City University of New York (CUNY) CUNY Academic Works All Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects 2-2017 Subversion and Transcendence in the Latin American Modern Travel Novel (1928-1976) Andrea Babsky The Graduate Center, City University of New York How does access to this work benefit ou?y Let us know! More information about this work at: https://academicworks.cuny.edu/gc_etds/1854 Discover additional works at: https://academicworks.cuny.edu This work is made publicly available by the City University of New York (CUNY). Contact: [email protected] SUBVERSION AND TRANSCENDENCE IN THE LATIN AMERICAN MODERN TRAVEL NOVEL (1928- 1976) by Andrea Babsky A dissertation submitted to the Graduate Faculty in Hispanic Luso-Brazilian Literatures in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, The City University of New York 2017 © 2017 Andrea Babsky All Rights Reserved ii Subversion and Transcendence in the Latin American Modern Travel Novel (1928-1976) by Andrea Babsky This manuscript has been read and accepted for the Graduate Faculty in Hispanic and Luso-Brazilian Literatures in satisfaction of the dissertation requirement for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. ____10/28/2016_____________ ___Magdalena Perkowsa________________________ Date Chair of Examining Committee ______10/28/2016__________ _______José del Valle____________________________ Date Executive Officer Supervisory Committee: Magdalena Perkowska Elena Martínez Francisco Soto The City University of New York iii Abstract Subversion and Transcendence in the Latin American Modern Travel Novel (1928-1976) by Andrea Babsky Advisor: Professor Magdalena Perkowska Key words: travel, novel, Latin-American fiction, space, myth, Trickster, semiotics, voyage, subversion, transcendence, hegemonic discourses The focus of this dissertation is the role that travel plays in Latin American novels that stem from 1928 to 1976, specifically, Macunaíma, Los pasos perdidos, El reino de este mundo, and Mascaró, el cazador americano. Departing from the fact that this period of time in history was marked by political and cultural change and upheaval, different aspects and interpretations of travel as manifested in the novels of the corpus are explored as a means of subversion and transcendence to hegemonic discourses. Travel is viewed as a means of disruption, particularly of limits and borders, be they geographical, political and cultural. The idea of a heightened sense of potentiality inherent in travel is also explored as part of the subversive and transcendent nature of travel. The beginning of the work delves into alternative spaces that are created by voyage. These spaces are described as differential spaces using Lefebvre’s definition of the term. Following a discussion of space, myth in travel is explained as an open system that resists particular power structures. Travel’s role in disseminating myths is also studied. Subsequently, the function of the Trickster as a mythological figure and as a peripatetic storyteller is analyzed. The final aspect considered in this study is the creation and the use of alternative semiotic systems that exist inside and outside of travel that subvert and transcend authoritative discourses of power. iv Acknowledgements: I would like to express profound gratitude to my adviser, Dr. Magdalena Perkowska for her dedication, patience, and guidance that helped to bring this work to fruition. Without her steadfast efforts and insights, this thesis would not have been possible. I would also like to extend my appreciation to the members of the committee: Dr. Elena Martínez and Dr. Francisco Soto for their time and their invaluable feedback that I will continue to use in future endeavors. I would like to express my gratitude to Dr. Lidia Santos for her commentary, insights, and for introducing me to Macunaíma. I would also like the thank the Graduate Center of the City University of New York for giving me the opportunity to study and research topics of which I am passionate. I would like to thank Dr. Lía Schwartz for the opportunities that she generously bestowed upon me during my time at the Graduate Center. I would also like to thank Dr. José del Valle for his support and compassion. I would also like to thank Dr. Paul Julian Smith for introducing me to Henri Lefebvre and Michel de Certeau. I would like to thank Dr. Raquel Chang-Rodriguez for her advice and for helping me to prepare for my first conference. I would like to express my thanks to Dr. Malva Filer for introducing me to Mascaró, el cazador americano. I am grateful for Michael DiSchiavi and Abigail Méndez for their generous help with the revisions of drafts. I would like to thank Fredy Ola, whose constant support and unwavering faith were inspirational. I would also like to thank my family, in particular, Stephen, Daria, and Cathy, for all of the love and support that they have given me throughout the years. I would also like to thank friends and family members for their