Failed maternity in Cirilo Villaverde's Cecilia Valdés (1882).

In 1882, in New York City, Cirilo Villaverde published Cecilia Valdés which would come to be hailed as the Cuban novel of the century for its realistic treatment of the conditions of Cuba. Although already widely studied by contemporary academics, in this project I propose a new lens through which to analyze this novel. My femicentric approach centers on Villaverde’s presentation of three Cuban mothers–creole, mixed-race, and black–and how their maternal insufficiencies contribute to the political and social stagnation of Cuba. I argue that these mothers, assigned a politicized role due to rising nationalist sentiments, struggle to achieve the maternal standards outlined for them, which drew heavily from the intersections of race and sexuality that dominated the discourse of the period. For Villaverde, failed and insufficient maternity is a barrier to Cuba’s modernity and autonomy.