This research aims to analyze the categories of desire and repression in the work
Juntacadáveres (2007), by Juan Carlos Onetti, to reflect on the control mechanisms exercised
by the state, and the forms of resistance that are manifested from marginal spaces, in particular,
from de brothel. We will start out from the following question: in what way does the presence
of the brothel function as an alternative space, where desire acts as a device that provokes the
outbreak of binarisms and discourses of control and repression by state, in the search of the
liberty? For the analysis of the novel we will use the contributions of Gilles Deleuze (2004),
Michel Foucault (2008) and Rodrigo Cánovas (2003). The methodology will be qualitative and
within hermeneutics, we will take discourse analysis as the point of study. It is expected at the
end of the study to show that the brothel in the novel is a trigger for characters’ freedom through
desire in the oppressive world of Santa María. These results will be a contribution on the
dissemination of Latin American literature and the studies of a fundamental author in the Latin
American literature of the twentieth century.
