
. . . Todas
a las
con
de Joaqu?n
est?n prendidas
las fotograf?as
paredes
han
tachuelas.
con
el papel
de
seda
se reparten
y ausencias
Mujeres
la cocina
la biblioteca,
de
china
cubren
las
para
de manera
. . Matilda
.
y el ba?o.
para
cambiar
los
en la sala y
desigual
fabricado
comunes
los cuartos
adornar
l?mparas
ha
hileras
de
tonos
de
la casa.
de
flores
Pedazos
la atm?sfera.
(230-31)
two
The
Eduardo
estamos
and
cross-dress
put
on
as their audience. Dancing

locos,
muy
Doctor
. . .
show
of
insanity,
with
the
sole
visitor
grotesquely, they taunt him: "es que
?no vas
a tomar
notas,
Eduardo?
. . . Somos
todo un caso"
(231). Ultimately, only Joaqu?n and Matilda have access to

their individual thoughts and perceptions, and their performance ridicules
any
attempt
self?to
by medical
represent
authorities?and
even,
by
extension,
the novel
it
them.
Although Nadie me ver? llorar does not arrive at any easy conclusions
about its complex problems of representation, the novel itselfreaches closure
letters are a verbatim reproduction of letterswritten by an actual La Casta?eda

in
4- Matilda's
mate, Modesta Burgos, cited and analyzed in Rivera Garza's dissertation ("Masters of the Streets,"
324-28). To her credit, Rivera Garza does not impose her dissertation's reading of these letters on
readers of the novel, but rather, leaves each reader to find a way to approach them.
314
cQ?
Hispanic
: summer2008
review
learn of her death through an official

document, but this externally imposed narrative is quickly displaced by the
finalwords of the novel, a sort of self-writtenepitaph throughwhich Matilda
with the death of Matilda.
commands
forcefully
Readers
novel
everyone?the
and
its
readers
included?
"d?jenme descansar en paz" (251). Finally in the first person, Matilda takes
the last word to assert her subjectivity and to resist being interpreted and
represented by others. By closing in thisway, the novel reasserts its claim for
of reading adapted to the indeterminacy inherent in the dy
tactical modes
namic
spaces
and
that make
subjects
up
any
story.
Rivera Garza has persuasively advocated just such an approach to histori

cal reading and writing on her blog in an entry titled "Di no a la voz dada":
Dar-voz
implica
Dar-voz
esconde
Dar-voz
transforma
Dar-voz
refuerza
Dar-voz
incluso
Dar-voz
la voz
borrar
una
est?,
que
voluntad
la voz
y sorda.
imperialista
en mudo
que
alguien
es.
que
s?lo
otra
habla
cosa.
el yo del dador.
le otorga
la voz
multiplica
una
calidad
moral,
sin prueba
al dador.
alguna,
del dador.
Rather, she calls for historians to admit, honestly and humbly, "que lo que
es escuchar
hacemos
traducir
entonces,
tudes."
/ leer
eso
que
viene
its characters
Through
elicits a compatible mode

the space
through
cuidadosamente,
atr?s
de
and
poner
del
narrative
la atenci?n
tiempo
se dice
Nadie
techniques,
adecuada
en otras
me
of listening and reading. Characters'
of the asylum
are
as varied
just
and
ver?
y,
lati
llorar
trajectories
indeterminate
as read
ers' paths through the novel, manifesting a relationship not of reading and
writing subjects and voiceless objects, but of interdependent, mutable sub
jects. Rivera Garza's novel, like the historical asylum it brings to life, is a
fixed yet unstable space where diverse subjects perpetually wander the dark
ened halls.
Although
La
no
Casta?eda
longer
exists,
its literary
reso
representation
nates stronglywith the realities of mental health care in Latin America at

the end of the twentieth century. Coinciding with the fall of dictatorships
throughout
the region
was
a "renaissance
of mental
health
issues
in general
and societal concern for human
rights" (Levav et al. 75), marked by the

groundbreaking Regional Conference for the Restructuring of Psychiatric
Care held in Caracas in 1990. The sixteen participating countries agreed on
the need to update mental health legislation and replace centralized psychiat
: pasillos
Kanost
decentralized,
?^
luz
services as the chiefmeans
ric hospitals with "community-based

