(Other) feminist readings on 'The things we lost in the fire' by Mariana Enriquez

This study examines the short story of Argentine female writer Mariana Enriquez (1973-) 'Things We Lost in the Fire' (2016), from the perspective of four key concepts: 'sly civility', 'performance', 'wilderness', and the hero myth. It examines the ritual of self-incineration in the short story, interpreting it as an act of civil disobedience within the discipline of civility, which suggests that readers should stop imitating and approximating the phantasmatic idealizations of femininity, established under the patriarchal system. It also considers femicides as exclusively women's muted experiences, which Enriquez, as a gynocritic, makes visible and audible to readers. Finally, it examines the short story as a female version of a classic story of hero myth, which narrates the birth of a heroine with the fire, while it represents a nexus of repressed women's anxieties, with an arousal of tension and then a release.