Politics of Sexual Victimisation and Empowerment in Mario Vargas Llosa’s The Green House

Abstract

This paper focuses on how the female characters of Mario Vargas Llosa sexually victimised and how they empowered from the sexual exploitation in The Green House. The Green House is a stirring, complex novel inspired by a passionate commitment to social justice on the one hand and a desire to achieve literary quality on the other. Additionally, this study investigates the novel’s excellent portrayal of a world in which gendered relationships between women and men, as well as traditional conceptions of female sexuality, are either re-inscribed or transformed in a patriarchal society. It aims to isolate women as prostitutes whose empowerment results in bodily, mental, and spiritual freedom, as well as a measure of subjectivity in their life decision-making processes.