Nation, myth and social control in Mexico

La Malinche and the building process of a national anti-heroine

Abstract

This paper presents a study about the process of building the Malinche as entitled anti-heroine of Mexican history, in the context of national state formation, based on nineteenth-century literary sources. It also looks at the nature of woman citizenship and it examines the female reproductive roles as biological, cultural and transmitting elements of the national collectivity. In a theoretical framework where myth and history come together, Doña Marina, the Malinche’s Christian name, was Hernan Cortes’ interpreter and partner, with whom she had a child, Martin Cortes, considered to be the first Mexican mestizo. She is the symbolic mother and, emulating Medea, she betrayed her own people by joining the conqueror.