THE FIGURE OF AWOMAN IN THEWORKS OF MARIO VARGAS LLOSA

Abstract

This paper provides an overview of the portrayal of women in the works of the
Peruvian writer and Nobel Prize laureate Mario Vargas Llosa and the connection of his
female portraits with feminist themes by Kate Millet. The work of Mario Vargas Llosa
belongs to contemporary literature and as a writer he addresses many issues of the survival
of modern man in today's world. In his literature, Llosa deals a lot with criticism of today's
society, politics, as well as questions about what is morality in today's world. Are prostitutes
women who do business selling their bodies or the representatives of the government who
sell themselves, so that the consequences are much bigger and more immoral? He also deals
with interpersonal relationships in his works, emphasizing through examples that the social
order is not fair, that women are unfairly condemned to a lower position in the gender
hierarchy, and that they are worth much more than men. As our analysis reveals, Llosa’s
female protagonists break out of traditional social patterns established by patriarchal system.
In his works, men are often portrayed as less intelligent than women, arrogant, and the most
important thing for them is sexual pleasure. In this way, women usually control them.
However, although they are portrayed as complex, intelligent, resourceful, and resilient
characters, they are emotional beings and have difficulty fighting their emotions, primarily
their love for a man. The woman in Llosa's works can be both good and bad, moral and
immoral, but she is never a one-sided character. She is both faithful and unfaithful, fragile
and brave, loyal to who she is; she is a woman who tries to be true to herself and this is an
important feature of Llosa's work. In her life, she meets men who change her destiny and
often drag her into tragedy. The fate of women is tragic in a world that, unfortunately, still
belongs to men.