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- All Subjects: Latin American History
- Creators: Estevez, Dulce
- Creators: García Fernández, Carlos J
Description
ABSTRACT
The analytical sensitivity of Nellie Campobello allows her to perceive and draw several contexts into her fiction. Her work offers the reader a glimpse of the subtle connections between the individual experience and the social milieu that make up history. In the two editions of Cartucho (1931 and 1940) the reader encounters the Mexican Revolution as a plausible setting. By transferring this context into fiction, the author deals with core social matters that fostered the disfunctionality of Mexican society, at the time the novel was written. Furthermore, her intuition allows her to depict in her literary work many aspects of dehumanization that are timeless and universal. This depth of social cognition is expressed freely, producing a literary style that communicates a modern worldview.
Therefore, a critical analysis of the book should supersede historical facts to discern the expression of an object of ethical appreciation. The active reading of Cartucho forces us to appreciate the precise aesthetic form that communicates, through a plurality of voices, history to reconfigure -through discourse- diverse social contexts that are accessible, identifiable and pertinent to readers from different epochs. This is perhaps the value of the book for the social sciences. However, our study seeks to understand the social and historic minutiae of the text to better equip the reader to achieve an ethical catharsis through the reading of fiction. We believe that it is only when the reader surpasses the historic level of discourse that he or she can fully identify himself or herself with the characters, thus restoring their humanity and at the same time becoming more fully human.
SÍNTESIS
El temperamento analítico y sensible de Nellie Campobello le permite abordar aspectos sociológicos de múltiples contextos; derivando además los puntos de contacto entre el desarrollo social y la experiencia individual. Cartucho nos presenta, en sus dos versiones (1931 y 1940), la Revolución Mexicana como un contexto verosímil que permite expresar los temas que preocupan a la autora. A partir de esta ambientación ficcional, ella expone las causas del estado en el que se encuentra la nación en el momento en el que escribe la obra. Además, su intuición la lleva a trazar procesos de deshumanización inherentemente humanos con los que se puede identificar un lector universal. Esta profundidad de pensamiento se formula libremente dando lugar a un estilo propio que comunica una cosmovisión moderna.
Una lectura crítica de la obra debe partir del contexto de la Revolución Mexicana. Pero debe también rebasarlo para observar que Cartucho no es un receptáculo de voces rescatadas del pasado, sino la expresión de un objeto de apreciación ética formulado mediante una estética precisa que complementa y enuncia el discurso de la autora con la pluralidad de voces que reconstituyen, discursivamente, contextos sociales con los que el lector de cualquier época se puede identificar. En esta observación recae el valor de la obra camposiana para las ciencias sociales. Sin embargo, nuestro trabajo busca alcanzar una mejor apreciación del discurso histórico y sociológico para que el mensaje de la obra surta un efecto ético. Consideramos que es mediante este tipo de análisis que el lector logra identificarse con los personajes de Cartucho humanizándolos y humanizándose mediante la lectura de un texto de ficción.
The analytical sensitivity of Nellie Campobello allows her to perceive and draw several contexts into her fiction. Her work offers the reader a glimpse of the subtle connections between the individual experience and the social milieu that make up history. In the two editions of Cartucho (1931 and 1940) the reader encounters the Mexican Revolution as a plausible setting. By transferring this context into fiction, the author deals with core social matters that fostered the disfunctionality of Mexican society, at the time the novel was written. Furthermore, her intuition allows her to depict in her literary work many aspects of dehumanization that are timeless and universal. This depth of social cognition is expressed freely, producing a literary style that communicates a modern worldview.
Therefore, a critical analysis of the book should supersede historical facts to discern the expression of an object of ethical appreciation. The active reading of Cartucho forces us to appreciate the precise aesthetic form that communicates, through a plurality of voices, history to reconfigure -through discourse- diverse social contexts that are accessible, identifiable and pertinent to readers from different epochs. This is perhaps the value of the book for the social sciences. However, our study seeks to understand the social and historic minutiae of the text to better equip the reader to achieve an ethical catharsis through the reading of fiction. We believe that it is only when the reader surpasses the historic level of discourse that he or she can fully identify himself or herself with the characters, thus restoring their humanity and at the same time becoming more fully human.
SÍNTESIS
El temperamento analítico y sensible de Nellie Campobello le permite abordar aspectos sociológicos de múltiples contextos; derivando además los puntos de contacto entre el desarrollo social y la experiencia individual. Cartucho nos presenta, en sus dos versiones (1931 y 1940), la Revolución Mexicana como un contexto verosímil que permite expresar los temas que preocupan a la autora. A partir de esta ambientación ficcional, ella expone las causas del estado en el que se encuentra la nación en el momento en el que escribe la obra. Además, su intuición la lleva a trazar procesos de deshumanización inherentemente humanos con los que se puede identificar un lector universal. Esta profundidad de pensamiento se formula libremente dando lugar a un estilo propio que comunica una cosmovisión moderna.
