Speaking Narratives: Subjects, Voices and Structures By Natalia Valencia A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Hispanic Languages and Literatures in the Graduate Division of the University of California, Berkeley Committee in charge: Professor Natalia Brizuela, Co-Chair Professor Milton M. Azevedo, Co-Chair Professor Patricia Baquedano-López Fall 2011 Abstract Speaking Narratives: Subjects, Voices and Structures by Natalia Valencia Doctor of Philosophy in Hispanic Languages and Literatures University of California, Berkeley Professor Natalia Brizuela, Co-Chair Professor Milton M. Azevedo Co-Chair My dissertation questions the interstices between oral and written modes of communication through a theoretical study on the interactions of structure, context and subject in literary texts that attempt to convey a spoken discourse. It focuses on the function of language in three twentieth-century Latin American Novels: João Guimarães Rosa’s Grande Sertão:Veredas (1956), Julio Cortázar’s Rayuela (1963), and Guillermo Cabrera Infante’s Tres tristes tigres (1967). The study illustrates how these self-reflexive novels use language to develop narrative patterns that inscribe in the content the configuration of the form. The primary aim of the dissertation is to understand the written in terms of the oral, to account for how linguistic codes produce orality in written expression. The first chapter of the dissertation, “On Narrative,” provides the critical framework that sustains the thematic analysis of the following chapters. The chapter discusses the make-up of narrative expression by identifying parallel theoretical concepts in oral and written narrative styles. The overlap between the basic formal features of these discourses (events, text, telling and time) is highlighted to show how and why it is possible for a written narrative to emulate spoken discourse. Additionally, the chapter includes a reflection on how reading can be transformed into a listening experience. The concepts of literary dialect and eye dialect are explained to demonstrate that the audible component of a text is found in the visible structure of the writing. The second chapter, “Narrative Consciousness,” examines the use of literary dialogue as a structuring device in Brazilian novelist João Guimarães Rosa’s Grande Sertão: Veredas. Written entirely as an exchange between a first person narrator and a silent interlocutor, Rosa’s novel develops under a conversational framework, instead of following the traditional format of the genre. The chapter demonstrates how the portrayal of spoken discourse as the telling of a story by a mindful narrator reveals a commentary on the function and form of narration. The analysis centers on the interplay between orality and memory. The narrator’s discourse is analyzed to show how the protagonist theorizes about narrative by way of the narrating act, and how his 1 theory develops, within a fictional context, a particular conception on the uses of language and the limits of representation. The third chapter, “Articulating Authorship,” addresses the post-structuralist debate on the question of authorship in a study of the main works of Argentinean novelist Julio Cortázar and Cuban author Guillermo Cabrera Infante. This section explores, within the experimental contexts of Rayuela and Tres tristes tigres, how the portrayal of the image of the author corresponds to a perspective on the production of literature. The meta-discursive commentary present in both novels is viewed as constituting paradigmatic proposals for the development of the novel and the role of the author. The chapter centers on the idea of dialogue as action, and on the interactions between representation and criticism. It establishes a comparison between the declaratory remarks made by the fictional authors and the evaluation of these claims by non authorial figures. The chapter also analyzes how the authoritative role of the fictional authors in these novels is not contingent on their continuous presence in the narratives. The final chapter of the dissertation, “Voices that Echo,” conceptualizes narration as articulation. The chapter is about technique and the representation of style in Cabrera Infante’s Tres tristes tigres. Specifically, the chapter studies the simulation of José Lezama Lima’s literary aesthetics within Cabrera’s text through a close reading of the vignette entitled “Nuncupatoria de un cruzado,” to show that the underlying principles of a work are defined within discourse. Cabrera Infante reinvents recognizable narrative strategies and challenges the idea of authentic individual expression. The discussion illustrates how multiple discursive voices coexist within the narration and the ways in which these can be identified. The study exemplifies the emulation of another’s voice and reflects on the changes that narrative undergoes when imitation and innovation are brought together. My dissertation shows that meaning is inscribed in the structure of discourses and that literary texts that challenge the limits between the oral and the written correlate form and content. Furthermore, it promotes a change in the way literature is read critically by not imposing theoretical frameworks on the text, and instead, questioning literature from within. The overall goal of the dissertation is to develop a working theory on how to read the oral in the written, and to value the text as the primary source of critique. 2 To my family. “Home is where one starts from.” --T.S. Eliot i Introduction This dissertation explores the function of language in narrative discourse by examining the interstices between oral and written forms of communication in three Latin American novels: João Guimarães Rosa’s Grande Sertão:Veredas (1956), Julio Cortázar’s Rayuela (1963), and Guillermo Cabrera Infante’s Tres tristes tigres (1967). All three novels, as criticism has shown, are paradigmatic of the mid-twentieth century and of the development of the form of the novel. They are considered experimental texts that challenge the conventional principles of the novel genre (e.g. order, plot and temporality), and are regarded as illustrative examples of the “novela de lenguaje.” Because these novels were published during a booming period in Latin American literary production, they are traditionally studied as foundational narratives for the new Latin American novel. In this dissertation they are read as constituting radical cases of self-reflexivity: inscribing the narrative content in the configuration of the form. The novels are studied as the contextualization of narrative theory in fiction through the translation of orality into writing. The primary aim of the dissertation is to analyze the complex relationship between structuring, context and subject that can be observed in the portrayal of voices in literary texts. The dissertation strives to interpret the written in terms of the oral to account for how linguistic codes produce orality in written expression, and for how the translation from speech to text complicates the framework of the communication between the enunciator(s), the message and the receptor(s). The reading of Grande Sertão:Veredas, for instance, examines the relationship between discursive modes of expression and the form of a narration; it is a study of orality and memory in the process of constructing a first person narrative. The secondary objective of the dissertation is to examine the relationship between literary criticism and literary texts that propose their own theoretical framework. The study addresses three main issues through close reading: the portrayal of narrative consciousness, the post-structuralist debate on the question of authorship, and the stylistic issues pertaining to principles of aesthetics. Both Rayuela and Tres tristes tigres, for example, develop a dialogue and/or interplay between their formal structure as narrative texts and the theories on literary production presented by characters within the fiction. Furthermore, there is a constant tension in all three novels between specific proposals on how to compose a story and the external influences against which these standpoints are measured. Altogether, the dissertation helps to elucidate the pragmatics of the rhetoric of discourses, the syntactic forms used to express them, and the meaning conveyed by these structures. The first chapter, “On Narrative,” provides the critical framework that sustains the thematic analysis of the following chapters. The chapter questions the possibilities of signification of the term “narrative” and features the shared vocabulary used in different definitions to address the configuration of the communicative style. It discusses the make-up of narrative expression by identifying parallel theoretical concepts in oral and written forms of narrative. Five basic formal elements are studied: events (story), text (representation), telling (act), teller (subject) and time (order and chronology), and the overlap between them is highlighted to show how and why it is possible for a written narrative to emulate spoken discourse. The principles of context and alignment are also addressed as narrative is broken down into patterns of interaction. The performance of narrative as the translation of experience ii into expression requires mediation between the participants of the speech event. The discussion shows how the participant structure inherent in narrative instances demands active collaboration