The Blind Spot of Guilt: Monstrous Motherhoods and Ecocriticism in Samanta Schweblin’s Rescue Distance

Abstract

This article examines Samanta Schweblin’s short novel Distancia de rescate (2014) from an ecocritical and gender perspective, addressing the question of how motherhood is configured in a context of environmental catastrophe. The main objective is to analyze the representation of distorted or monstrous motherhoods as a response to the slow violence of agrochemicals in the Argentine rural landscape, and how this representation articulates a denunciation of the contemporary ecological crisis. The hypothesis maintains that motherhood, far from being idealized, is fractured by the impossibility of protection in a toxic environment, highlighting the interweaving of the oppression of nature and the subordination of female bodies. The analysis reveals that the work’s fragmentary and polyphonic structure reflects disorientation in the face of poison, while the de-idealization of motherhood exposes the fragility of emotional bonds under ecological pressure. It also dissolves the oppositions between civilization and barbarism and shifts the notion of guilt toward a complex web of responsibilities, calling the reader to critical reflection on environmental violence.