Madness, perversion and fear: vampirity pathology in “Rojo” of Raidel Galvez Riera

Abstract

The themes of madness and sexual perversion, along with the fear that they produce, have been important to definite the narrative of terror in Latin America. Both contradict the established normative and propose the transgression of the gothic literature, because they are censored like irregular practices and like projections of primary fears, condemned by the West rationality. By taking as reference the case of the short story “Rojo”, by the Costarrican Raidel Gálvez Riera, the article deepens on psychiatric and sexual pathology from the point of view of the teratology -the figure of the monster-, which is translated in literary motifs like madness, crime and vampirism. The theoretical lines that guide this reading are based on the discussions of Michel Foucault, who has defined part of the power relations about the medicine field that are quoted in the literature and philosophy