encouragement which helped me to keep going. Lastly, to José (Ihor) and Oleksa, two traveling Tricksters, I love you and I miss you. v Table of Contents: Introduction 1 Chapter One: Voyage: Space, Time, and Praxis 21 Chapter Two: Travelling Myths 89 Chapter Three: The Travelling Trickster and Mobile Memories 157 Chapter Four: Signs of Life and Alternative Semiotic Systems: Poetry, Dance, and Music in Motion 227 Conclusion 294 Bibliography 298 vi Introduction: Subversion and Transcendence in the Latin American Modern Travel Novel (1928-1976) La libertad del hombre se funda y radica en no ser más que posibilidad. Realizar esa posibilidad es ser, crearse a sí mismo. -Octavio Paz Travel, by its very nature, is an action of crossing boundaries and limits, and the traveler as agent, transgresses limits and boundaries by moving beyond them. Travel also creates zones of possibility and exchange where disparate elements are put into contact with one another which can give rise to coalescence and other permutations. The traveler becomes a bridge between what is known in one region and what is unknown in another. Travel is explored in this study as a means that magnifies and extends potentialities and possibilities in ways that can subvert and transcend discourses of power. According to Mary Helms, by travelling and reaching (and surpassing) the outer limits of a defined place, one obtains knowledge [of the Other] and this knowledge can render the traveler dangerous: no longer completely fitting or representing the paradigms or structures of a specific place, the traveler has gone beyond them (78-82). The patterns that these elements of interchange and exchange can take, the fusions and confusions are unpredictable, much like travel itself. The traveler embodies the freedom of possibility created by travel, of (re)creating oneself and (re)creating the world around him/her. Travel has been seen as subversive because of its disruptive potential and its unpredictability, even when carried out by those in power, since established borders are crossed, lines of division are transgressed – people are in motion, events are set in motion, quotidian rhythms are altered. Travel is what inspired the authors of the novels explored in this study to cross boundaries in their writing. These novels are: Macunaíma, by Mário de Andrade (Brazil, 1928); El reino de este mudo and Los pasos perdidos, by Alejo Carpentier (Cuba, 1949 and 1953); and Mascaró, el cazador americano, by Haroldo Conti (Argentina, 1976).1 1 While El reino de este mundo and Los pasos perdidos are studied, it should be noted that Carpentier has written other works that also use travel as a trope. Among them are: El viaje a la semilla (1944), in which a sense of temporal travel is emphasized, and the novel El arpa y la sombra (1979). 1 If possibility and potentiality are keys to freedom, and the keys to ourselves, travel creates conditions that set us outside of the usual structures to bring us into contact with new possibilities that become more numerous, obvious and real. Blinded by usual networks, webs of interaction and dynamics, we are taken outside of ourselves through travel, where potentiality, always there, always available, becomes more palpable- almost inevitable. Travel then subverts the usual structures of everyday life and the systems put in place that control, to different extents, our personal rhythms, thereby thrusting us into the realm of the unknown, the borderlands of neither here nor there, the lands of possibility and potential. In recognizing the latent states that surround us, we acknowledge the freedom within us and our capacity for transcending structures and paradigms after, venturing from place to place, we discover how random these are. For instance, Lewis Hyde observes that the traveler realizes that shame (as a mechanism of control), “varies from place to place” (162). By noticing the illusion that holds together certain systems, by raising the veil and turning around what is seen, we rise above it and have the potential to alter it. Travel also questions the position or perhaps the illusion that history is a set of determined circumstances that lead to determinable events that shape history rather than a set of possibilities that manifest themselves as rhythms or continue as possibilities. History as potentiality is a re-examination of past events, and among certain scholars, the emphasis on possibility becomes a focus of understanding history and ourselves. For example, James Clifford in Routes, deliberates on past events at Fort Ross, which leads him to question the historical currents of different chronologies: For the forces-economic, political, environmental-that have brought us all together here are materialized as historical reality only through particular local projects and stories. These are neither uniform nor finally determined. Historical reality, what happens in nonrepeating time, is a changing set of determinations, not a cumulative process or a teleology.