An Analysis Of Sor Juana's Second Dream

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Alicia Gaspar de Alba’s novel Sor Juana’s Second Dream is a work of historical fiction inspired by of the master rhetorician who is immortalized as “The Tenth Muse of Mexico” for her poems written in seventeenth century New Spain. But during this time, it was frowned upon for women to be as educated, articulate and outspoken as Sor Juana. Knowledge, among other things such as sexual desires, and emotional turmoil, was something women were expected to suppress. Even before her vows as a nuns of poverty, chastity and obedience, Sor Juana was always expected to suffer silently as women have been conditioned to do.
The love for learning she displayed even as a young girl was seen as a rejection of femininity and therefore, something she had to suppress for her own safety. “It’s unnatural for a girl to know as much as you do,
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“[Us men], on the other hand… had no difficulty avoiding impoliteness. We had only to say: ‘This doesn’t apply to you. You’re the exception; on this point you’re more masculine than feminine” (Freud 580, text made bold for added emphasis). This echoes the comments of Sor Juana’s male superiors, who who saw her femininity as something that held her back from being equal. “None other in New Spain compares to you, Juana. It is a true lastima that you were born a woman. The mind of yours. You could have been something, Juana,” said the Archbishop. “I try not to brood about God’s will,” Sor Juana said (Gaspar de Alba 173, text made bold for emphasis). “You could have been something” because by being a woman, her work means nothing. If God’s will was to make women less capable than men, why are men so threatened by women like Sor Juana? A backhanded compliment such as this spoke of the time Juana had to live in even though her mind progressed so far ahead of

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