We found a match
Your institution may have access to this item. Find your institution then sign in to continue.
- Title
BETWEEN CONFESSION AND REALISM: LACK, VISION, AND THE CONSTRUCTION OF IDENTITY IN RAFAEL ARÉVALO MARTÍNEZ'S UNA VIDA AND MANUEL ALDANO.
- Authors
Spitz, Maria
- Abstract
The present study explores the relationship between generic ambiguity in Una vida (1914) and Manuel Aldano (1922) by the Guatemalan Rafael Arévalo Martínez, and the Darwinian/Spencerian discourse with which the narrator attempts to construct an identity that will grant him a legitimate speaking subjectivity in the face of his inability to adapt to the changes in the Spanish American letrado's role within societies at the periphery of modernization. Through an analysis of the narrator's development and the emerging relationships between sexuality, language, genre, and vision in Arévalo Martinez's short novels, the reader will note the irresolute tension between confession and realism that characterizes the narration. This tension is determined by the narrator's guilt at not being "modern" on the one hand, and on the other, his attempt to conform to the needs of the ciudad modernizada by constructing a "proper" identity and thereby justifying his right to reproduce and to speak. As a result, the works belie the inherent ambiguity of discourses on identity that produce the ambivalence that they are meant to eliminate, thus opening up the possibility of exploring less exclusionary alternatives to both generic definition and self-definition.
- Subjects
UNA Vida (Book); MANUEL Aldano (Book); AREVALO Martinez, Rafael; AMBIGUITY in literature; SUBJECTIVITY in literature; MODERNIZATION (Social science) in literature; GUATEMALAN literature; REALISM
- Publication
Hispanic Review, 2015, Vol 83, Issue 2, p211
- ISSN
0018-2176
- Publication type
Literary Criticism
- DOI
10.1353/hir.2015.0021