In Four Works of Pedro Juan Gutiérrez
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UTOPIAN SPACE(S) IN FOUR WORKS OF PEDRO JUAN GUTIÉRREZ by LORI OXFORD (Under the Direction of José B. Álvarez, IV) ABSTRACT Much of the literature produced during the first decade of Cuba’s Special Period, an age of severe economic crisis generated by the collapse of Communism in Eastern Europe, contains references to the desperation experienced by people living on the island at the time. In some of the narrative works by Pedro Juan Gutiérrez, the circumstances in which Cuba’s people found themselves during this period are best described as a series of transposed realities, from nostalgically utopian to graphically dystopian, and many points in between. In this dissertation, I consider the different –topian spaces presented in the semi- autobiographical works of Gutiérrez, including utopia, dystopia, and heterotopia. Although these spaces occasionally do appear as the traditional interpretations, which equate tranquility with utopia and chaos with dystopia, the –topian spaces often appear in unexpected or non-traditional forms, such as death, prison, religion, insanity, or even the act of writing. Gutiérrez utilizes these coexisting but apparently contradictory spaces to depict the Havana in which he resides, a space alternating between utopian dreams and the nada (“nothingness”) that pervades his characters’ daily existence. INDEX WORDS: Cuba, utopia, dystopia, heterotopia, dirty realism, Pedro Juan Gutiérrez, Special Period, chaos UTOPIAN SPACE(S) IN FOUR WORKS OF PEDRO JUAN GUTIÉRREZ by LORI OXFORD B.A., University of South Carolina, 1998 M.A., Georgia State University, 2002 A Dissertation Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of The University of Georgia in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY ATHENS, GEORGIA 2007 © 2007 Lori Oxford All Rights Reserved UTOPIAN SPACE(S) IN FOUR WORKS BY PEDRO JUAN GUTIÉRREZ by LORI OXFORD Major Professor: Dr. José B. Álvarez, IV Committee: Dr. Betina Kaplan Dr. Lesley Feracho Dr. Reinaldo Román Dr. Noel Fallows Electronic Version Approved: Maureen Grasso Dean of the Graduate School The University of Georgia May 2007 iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS To each of the members of my committee, Dr. José B. Álvarez, Dr. Noel Fallows, Dr. Lesley Feracho, Dr. Betina Kaplan, and Dr. Reinaldo Román, I offer heartfelt thanks for their having invested so much time and attention in me, from early help compiling reading lists to revising this dissertation. My most sincere gratitude especially goes to my major professor, Dr. José B. Álvarez, for patiently reading and editing countless drafts of not only this dissertation but also all of my scholarly production over the past three years. His enthusiasm and expertise have been invaluable in my formation as an academic, and I value them as much as I do his friendship. My trip to Cuba in 2005 to gather research would not have been possible without the financial support awarded to me by the Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies (now the Latin American and Caribbean Studies Institute) and the Graduate School at UGA. That trip allowed me to meet Juan Nicolás Padrón, Ricardo Hernández, Jorge Domingo, and Alberto Garrandés, all of whom helped to orient me in Cuban fiction and Cuban reality. A special thanks goes to Padrón, a true intellectual, for spending so much time as my expert guide in Havana and for allowing me to attend his classes on social history at the Centro Dulce María Loynaz. Back at home, the following people all contributed in one way or another to this dissertation, and I offer them my wholehearted thanks: first of all, my v parents, Gary and Joan Oxford, for their unending love and support, as well as their indulgent understanding when my visits home were cut short for research or writing; Brandon Woodworth, for sharing with me a thick stack of articles and interviews; Joyce Moss, for cutting out and saving for me any newspaper article that dealt with Cuba; and my cherished friends and fellow lovers of all things Cuban, both Diego del Pozo and Dr. Elena Adell, for endless questions, conversations, and opinions. I am especially grateful to both of them, for they have taught me much and have served as examples for me in many respects, not only academically. I also thank a few special friends whose generous favors and advice have made my life easier while working on this dissertation: Amy Hernandez, Erica Maier, Claudia Happel, Kim Partain, Dr. John Ross, and Dr. Héctor Fernández-L’Hoeste. Pedro Juan Gutiérrez has been a fundamental figure in my academic explorations, not only because of his literary works, four of which I analyze here, but most especially because of his bona fide revelations, his patient answers to so many of my doubts. I value tremendously our many exchanges, and I thank him enthusiastically for his time and his trouble. Finally, and most of all, to Alberto, my partner in everything, who has been throughout this entire process my uncomplaining companion, dictionary, housekeeper, personal assistant, proofreader, accountant, cheerleader, and taxi driver, allowing me to concentrate on “the important stuff.” I could not have finished this journey without you, nor would I have wanted to. Thank you. vi TABLE OF CONTENTS Page ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS............................................................................... iv CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION....................................................................... ..... 