El Bildungsroman En El Caribe Hispano

El bildungsroman en el Caribe hispano by Violeta Lorenzo Feliciano A thesis submitted in conformity with the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Department of Spanish University of Toronto © Copyright by Violeta Lorenzo Feliciano 2011 El bildungsroman en el Caribe hispano Violeta Lorenzo Feliciano Doctor of Philosophy Department of Spanish University of Toronto 2011 Abstract This dissertation examines the bildungsroman genre in Cuba, Puerto Rico, and the Dominican Republic. A close examination of the development of this genre demonstrates that it has ideological implications that link the young protagonists’ development with that of the nation. The authors on whom I focus—Ángela Hernández, Rita Indiana Hernández, René Marqués, Pedro Juan Soto, Magali García Ramis, Severo Sarduy, and Jesús Díaz—do not merely imitate the European model but revise, adapt, and often subvert it thematically and, in some cases, aesthetically. I argue that these bildungsromane differ, for the most part, from the European prototype due to their openly political themes, such as the establishment of the Estado Libre Asociado in Puerto Rico, the 1959 Revolution in Cuba, and, in the case of the Dominican Republic, Trujillo’s dictatorship. I claim that Dominican bildungsromane do not propose national projects or models but rather question the purported homogeneity of identity of the country as a normalized political body. On the other hand, in Cuba and Puerto Rico the genre has been used to promote absolute discourses of nationality as well as political projects that must be questioned due to their discriminatory and sometimes racist and violent nature. ii Supplementary Abstract This dissertation examines the bildungsroman genre in Cuba, Puerto Rico, and the Dominican Republic since the literary studies about this genre in Latin America and the Caribbean, tend to ignore texts produced in these countries. The Anglo-Caribbean bildungsroman has received a lot of attention because it presents the tensions these countries have had with the legacies of their colonial past. There have also been several books produced within the last ten years that focus on the Spanish-American bildungsroman such as Leasa Lutes’ Aproximaciones teóricas al concepto del “bildungsroman” femenino (2000), Julia Kushigian’s Reconstructing Childhood (2003), and Yolanda A. Doub’s Journeys of Formation (2010). Nonetheless, the presence of the Spanish Caribbean in these studies is limited to a few Cuban novels mentioned in one of these books. Cuban bildungsromane have received more attention and one can find articles and book chapters about the presence of this genre in Cuban literature. To a lesser extent, the same can be said about Puerto Rican coming of age novels. Unfortunately, the Dominican bildungsroman remains pretty much unexplored. To this date there is not a comprehensive study about this region’s coming of age narratives. My investigation seeks to contribute to the study of the bildungsroman in Latin American and Caribbean literatures by focusing on its production in Cuba, Puerto Rico, and the Dominican Republic, and by providing a starting point for future studies in this area, particularly now that the genre seems to be gaining notoriety in the study of minority discourses, postcolonial theories, and comparative literature in general. The idea for this project started when I noticed that some of the most important Latin American essayists such as José Martí, José Enrique Rodó, Octavio Paz, Pedro Henríquez Ureña, and Antonio S. Pedreira have used youth as a trope in their texts to push nationalist and political iii agendas. The idea that youth is an important component in the creation and development of a nation has been around for some time. Youth was idealized at the end of the 19th century to the point in which it was seen as the driving force behind a nation’s progress. Curiously, this idea is still popular today (Tollinchi 87). Due to the frequent use of this trope in many Latin American essays, I became interested in studying the role of youth in narratives. This led me to the study of the bildungsroman. A close examination of the development of this genre demonstrates that it has ideological implications that link the young protagonists’ development with that of the nation. The bildungsroman originated in Germany. Most literary critics agree that Goethe’s Wilhelm Meister is the first text of this kind. In the broadest sense, a bildungsroman is defined as a novel in which “[The hero depicts] the youth of that time, how he enters life in a blissful daze, searches for kindred souls, encounters friendship and love, but then how he comes into conflict with the hard realities of the world and thus matures in the course of manifold life-experiences, finds himself, and becomes certain of his task in the world” (quoted in Kontje 29). Based on this definition it is easy to understand why the term “bildungsroman” is commonly translated as “coming of age novel”. A meticulous study of the term bildung, the way these