The diminishing power of writing and the mythical dimension of machines in José María Arguedas and Clarice Lispector

• In Event: Myth, Fable, and Children's Literature

Abstract

This paper is devoted to discussing the representation of national industries and the increasing technification of human life during the 1960s and 1970s in El zorro de arriba y el zorro de abajo (1971) by José María Arguedas and A Hora da Estrela (1977) by Clarice Lispector. Both novels depict the migration of lower-class characters from the hinterland to urban areas and their ensuing participation in the ongoing processes of urbanization and modernization. Additionally, the two novels enact a questioning of prestigious literary and cultural traditions. In El zorro de arriba y el zorro de abajo José María Arguedas inserts himself in the novel as a traditional indigenista writer threatened by challenging topics and experiences in Chimbote. On the other hand, in A Hora da Estrela Clarice Lispector constructed Rodrigo S.M., the fictional male author and narrator of the nouvelle, who embodies the characteristics of traditional writers of Ciclo das Secas. My hypothesis is that both novels diminish the authorial figures of traditional narrative forms and depict the increasing agency of lower-class characters in capitalist economies. While the authorial figures are beset by the exchange value of cultural production, the lower-class characters actively interact with modern technology –like industrial machinery in El zorro de arriba y el zorro de abajo, and radio broadcasting in A Hora da Estrela– and are able to overcome the reification of use value by enacting different forms of mythical and transcendental experiences.

Author

• Javier A Muñoz Diaz, University of Colorado