Ghosts of Exile in Nancy Morejón’s ‘Ante un espejo’

• In Event: Fear, desire, migration, and ghosts: gender construction in Latin American literature

Abstract

Deemed by many a ‘spectral turn,’ spectrality theories have emerged during the latter half of the 20th century as a compelling critical approach, especially for research in the humanities and social sciences. Adding the Cuban exile experience to the growing body of spectral discourse, in this presentation I examine ghostly elements in Nancy Morejón’s poem, “Ante un espejo.” Closely reading this poem through a spectral lens illuminates how the poetic voice employs ghostly language to warn her friend of the dire consequences of exile. If she is to leave her country, the poetic voice cautions, her home will stalk her through her new city and haunt her from within. She will not only feel out of place in the space surrounding her, but also suffer a terrible emptiness in herself. Observations drawn from this reading of Morejón’s writing of exile lead to larger questions regarding the movement of cultures, the perception of exile as written from the island, and the location of home. Looking at aspects such as these in the poem, I focus on the ghostly elements to investigate how hauntings act as resonances of a past, becoming unhinged in space and time to linger in the present. As part of a larger research project in which I explore the spectral and monstrous as a way of connecting to the past, my reading of Morejón’s poem adds an exciting approach of looking at how migration, cultures in contact, and change over time is written in the literature of the Americas.

Author

• Lauren K Reynolds