La Arquitectura de La Memoria Narrativa: Un Anáisis de

252 Pages·2014·1.19 MB·English

by  Jason Charles Cummings

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Open Access Dissertations
5-2010
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Jason Charles Cummings
University of Massachusetts Amherst
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Cinco Novelas Contemporáneas de España" (2010). Open Access Dissertations. 241.
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LA ARQUITECTURA DE LA MEMORIA NARRATIVA: UN ANÁLISIS DE LA
ESTRUCTURA EN CINCO NOVELAS CONTEMPORÁNEAS DE ESPAÑA

A Dissertation Presented

by

JASON C. CUMMINGS

Submitted to the Graduate School of the
University of Massachusetts Amherst in partial fulfillment
of the requirements for the degree of

DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY

MAY 2010

Hispanic Literatures, Cultures and Linguistics
© Copyright by Jason C. Cummings 2010

All Rights Reserved
LA ARQUITECTURA DE LA MEMORIA NARRATIVA: UN ANÁLISIS DE LA
ESTRUCTURA EN CINCO NOVELAS CONTEMPORÁNEAS DE ESPAÑA

A Dissertation Presented

by

JASON C. CUMMINGS

Approved as to style and content by:

_______________________________________
Barbara Zecchi Chair

_______________________________________
Luis Marentes, Member

_______________________________________
Justin Crumbaugh, Member

_____________________________________
Francisco Fagundes, Program Director
Hispanic Literatures and Linguistics Program
Department of Languages, Literatures and Cultures

_____________________________________
Julie Candler Hayes
Department Chair
Department of Language, Literatures and Cultures
DEDICATION

To my wife, Christy, and to my parents for all of the love and support with which they
have sustained me.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I would like to thank Professor Barbara Zecchi for all of her patience, kindness
and for the sage advice that she has given me during my years as a graduate student.
Without her countless hours of reading, commenting and revising, this project would
have been insurmountable. Her many, many responses to my e-mails, and her
willingness to support me in both academic and administrative matters have made it
possible for me to complete this degree largely from a distance.
Also, I owe a debt of gratitude to Professor Luis Marentes and to Professor Justin
Crumbaugh for generously offering their time to serve on my dissertation committee.
Their comments and suggestions have been an extraordinary help to me in revising and
polishing this study.

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ABSTRACT
LA ARQUITECTURA DE LA MEMORIA NARRATIVA: UN ANÁLISIS DE LA
ESTRUCTURA EN CINCO NOVELAS DE LA CONTEMPORANIEDAD
ESPAÑOLA

MAY 2010

JASON C. CUMMINGS, B.A., COLBY COLLEGE

M.A., MIDDLEBURY COLLEGE

PH.D., UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS AMHERST

Directed by: Professor Barbara Zecchi

The current study contemplates the relationship between narrative structure and
memory in five contemporary Spanish novels. Since the Spanish Transition to
Democracy literary critics have been quick to discuss the resurgence of historical
memory in narrative. In particular, there has been an abundance of work that seeks to
vindicate those who supported the Second Republic during the Spanish Civil War, but
whose voices were silenced upon the republic‘s fall to Franco‘s army in 1939.
Nevertheless, despite the wide critical recognition of a movement to recuperate Spanish
historical memory, critics have largely ignored the role played by narrative structure in
the construction of said memory during the 1990‘s and the first decade of the 21st century.
Contemplating what Hayden White calls ―the content of the form‖ at the stylistic
level as well as at the level of each novel‘s macrostructure, this study demonstrates that
the narrative techniques utilized by Juan Marsé, Manual Rivas, Dulce Chacón, Javier
Cercas and Bernardo Atxaga cast a particularly postmodern light onto the darker
mnemonic shadows of the Spanish Civil War and Franco‘s dictatorship. Through a series
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of typically postmodern mechanisms, such as the use of multiple narrators, mediated texts
and constant dialog between varying levels of fiction and metafiction, these narratives
transcend mere historic reflection and nostalgia in order to contemplate the subjective
nature of the very mnemonic processes through which they are ostensibly created. The
narrative structures of the works discussed in this study emphasize the fact that objective
truth cannot be attained by means of present, postmodern remembering, much less when
said remembering is linguistically mediated through narration. Thus, rather than seeking
in vain to recuperate an unascertainable historical truth, these authors create highly
structured, though purely esthetic, fictional representations of history, representations
whose narrative forms are a prescription for the epistemic ills of the disillusioned,
fragmented and uprooted postmodern implicit reader.

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ÍNDICE DE MATERIAS

Página

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ...................................................................................................v
ABSTRACT ....................................................................................................................... vi
LISTA DE FIGURAS ..........................................................................................................x
INTRODUCCIÓN ...............................................................................................................1
CAPÍTULO
1. JUAN MARSÉ- RENEGANDO DE LA VERDAD VERDADERA ...........................21
Las voces trenzadas....................................................................................24
Sin punto de partida: el desarraigo y la falta de orígenes ..........................39
La simetría actancial .................................................................................47
Algunas conclusiones.................................................................................53
Bibliografía ................................................................................................57

2. MANUEL RIVAS O EL CURANDERO DE SOMBRAS ...........................................58
Una entrevista con el doctor: La focalización dialógica de Sousa .............65
El problema del origen del texto (más voces trenzadas) ............................69
La reproducción s(t)ex(t)ual y el rectángulo semántico ............................77
La catarsis de la creatividad .......................................................................86
Algunas conclusiones: Otra vez al centro ..................................................91
Bibliografía ................................................................................................99

3. DULCE CHACÓN: HACIENDO LO BLANCO NEGRO .........................................101
El porqué de los motes ............................................................................106
La historia y la memoria: una novela bipolar ..........................................117
Otra novela dialogada ..............................................................................124
Algunas conclusiones...............................................................................142
Bibliografía ..............................................................................................152

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4. JAVIER CERCAS EN BUSCA DE UNA AUSENCIA .............................................154
El autor implícito y el narrador-protagonista ...........................................158
Forma, felicidad y ficción ........................................................................167
Conchi y Aguirre vs. el relato real ...........................................................170
La dialéctica española – Lo ideal, lo material y lo estético .....................180
Algunas conclusiones...............................................................................189
Bibliografía ..............................................................................................192

5. BERNARDO ATXAGA Y EL FUELLE TEXTUAL................................................194
Para terminar, otro punto de partida ........................................................198
La narrativa mediada y el mito del héroe.................................................210
Algunas conclusiones...............................................................................231
Bibliografía ..............................................................................................235

BIBLIOGRAFÍA .............................................................................................................237

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