Louisiana State University LSU Digital Commons LSU Doctoral Dissertations Graduate School 2012 Short story cycles of the Americas, a transitional post-colonial form: a study of V.S. Naipaul's Miguel Street, Ernest Gaines's Bloodline, and Garbriel Garcia Marquez's Los Funerales de Mama Grande Benjamin Sands Yves Forkner Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_dissertations Part of the Comparative Literature Commons Recommended Citation Forkner, Benjamin Sands Yves, "Short story cycles of the Americas, a transitional post-colonial form: a study of V.S. Naipaul's Miguel Street, Ernest Gaines's Bloodline, and Garbriel Garcia Marquez's Los Funerales de Mama Grande" (2012). LSU Doctoral Dissertations. 2191. https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_dissertations/2191 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at LSU Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in LSU Doctoral Dissertations by an authorized graduate school editor of LSU Digital Commons. For more information, please [email protected]. SHORT STORY CYCLES OF THE AMERICAS, A TRANSITIONAL POST-COLONIAL FORM: A STUDY OF V.S. NAIPAUL’S MIGUEL STREET, ERNEST GAINES’S BLOODLINE, AND GABRIEL GARCIA MARQUEZ’S LOS FUNERALES DE MAMA GRANDE A Dissertation Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of the Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College In partial fulfillment of the Requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in The Interdepartmental Program in Comparative Literature by Benjamin Forkner License, Université d’Angers, France, 2000 Maîtrise, Université d’Angers, France, 2003 M.A., Louisiana State University, 2004 August 2012 For Valentina Dela Forkner ii Acknowledgments First and foremost, I would like to thank Dr. John Lowe, my dissertation director, for his support, help, encouragement and friendship throughout my years as a masters and doctoral candidate. I am extremely grateful for Dr. Adelaide Russo’s unrelenting efforts to fight for the Comparative Literature program and its students, to create a community of scholars, to foster literary cross-disciplinary discussions and encourage me to reach for new heights. I also want to express my gratitude to Dr. Christian Fernandez who introduced me to Modern Latin American literature and opened a vibrant new literary world to my eyes. Dr. Laura Martins played an important role in my theoretical development. I also want to thank my wife, Telba, who has supported and helped me during my research. Valentina, my daughter, did not speed up the writing process, yet, her smile, good humor and love was a source of joy and inspiration during these last two years of work. Of course, my parents, Ben and Nadine, have constantly been a source of inspiration and guidance. Finally, I would like to thank my friends and fellow instructors who always gave me attentive ears and encouraging words. iii Table of Contents Dedication…………………………………………………………………………………………ii Acknowledgements…………………………….…………………………………………….…..iii Abstract …………………………………………………………………………………….…….vi Chapter 1. Introduction: from Past Theories to a New Model…….…………...1 1.1 The Modern Short Story……………………………………………….………….…2 1.2 The Emergence of the Short Story Cycle…………………………….……………...5 1.3 The Latin American Short Story Cycle……………………………….……………..10 1.4 The Caribbean Short Story Cycle………………………………….………………...15 1.5 Towards a New Definition of the Short Story Cycle………………..……………....17 1.6 V.S. Naipaul’s Miguel Street………………………………………………………...24 1.7 Ernest Gaines’s Bloodline……………………………………………………………26 1.8 Gabriel García Márquez’s Los funerales de la Mamá Grande………………………28 2. Chapter I: V. S. Naipaul’s Miguel Street ………………………….…………………….32 2.1 Introduction…………………………………………………………………………..32 2.2 The Sequence……………………………………………………………………...…40 2.3 The Cycle…………………………………………………………………………….52 2.4 Community, Comedy, and Calypsos……………………………………………...…59 2.5 Conclusion…………………………………………………………………………...72 3. Chapter II: Ernest Gaines’s Bloodline …………………………………………….…….79 3.1 Introduction…………………………………………………………………….…….79 3.2 The Structure of Bloodline……………………………………………………...……89 3.2.1 The Beginning of the sequence….……………...…………….……………...90 3.2.2 The loss of innocence………….………………………………..……………92 3.2.3 The emergence of maturity…………………………………………………..96 3.2.4 The unavoidable wind of change………………………………….…...…….99 3.2.5 The end of the sequence and the emergence of the cycle………….……….104 3.3 Key Elements Supporting the Structure………………..……………...……………108 3.4 The Women and Men of Bloodline…………………………………………………117 3.5 Conclusion………………………………………………………………………….121 4. Chapter III: Gabriel Gracía Márquez’s Los funerales de la Mamá Grande …………...127 4.1 Introduction……..…………………………………………………………………..127 4.2 Introductory Cluster………………………………...