Abstract

From a socio-critical reading, the article proposes the existence of a male alter ego of the female author in a character of the third part of the Alborada, the historical/memorialistic novel series, published by Iris (Inés Echeverría Bello) between the year 1943 and 1946 in Chile. From the reading of the three novels that compose this part of the series, and the author’s memoirs, published posthumously, we propose that Iris is introduced into her narrative through the character of “Héctor Bello”, which fulfills the ideological functions that the author achieved herself in the political and intellectual space in Chile in the 1910s, however, the character does not bear the limitations imposed to the elite woman. The use of this alter ego allows the author to legitimize the background discussion around the social criticism that she develops without opening the debate about women’s freedom in the private space so explicitly, and, in this way, she keeps a relatively neutral position within the story.