The story of the storyteller: La tia Julia y el escribidor, Historia de Mayta and El hablador by Mario Vargas Llosa.

Abstract

This dissertation examines three of Mario Vargas Llosa's more recent novels--La tia Julia y el escribidor, Historia de Mayta, and El hablador--which I contend form a trilogy. This proposal is somewhat radical given that the works in question are not chronologically contiguous, nor has the author or publisher ever claimed the three are connected. Nevertheless, the novels offer ample structural and thematic evidence to support my argument. Indeed, the connections are so pronounced as to result in a significant synergistic effect when the three are read as a group. A critical study of this phenomenon yields new insights into Vargas Llosa's narrative. I analyze how each novel functions as a separate entity, how these entities are connected in a greater whole, and how this whole fits into the wider picture of VLL's literary development. Chapter I defines the notion of a trilogy in general and enumerates the characteristics peculiar to the specific trilogy I am proposing. The most significant of these is the presence of an autobiographical basic narrator who is a writer involved in examining his own life and literary projects. Chapter II focuses on La tia Julia y el escribidor as the novel in which Vargas Llosa breaks with the narratorial anonymity of his previous work by using the autobiographical narrator to reflect upon the formation of the young writer. Chapter III examines how the use of an autobiographical narrator in Historia de Mayta is exploited for metafictional purposes in a novel about the process of its own formation. Chapter IV treats El hablador in which the autobiographical narrator focuses on the fascinating issue of the ethnography of narrative by exploring the role of the storyteller in a heterogeneous society. Chapter V considers the findings of the preceding chapters in three broader contexts: the trajectory of Vargas Llosa's entire narrative production; the development of the author's political thought; and postmodern trends in contemporary narrative.