SOURCE: Vollendorf, Lisa. “Our Bodies, Our Selves: Vengeance in the Novellas of María de Zayas.” Cincinnati Romance Review XVI (1997): 93-100.

In this essay, Vollendorf studies the two novellas by Zayas for their exploration of the dynamics of vengeance, especially as it relates to the sexuality and sexual powerlessness facing female characters.

Is Justice … Governed by greed and lust? Just the strong doing what they can And the weak suffering what they must? .....And sex sells everything, And sex kills … Sex kills … 

—Joni Mitchell

In the above quote from a song that hinges on the refrain “sex kills,” Joni Mitchell laments the dangers of modern society and duly notes the interconnectedness of power, sex, and death. These are the same issues that María de Zayas was struggling with as she sought to voice a feminist critique of the treatment of women in seventeenth-century Spanish society. In accordance...