Women Enslaved in Zayas's "La esclava de su amante"

Abstract: This essay analyzes how María de Zayas's treatment of enslaved women in "La esclava de su amante" complicates her unqualified status as a proto-feminist or feminist author. It details the four ways in which she manipulates the slave of love trope and how she complements that manipulation with the severe objectification of her literally enslaved characters in a classist and, in the case of her Black enslaved female character, racist fashion. Her use of literally enslaved characters to signify exclusively in terms of the mistakes made by the White nobility betrays her exclusionary interest in members of her own class and race.