1 1.1 Cuban utopias.................................................................. 1 1.2 Cuban literature after the revolution................................8 1.3 A look at utopia as a genre.............................................16 1.4 Utopias as a theme in literary and filmic texts...............30 2 UTOPIA (CHAOS VS. TRANQUILITY).......................................37 2.1 Chaos vs. tranquility.......................................................37 2.2 Utopia = non-existence...................................................51 3 HETEROTOPIA ............................................................................57 3.1 Heterotopian planes/spaces....................................................57 4 PERSPECTIVES: RELIGION.........................................................85 4.1 Religion as utopia...........................................................85 5 INTERTEXTUALITIES ..............................................................114 5.1 Literature as utopia: escaping from reality...................114 6 CONCLUSIONS............................................................................145 6.1 Active vs. passive approach to utopia..........................147 6.2 Heterotopias (death, prisons, etc.) ...............................150 vii 6.3 Unexpected reactions to chaos....................................152 WORKS CITED..............................................................................................154 APPENDICES.................................................................................................163 A INTERVIEW WITH PEDRO JUAN GUTIÉRREZ, Dec. 2005...163 B INTERVIEW WITH PEDRO JUAN GUTIÉRREZ, June 2006..203 1 CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION Nearly all creators of Utopia have resembled the man who has a toothache, and therefore thinks happiness consists in not having a toothache. -George Orwell No se puede entender América si se olvida que somos un capítulo de la historia de las utopías europeas. —Octavio Paz 1.1 Cuban utopias Not surprisingly, the unique combination of historical circumstances surrounding Cuba has proven to be especially conducive to the harboring of utopian ideals, which can be found in artistic (literary, filmic, musical) expression or even in social and political realms. Cuba’s long history of superlatives assigns it a distinctive place in the Latin American reality: one of the leading sugar producers worldwide throughout much of the island’s recorded history; the last Hispanic country in Latin America to abolish slavery; among the last Spanish possessions to gain independence; the first Latin American nation to establish a Communist state;1 and the country with the longest lasting travel ban and near- 1 It is significant to note here that, to date, the only Latin American nation besides Cuba to have carried out a successful popular revolution is Nicaragua, a full twenty years after Cuba’s revolution triumphed. In fact, Cuba’s ideas and ideologies served as a respected model for the Nicaraguan revolutionaries. Nicaraguan poet and novelist Gioconda Belli, who actively participated in her country’s revolution, tells in her memoir, El país bajo mi piel: Memorias de amor y guerra (2002), how she eagerly accepted an invitation from the Cuban 2 total embargo from the US, which has contributed in no small part to the island’s economic difficulties. All of these circumstances combined contribute to utopian thinking from Cubans living on the island or in exile, as well as from those who have never visited it, particularly when considering what the island and the identity of its inhabitants may represent. A longing for a romanticized, faraway utopia did not begin with Cubans in exile, though; many slaves from west Africa idealized their homeland to such a degree that even slaves who were several generations removed from the African-born ones carried a nostalgia for a perfect motherland that they had never even seen. Phillip Wegner explains that utopia “offer[s] a mechanism by which people will invent anew [their] communities as well as the spaces they inhabit. The utopia’s imaginary community is thus not only a way of imagining