Copyright by Sadie Nickelson-Requejo 2011
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Copyright by Sadie Nickelson-Requejo 2011 The Dissertation Committee for Sadie Nickelson-Requejo Certifies that this is the approved version of the following dissertation: The Child’s Perspective of War and its Aftermath in Works of Adult Prose and Film in Mexico and Spain Committee: Virginia Higginbotham, Supervisor Jill Robbins, Co-Supervisor Enrique Fierro Domino Pérez Cory Reed Elizabeth Richmond-Garza The Child’s Perspective of War and its Aftermath in Works of Adult Prose and Film in Mexico and Spain by Sadie Nickelson-Requejo, B.A.; M.A. Dissertation Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of The University of Texas at Austin in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy The University of Texas at Austin May 2011 Dedication To my loving family who has supported me in my every endeavor, and to Jim, the best partner I could ever imagine. You have encouraged and stood by me throughout this process and have my undying love and gratitude. I proudly present to you the dissertation that you made possible. Acknowledgements I would like to thank my supervisors, Virginia Higginbotham, Ph.D. and Jill Robbins, Ph.D., for their guidance throughout this investigation, and my supportive committee. A special thank you to Irene Matthews, Ph.D. for granting me access to her interview tapes with Nellie Campobello, the librarians at the University of Puget Sound, and Doreen Marchionni, Ph.D. for her assistance with research. You have my deepest gratitude. v The Child’s Perspective of War and its Aftermath in Works of Adult Prose and Film in Mexico and Spain Publication No._____________ Sadie Nickelson-Requejo, Ph.D. The University of Texas at Austin, 2011 Supervisors: Virginia Higginbotham and Jill Robbins This dissertation investigates the literary and cinematic use of the child’s perspective to present the Mexican Revolution and the Spanish Civil War and their aftermath in several Mexican, Spanish, and international (Mexican-Spanish collaborative) narratives of the 20th and early 21st Centuries written by adult authors and filmmakers, and targeted for adult audiences. The Mexican narratives are Cartucho and Las manos de mamá by Nellie Campobello, Balún Canán by Rosario Castellanos, and Bandidos, a film by Luis Estrada; selected Spanish works are El espíritu de la colmena by Víctor Erice, Cría cuervos by Carlos Saura, and El sur by Adelaida García Morales; and both international works are films by Guillermo del Toro, El espinazo del diablo and El laberinto del fauno. I attempt to determine the textual or cinematic function of the child as first person (homodiegetic) narrative viewer in these works, and I study the different ways in which vi this child’s point of view is constructed in order to depict the overwhelming tragedy of war. I note patterns and diversities in subject matter presented by the narrative voice, and observe the characteristics of the child narrative viewer’s world and priorities (as presented by the authors and filmmakers), paying careful attention to how each perceives and understands his or her country’s violent upheaval and its aftermath. The theoretical framework of this investigation draws mainly from trauma theory, Gothic studies, and the tradition of the fairy tale. I illustrate how within the war narrative in addition to the author’s/filmmaker’s desire to recreate the sentiment that a child would evoke in adult readers and viewers, the child narrative viewer is employed for three main reasons: to play upon or against preexisting notions of the child’s innocence; to represent (possibly subversively) the nation; and as therapeutic means of returning to a paradise lost or creating a paradise never experienced. vii Table of Contents Chapter 1: Introduction............................................................................................1 Chapter 2: Mexican Narratives ..............................................................................56 Cartucho .......................................................................................................61 Las manos de mamá......................................................................................72 Balún Canán .................................................................................................79 Bandidos .......................................................................................................92 Chapter 3: Spanish Narratives .............................................................................107 El espíritu de la colmena ............................................................................111 Cría cuervos................................................................................................128 El sur...........................................................................................................151 Chapter 4: International Narratives......................................................................164 El espinazo del diablo.................................................................................171 El laberinto del fauno .................................................................................193 Chapter 5: Conclusion - War as Seen through the Eyes of a Child .....................212 Bibliography ........................................................................................................237 viii Chapter 1: Introduction “A mí me parece que esta guerra está mal organizada. Los hermanos debían estar juntos.” -La orilla by Luis Lucía From the mouths of babes, indeed. It is statements such as the above that have inspired the present study of the literary and cinematic use of the child’s perspective when narrating armed conflict, specifically civil war, in several Mexican and Spanish short stories, novels, and films for adult audiences of the 20th and early 21st centuries. The focus of this study is the fictional use of the child’s perspective from which to narrate the child’s experience of armed conflicts, particularly the Mexican Revolution and the Spanish Civil War, and their aftermath. It attempts to determine the textual and/or cinematic function of the child as first person (homodiegetic) narrative viewer, and studies the different ways in which this child’s perspective is constructed. It looks for patterns and diversities in subject matter presented, observes the characteristics of the child’s world and priorities (as presented by the authors), paying careful attention to how each perceives war and its aftermath, and notes the specific devices used to simulate recollection when the narrative voice looks back upon these events. Finally this study illustrates how within the war narrative in addition to the author’s/filmmaker’s desire to recreate the sentiment that a child would evoke in adult readers and viewers, the child narrative viewer is employed for three main reasons: to play upon or against preexisting notions of the child’s innocence; to represent (possibly subversively) the nation; and as therapeutic means of returning to a paradise lost or creating a paradise never experienced. This investigation is novel in that it is the first such study of child narrative viewers to 1 bridge the Atlantic for the purpose of drawing comparisons between the narratives of these two armed conflicts, the Mexican Revolution of 1910-1920 and the Spanish Civil War of 1936-1939. As my present interest is narrative technique and not child development and maturation, this study addresses the perspective of the young child within fictional works, eschewing the Bildungsroman, the novel of development. For the purposes of this investigation I will define the “child” as pre-adolescent, or if the child’s age is not made explicit within the work, one who gives textual indications of being pre-adolescent (or younger than about thirteen years of age) for the bulk of his/her narrative viewing. The oldest child viewer of this study is Adriana in El sur, whose narration is also the most internalized and spans from her early childhood into adolescence, but whose focus remains the postwar’s impact upon her family and the mystery that surrounds her father. Thus, the question of the Bildungsroman also leads to the next parameter – subject matter. The present investigation excludes works in which the argument centers on the traditional transformation of the narrative voice from child into adult. Included are works in which the narrative voice relates one or a series of war- and postwar-related incidents. Although its 10-year-old witness to the Mexican Revolution experiences adult situations and a noticeable character shift, I include Bandidos by Luis Estrada in this study because these situations and transitions are brought about as a direct result of the Revolution and not by the reluctant child on his own developmental timeline. Estrada seems to suggest that the loss of innocence and onset of what could at first be seen as “adulthood” is actually just the war victim’s assumption of vicious living. 2 Finally, all works selected for this study were written in the 20th – early 21st centuries, are located geographically in two countries, Spain and Mexico, and share Spanish as their common language. The study is divided into three sections: Mexican, Spanish, and “international” narratives – films shot and produced with Spanish crews by Mexican director Guillermo del Toro. The Mexican narratives are Cartucho and Las manos de mamá by Nellie Campobello, in which a girl chronicles her family’s and town’s involvement in the Mexican Revolution;