Una lectura crítica de la obra debe partir del contexto de la Revolución Mexicana. Pero debe también rebasarlo para observar que Cartucho no es un receptáculo de voces rescatadas del pasado, sino la expresión de un objeto de apreciación ética formulado mediante una estética precisa que complementa y enuncia el discurso de la autora con la pluralidad de voces que reconstituyen, discursivamente, contextos sociales con los que el lector de cualquier época se puede identificar. En esta observación recae el valor de la obra camposiana para las ciencias sociales. Sin embargo, nuestro trabajo busca alcanzar una mejor apreciación del discurso histórico y sociológico para que el mensaje de la obra surta un efecto ético. Consideramos que es mediante este tipo de análisis que el lector logra identificarse con los personajes de Cartucho humanizándolos y humanizándose mediante la lectura de un texto de ficción.
ContributorsEstevez, Dulce (Author) / Volek, Emil (Thesis advisor) / García-Fernández, Carlos (Committee member) / Keller, Garry (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2014
Description
ABSTRACT
In the 19th and 20th centuries, many Latin American intellectuals began to question why their countries had failed to modernize and produce the type of economic prosperity and democratic societies that they desired. Influenced by the scientific theories of their time, many of the explanations offered by these intellectuals centered on a single issue—race. Yet scientific and historical definitions regarding “race” have varied greatly ranging from a conceptualization of race as a cultural to a biological construct. This same time period also saw the emergence of two new literary genres which addressed “racial” conflict in their own right—indigenismo and neo-indigenismo. In the last thirty years, postmodernist and postcolonialist readings of these texts have tended to articulate these interethnic conflicts in highly racialized terms which diminish the importance of any cultural differentiation that may exist (i.e. attitudes, aptitudes, norms, religions, expectations) while simultaneously augmenting perceived racial discord between groups—even where racial difference barely exists.
This dissertation is an analysis of Pueblo enfermo (1909) and Raza de bronce (1919) by Alcides Arguedas, as well as Sociología guatemalteca: el problema social del indio (1923) and Hombres de maíz (1949) by Miguel Ángel Asturias. By taking an interdisciplinary approach and drawing on texts from history, anthropology, economics and literature I challenge many of the commonly held notions regarding the issues of race in these texts. I argue that, despite tinges of what social scientists have termed “scientific racism” that these works should be interpreted as criticisms of what the authors understood as cultural problems and deficiencies within their societies. Additionally, I argue that this highly politicized cultural criticism of their countries by Arguedas and Asturias was meant to challenge the mestizo and Ladino hegemony of their times as a means of making their countries more democratic, and that the strident postmodernist and would-be postcolonial readings reveal actually hidden anachronistic and ahistorical bias of their authors.
In the 19th and 20th centuries, many Latin American intellectuals began to question why their countries had failed to modernize and produce the type of economic prosperity and democratic societies that they desired. Influenced by the scientific theories of their time, many of the explanations offered by these intellectuals centered on a single issue—race. Yet scientific and historical definitions regarding “race” have varied greatly ranging from a conceptualization of race as a cultural to a biological construct. This same time period also saw the emergence of two new literary genres which addressed “racial” conflict in their own right—indigenismo and neo-indigenismo. In the last thirty years, postmodernist and postcolonialist readings of these texts have tended to articulate these interethnic conflicts in highly racialized terms which diminish the importance of any cultural differentiation that may exist (i.e. attitudes, aptitudes, norms, religions, expectations) while simultaneously augmenting perceived racial discord between groups—even where racial difference barely exists.
This dissertation is an analysis of Pueblo enfermo (1909) and Raza de bronce (1919) by Alcides Arguedas, as well as Sociología guatemalteca: el problema social del indio (1923) and Hombres de maíz (1949) by Miguel Ángel Asturias. By taking an interdisciplinary approach and drawing on texts from history, anthropology, economics and literature I challenge many of the commonly held notions regarding the issues of race in these texts. I argue that, despite tinges of what social scientists have termed “scientific racism” that these works should be interpreted as criticisms of what the authors understood as cultural problems and deficiencies within their societies. Additionally, I argue that this highly politicized cultural criticism of their countries by Arguedas and Asturias was meant to challenge the mestizo and Ladino hegemony of their times as a means of making their countries more democratic, and that the strident postmodernist and would-be postcolonial readings reveal actually hidden anachronistic and ahistorical bias of their authors.
ContributorsEngelbrecht, Jexson Ashley (Author) / Volek, Emil (Thesis advisor) / García Fernández, Carlos J (Committee member) / Hernández Gutiérrez, Manuel J (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2018