SOURCE: “Porcelain Face / Rotten Flesh: The Doll in Papeles de Pandora,” in Chasqui, Vol. 23, No. 2, November, 1994, pp. 95–101.

In the following essay, Rivera discusses various uses of the doll motif in the stories and poems of Papeles de Pandora, particularly as a means of defense against patriarchal elements for female characters.

“En esta casa las mujeres hablan cuando las gallinas mean,” says Don Julio de la Valle to his wife in Maldito amor (24). This popular saying summarizes the silent role that has been prescribed for women in Puerto Rican social, political, economic, and religious institutions. Hélène Cixous warns us that women have been silent for a long time: “Muffled throughout their history, they have lived in dreams, in bodies (though muted), in silences, in aphonic revolts” (886). She believes that the repression of language and feminine sexuality go hand in hand and that the only way for women...