novels were considered part of the “German spirit,” and the political projects that aimed to train young men for political careers that would improve their nation and avoid uprisings like the French Revolution shows that this genre has an ideology behind it. This ties in with Fredric Jameson’s argument about how a genre in its “emergent, form…is essentially a socio-symbolic message, that…is immanently and intrinsically an ideology in its own right…When [genres] are reappropriated and refashioned in quite different social and cultural contexts, this [socio- symbolic] message persists and must be functionally reckoned” (141). From Germany the genre iv spread to England and France and eventually to other European and non-European countries. Writers in each country favored certain topics over others in the coming of age narratives that they wrote depending on the national and political situation of the countries they lived in. This dissertation answers two questions. Since the bildungsroman genre originated in Europe but has been culturally borrowed by non-European countries, how are the bildungsromane produced in the Spanish Caribbean islands different from the classic European model, namely, the coming of age narratives produced in 19th century Germany and Britain? On the other hand, since there is an ideology behind this genre that points to nationalist and political projects, what do the Spanish Caribbean texts studied tell us about a national identity or a political project? What do the young protagonists represent in these novels? On the introduction to my dissertation I discuss in detail the origin of the term bildungsroman, the different meanings and translations that have been proposed for this term, the ideological implications that are behind the genre, and how it relates to national formation. I also explain why the bildungsroman is a perfect genre to propose national projects since it presents an “allegory of individual and social progress…of national and personal formation” (Esty, “Virgins” 259, 267). I also explain how in literary discourses modernity, nation, and youth are intertwined: the nation or national identity is built upon modernity which—in the bildungsroman—is represented by the young protagonist that faces positively the changes that it [modernity] brings in order to become a respected citizen. The focus of chapter one is the Dominican bildungsroman. I discuss Ángela Hernández’s Mudanza de los sentidos (2001) and Charamicos (2005), as well as Rita Indiana Hernández’s Papi (2007). These texts have barely been studied due to their recent production and the invisibility Dominican literature has had in North American. I claim that Dominican v bildungsromane do not propose national projects or models but rather question the purported homogeneity of identity of the country as a normalized political body. The bildungshelds in Ángela Hernández’s novels come of age during Trujillo’s dictatorship and Balaguer’s repressive regime. In these texts the country’s official history crumbles because of the way it ignores the number of murders that took place during the dictatorship. For this reason the social integration of these protagonists is ironic; a favorable social integration that lacks major hardships and resembles some of the classic bildungsromane would imply accepting the political system that is questioned and criticized throughout these narratives. I argue that the absence of the typical “close ending” found in classic bildungsroman points to a series of failed political and national projects. Rita Indiana Hernández’s novel presents the failure of the different industrialization and modernization projects of the Balaguer regime. Even though the bildungsheld in Papi goes through certain development, the fact that she never quite ceases to be a girl in her early teens evidences that the country has been unable to move forward. For this reason, the bildungshelds in these three novels do not experience a teleological development and their coming of age is not narrated chronologically. In my opinion this hints at a fragmented subjectivity that resembles the contradictions of the government’s political and national agenda. Puerto Rican bildungsromane are analyzed in chapters two and three. The novels studied are René Marqués’ La víspera del hombre (1959), Pedro Juan Soto’s Usmaíl (1959), Magali García Ramis’ Felices días, tío Sergio (1986), and Manuel Martínez Maldonado’s Isla Verde (El Chevy azul) (1999). I contend that in Puerto Rico the bildungsroman genre has been used to promote absolute discourses of nationality as well as political projects that must be questioned due to their discriminatory and sometimes racist and violent nature. All Puerto Rican bildungsromane are related to the establishment of the Estado Libre Asociado in 1952, the wave vi of industrialization that took place during those years, and Muñoz Marín’s plan to create a cultural nationalism that would divert attention from the colonial status the Estado Libre Asociado really is.

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