………………………………140 4.2.1 “La siesta del martes”………………………………….………………...…140 4.2.2 “Un día de estos” ………………………………………………………….146 4.3 The Core Cluster: Delusion………….…………….……………………………….150 4.3.1 “En este pueblo no hay ladrones”……….…………………….……………150 4.3.2 “La prodigiosa tadre de Baltazar”………………………………….……….156 iv 4.3.3 “La viuda de Montiel”…………………..………………………………….161 4.3.4 “Un día después de sábado”…………….………………………………….167 4.4 The Concluding Cluster…………………..……………………………….………..172 4.4.1 “Rosas artificiales” …………………………………………………………172 4.4.2 “Los funerales de la Mamá Grande” ……………………………………….175 4.5 Conclusion………………………………………………………………………….183 5. Concluding Statements ………………………………………………...…….…….…..189 Works Cited…..……………...……..………………………………………………………197 Vita…...……………...……………………………………………………………………...204 v Abstract This dissertation is a study of three short story cycles which are representative of the genre in the Americas: Miguel Street (1959) by V.S. Naipaul, Los Funerales de Mama Grande (1962) by Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Bloodline (1968) by Ernest Gaines. I analyze each of these cycles in depth concentrating on the structure, the order of the stories, and unifying elements such as characters, themes, internal symbolism, place, language and events, in order to demonstrate that these short story collections are indeed short story cycles. I examine these cycles in light of the two themes or factors out of which the modern cycle originates: desire for selfhood versus desire for community and desire for change versus desire to remain the same or even to go back. I believe that the modern short story cycle relates in some ways the dynamic duality of a desire or acceptation of individuality, selfhood, independence, versus the desire for a lost, denied, ideal (utopia) community. The cycle and more specifically the cycles from the South, Hispanic America and the Caribbean reflect the need for individuals to assert their selfhoods but also the need to challenge an imposed mass identity in order to form a new collective identity based on revived and revised inherited myths. The concept of change, evolution, transition in the community, is maybe not inherent to all short story cycles; however, I believe it is a key factor in cycles of the American South, Latin America and the Caribbean. These three regions have many common traits not only in literature, but also in their history, and especially in a reforging of their own national/regional identity. All three cycles focus on a transitional period in the history of their nation which is derived from the postcolonial experience. vi 1. Introduction: from Past Theories to a New Model The short story cycle is a term of reference in critical theory that has emerged only in the last thirty years; however, this narrative method is far from being new; as a matter of fact, A Thousand and One Nights (approximately 11th century), Boccaccio’s Decameron (mid 14th century) and Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales (late 14th century) have all been labeled as short story cycles by recent critics. Critics such as Forrest Ingram, Susan Mann and Gerald Kennedy, all at the forefront of short story cycle theory, refer to these masterpieces in order to show that the genre is based on a traditional form that reaches far back in time. It is hard, however, not to question how these canonical texts can be considered as short story cycles and, if they are, in what way they function. If Ingram’s definition of the short story cycle has been challenged and contested, it nonetheless prevails in recent criticism; he defines the genre “as a book of short stories so linked to each other by their author that the reader’s successive experience on various levels of the pattern of the whole significantly modifies his experience of each of its component parts” (Ingram 19). According to this definition can we consider the Canterbury Tales as short story cycle? When Chaucer first conceived the Canterbury Tales, he envisioned about a hundred and twenty tales, two tales for each character on the way to Canterbury and two on the way back. However, the Canterbury Tales includes only twenty-four tales and scholars are still debating the order in which these tales should be published. Even if Chaucer himself had arranged the tales and finished his work, we would have to study in depth various aspects of unity such as time, place, themes, and characters within the different stories, in order to determine whether or not the Canterbury Tales can be considered a genuine short story cycle. 1 However, the purpose of this study is not to debate whether or not the works aforementioned are legitimate cycles or to relate the modern cycle to other forms, such as the Renaissance