No Room in Our Imaginations? Small Towns, Social Crises and Spaces of Possibility in Short Stories by Arguedas and Garcia Marquez
Date of Award
2005
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Bachelors
Department
Humanities
First Advisor
Portugal, Jose Alberto
Keywords
Liminal, Community, Ritual, Rite, Small Town, Rural, Ruralism, Marquez, Gabriel, Arguedas, Cortazar, Latin American Literature, Short Stories, 'A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings', 'The Handsomest Drowned Man in the World', Liminoid, Liminality, Communitas
Area of Concentration
Hispanic Language and Literature
Abstract
This thesis is an exploration of the representations of Latin American small towns in three short stories. I approach them from a perspective emphasizing social crisis and responses to problems that threaten to unravel their social fabrics. I argue that effective responses to crisis come in the form of symbolic actions that open up spaces of possibility during chaos and confusion. These actions transform towns into communities by stabilizing meaning and developing a communal sense of identity. In Chapter One, I introduce the three towns through their social landscapes. I also situate each town within the authors' 'fictive worlds,' which I imagine as populated by towns that appear in other stories. Chapter Two is a detailed exploration of the Andean village where 'La muerte de los Arango' ('The Death of the Arango Brothers') by Jose Maria Arguedas takes place. This town has an outbreak of the plague which threatens its social structure. Two stories by Gabriel Garcia Marquez are discussed in Chapter Three: 'Un senor muy viejo con unas alas enormes' ('A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings') and 'EI ahogado mas hermoso del mundo' ('The Handsomest Drowned Man in the World'). Both of these towns are intruded upon by strangers that challenge their societies and both attempt to address these problems through the enactment of rites. I conclude that paying attention to social crisis allows readers to become more connected with the represented societies with which they are wholly unfamiliar. Readers both witness and participate in the towns' attempts to play with meaning and cause this moment of possibility to continue beyond the borders of the narration and into the readers' space.
Recommended Citation
Blasco, Erin Marie, "No Room in Our Imaginations? Small Towns, Social Crises and Spaces of Possibility in Short Stories by Arguedas and Garcia Marquez" (2005). Theses & ETDs. 3487.
https://digitalcommons.ncf.edu/theses_etds/3487