Urgency of Survival and Urgency of Meaning: A Comparative Study of Carmen Martin Gaité and Malika Mokeddem

Abstract

This article offers a comparative analysis of Entre visillos by Carmen Martín Gaite and L’interdite by Malika Mokeddem, examining the concept of “writing of urgency” across two distinct socio-historical contexts: Francoist Spain and 1990s Algeria. Drawing on a comparative methodology that combines close reading, sociocriticism, and geocriticism, the study investigates the interplay between body, space, and discourse in the construction of female subjectivity. The findings reveal that, despite contextual differences, both works articulate convergent structures of domination through the regulation of female bodies and spatial access. The article redefines “writing of urgency” as an aesthetic category, distinguishing between urgency of survival, linked to contexts of explicit violence, and urgency of meaning, associated with forms of silent oppression. This dual framework expands the analytical scope of the concept and enables a transcontextual reading of female resistance. Ultimately, the study highlights literature as a privileged site of symbolic resistance and the reconfiguration of female subjectivity.