This dissertation studies a corpus of Chilean narrative texts published from the late 1980s to the 2000s, understanding them as active participants of the social processes of the period. The corpus includes works by Gonzalo Contreras, Alberto Fuguet, Carlos Franz, Ramón Díaz Eterovic, Diamela Eltit, Gonzalo León and Marcelo Mellado. Through the analysis of the literary texts and their relation to public/cultural discourses (both official and non-official), I describe the political positions that can be traced within those narratives, both in their fiction and their enunciation. The positions described are grouped by the way in which they address their social context, as well as textual strategies that concern narration as a political practice. Taking into account the specific Chilean experience of capitalism, implemented during the dictatorship and consolidated in the later democratic governments, an important part of the characterization of these three positions relates to the representation of violence and mourning. Drawing on the work of intellectuals such as Walter Benjamin, Hannah Arendt, Frantz Fanon and Slavoj Žižek, I address the theoretical discussion regarding violence as a social phenomenon as well as the difficulties of its representation. The ways in which violence is represented in the literary texts situates them in specific and socially representative practices and discourses. The political positioning that derives from the narration of violence, responds both to its representation and the strategies by which the reader is invited to see that violence. The question of mourning is addressed in relation to the practices that are implied with regards to the representation of violence and the invoked function of the reader. In dialog with the work of Sigmund Freud and Idelber Avelar, I describe and evaluate the ways in which mourning is deferred or sought through these practices of narration. This responds to an ethical problem, as understood by Jacques Lacan and Alain Badiou, where the main question pertain the subject – his relation to his desire, and his place within a political structure. This is observed in the texts through the analysis of both the represented subjects and the reader as a function.
Rutgers University. Graduate School - New Brunswick
AssociatedObject
Type
License
Name
Author Agreement License
Detail
I hereby grant to the Rutgers University Libraries and to my school the non-exclusive right to archive, reproduce and distribute my thesis or dissertation, in whole or in part, and/or my abstract, in whole or in part, in and from an electronic format, subject to the release date subsequently stipulated in this submittal form and approved by my school. I represent and stipulate that the thesis or dissertation and its abstract are my original work, that they do not infringe or violate any rights of others, and that I make these grants as the sole owner of the rights to my thesis or dissertation and its abstract. I represent that I have obtained written permissions, when necessary, from the owner(s) of each third party copyrighted matter to be included in my thesis or dissertation and will supply copies of such upon request by my school. I acknowledge that RU ETD and my school will not distribute my thesis or dissertation or its abstract if, in their reasonable judgment, they believe all such rights have not been secured. I acknowledge that I retain ownership rights to the copyright of my work. I also retain the right to use all or part of this thesis or dissertation in future works, such as articles or books.