accessible,
sin
continuous
comprehensive,
and
315
to attain
care"
preventive
(Levav et al. 71). The asylum and the corresponding medical model ofmental
illness were thus acknowledged as obsolete, but in the years following the
Caracas initiative,Latin American mental health care generally continued to
revolve around large, deteriorating institutions (Arboleda-Fl?rez and Weiss
tub 38). Viewed in this context, the negotiation of these discursive and physi
cal structures inNadie me ver? llorar is at once a reflection of the "tactics"
available to real individuals whom
they enclose, and a manifestation of the

current potential for resituating concepts ofmental illness and people identi
fied as mentally ill.
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Julio, and David
Arboleda-Fl?rez,
Ethics, Culture,
Arboleda-Fl?rez,
2000.
Michel
de Literatura Mexicana
de. The Practice
of California
en la identidad:
A. "Ambig?edad
Carlos
Revista
Garza."
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Okasha,
Julio
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Psychiatric
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Steven
Rivera
111-15.
F. Rendall.
Berkeley:
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P?rez, Fidel. "Cuerpo y escritura

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cresta de Ilion de Cristina
La
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of Everyday
Ch?vez
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Certeau,
N. Weisstub.
and Psychiatry: International

Perspectives. Ed. Ahmed
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Rivera Garza."
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Itzhak, Helena
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Irwin and Edward
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??
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hay tal lugar. Internet blog
<http://cristinariveragarza.blogspot.com>.
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of the Streets: Bodies,
1995.
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-. Nadie me ver? llorar. Barcelona:
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Kanost - Pasillos Sin Luz Reading The Asylum in 'Nadie Me Verá Llorar'

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Kanost - Pasillos Sin Luz Reading The Asylum in 'Nadie Me Verá Llorar'

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Pasillos sin luz: Reading the Asylum in "nadie me ver llorar" by cristina rivera garza

Author(s): Laura Kanost

through an imposed system," proposes Michel de

physical and discursive structures of the long-closed La Casta?eda asylum on

illness that depends upon rigid

ta?eda and their experiences of being identified as mentally ill.My own

from the ingrained, interdependent structures that correspond to themedical

Contemplating the dynamics of cultural consumption, Certeau hypothe

ative potential of unexpected individual routes through existing spaces, texts,

"speaking effects an appropriation, or reappropriation, of language by its

jectories obeying their own logic," forming "unforeseeable sentences, partly

by the systems in which

(xviii). Rather than following the

isolation from the

historian and literarywriter Rivera Garza approaches

of the asylum not as a monolithic mechanism of rigid control and silence

historical research investigates the tactics at work within La Casta?eda asy

Accordingly, Rivera Garza's doctoral dissertation and other scholarly pub

titled "The Masters of the Streets: Bodies, Power, and Modernity

prostitutes and "the mentally ill" who

threatened and negotiated the posi

adaptations and composites of real-life people studied in her dissertation; the

with her work.

American Historical Review.

issues central to the dissertation, such as the sociopolitical implications of

me ver? llorar takes its title from the character Matilda

There, she becomes

the obsession of asylum photographer

the ongoing processes ofmodernization,

foreign political and economic

In addition to these interwoven personal and national histories,Nadie me

the psychiatrist Eduardo Oligochea,

loaquin, but also Matilda,

to be filtered through an outside observer with a historical perspective. In

history books, Matilda's own letters,and fragments of literary,scientific, and

provide a fruitfulapproach to considering ways of reading in the broadest

official files and records leftby the medical

about their own participation in discourses of gender and modernity. The

Justas Rivera Garza's

reading of the asylum is shaped but not dictated by

own idiosyncratic trajectories in their daily liveswithin the formidable con

the asylum as a multidimensional

"space" that acts and is acted upon by the

sin luz" that purposefully introduce

through the novel's maze

the darkened passageways and wander

vide readers of the novel with a multifaceted and open-ended

be a refuge, and as a highly structured space that is nevertheless negotiated

phasizes that themarginality of La Casta?eda as aMexican institution repli

has been neglected over the course of the Revolution, and

estaban conscientes de este hecho"

that the asylum

structure and regulations of La Casta?eda. Repeatedly, Joaqu?n and Matilda

Similarly,Matilda knowingly defies the institution's rules by spending several

opportunities to make unpredictable moves within the constraints of their

La Casta?eda, quickly diverging from the conventional representation of the

Rivera Garza herself: an external narrating agent with a historical perspective

describe how La Casta?eda

is divided and how its residents specialize in

of the asylum as an instrument of socioeconomic discipline and, alternately,

work without pay in separate workshops,

the asylum also houses "poetas

(37-38). And although the imposing and symmetrical building ismeant to