Conclusion

Animal comparisons articulate discourses of gender-based violence in contemporary Spain. As noted, the animalization of the female victim is commonplace in both fictional and nonfictional episodes of abuse against women. Seeing women through a zoomorphic lens enables the male abuser to dehumanize his victim. At the same time, it also allows him to belittle women intellectually and to emphasize their sexuality and physique. Furthermore, the conceptualization of heterosexual relationships in terms of a male predator chasing his female prey often entails men’s aggressive behaviors, such as verbal abuse, harassment, and even rape. Whether in newspaper articles or in novels, narratives of gender-based violence are often linked to zoomorphic tropes. After all, the understanding of women as prey to be chased and hunted and as animals to be tamed and mounted certainly led to the rapes perpetrated by the males of “La Manada” and by Pascual Duarte, respectively. Similarly, the campaign of gender-based violence that labels women as pigs mirrors the insults that Juan throws at Gloria when criticizing her housekeeping in Laforet’s Nada. The avian iconography that serves to erase Natalia’s identity and trap her in a cycle of domestic violence recalls the campaign against domestic abuse that represents the mind of a male batterer as a cage within which a woman has been imprisoned. The commonplace “zorra” that permeates episodes of abuse against Pascual’s mother and sister in La colmena, Florita in Tiempo de Silencio, and Maruja in Últimas tardes con Teresa is also at the core of gender-based violence campaigns and newspaper articles that report on violence against women.