SOURCE: Schmidt-Cruz, Cynthia. “The Children's Revolt against Structures of Repression in Cristina Peri Rossi's ‘La rebelión de los niños.’” College Literature 25, no. 3 (fall 1998): 145–62.

In the following essay, Schmidt-Cruz examines the role of the child figure in three of Peri Rossi's short stories: “Ulva lactuca,” “La rebelión de los niños,” and “Feliz cumpleanos.”

Uruguayan writer Cristina Peri Rossi is concerned with all forms of repressive cultural practices which limit individual freedom. As a liberal intellectual who was exiled in Spain during the military dictatorship which terrorized Uruguay in the 1970's, Peri Rossi experienced first-hand the alienating and dehumanizing effects of an authoritarian regime. At a more personal level, she also explores how language and power relations impose a socially-constructed identity. Her critique of structures of power links political oppression to psycho-sexual repression, as struggles against patriarchal power within the nuclear family are juxtaposed to rebellion...