Histories of Mexico: Personification of the past in historical novels and historical soap operas.

Abstract

This dissertation examines the fictional portrayal of two definitive moments for the founding of modern Mexico: the Independence of 1810 and the Revolution of 1910. I establish connections between written and visual narratives produced in the 1980s and 1990s through a selection of historical novels (Los pasos de Lopez, by Jorge Ibarguengoitia; <italic>Madero, el otro </italic> and <italic>La noche de Angeles</italic>, by Ignacio Solares) and historical soap operas (<italic>Senda de gloria</italic>, by Miguel Sabido and Fausto Zeron-Medina; and <italic>La antorcha encendida</italic>, by Fausto Zeron-Medina) to reveal a dialogue that illustrates contrasting and complementary elements in contemporary concepts of the past as an entity that struggles between traditional and innovative representation. Through a combination of narrative and cinematic techniques, historical novels and historical soap operas are analyzed from a fictional narrative structure that shares three pivotal components: discourse, hero, and narrator. These components emphasize the significant role of the main characters---both historical and fictional---as the embodiment of history, as privileged personalized creators and en-actors of the past and, more importantly, as effective connectors to their audiences. The novels interrogate and deconstruct the traditional view of writing history through the manipulation of cultural and linguistic codes as well as through traditional and contesting recreations of heroes. On the other hand, soap operas function mainly as didactic tools to maintain a conservative image of the past through narrators and protagonists' pedagogical rhetoric. Their discourses emphasize collective participation that appeals to the basic concepts of national history installed in the social imagination. I also introduce the concept of historical soap operas as kinetic murals. Historical soap operas of the 1980s and 1990s construct the animated and personified modern fictional versions of the static large scale colorful paintings of the 1930s and 1940s that portray the national past on the walls of public buildings. Both depictions of history are intended to reach multiple and heterogeneous audiences, to provide a specific vision of particularly relevant historical moments, and to convey the double mission of instruction and leisure. If historical soap operas are read as kinetic murals, what can be observed is an entertainment-education enterprise for the masses that seeks to perpetuate nationalistic values and sociopolitical hegemonies.