La narrativa fantastica mexicana: Realismo, nacionalismo y fantasia en la postrevolucion.

Abstract

When one considers Latin American Fantastic Literature, the region that most often comes to mind is the southern cone, mainly Argentina and Uruguay. Much lesser known is Mexican Fantastic literature. However, to think that there has been no tradition in this genre is to be only partially mistaken. Perhaps the questions that should be asked are: why does everything seem to indicate that in Mexico, up and until the middle of this century, fantastic narratives were not cultivated? and, if fantastic narratives were in fact being produced, why and how were they excluded from the official literary canon? This dissertation posits that in the postrevolutionary period the aesthetic that was considered most propitious in the creation and fortification of a nationalistic ideology was the realist paradigm which sought to reflect and construct a common reality to be shared by all Mexicans. By focusing on the works of Doctor Atl, Alfonso Reyes, Octavio G. Barreda and Diego Canedo, my project illuminates the relationship between nationalism and a traditionally neglected genre in 20th Century Mexican fiction. Today, as we approach the 21st century, perhaps the biggest task for mexicanists is to remap and bring forth all the cultural productions marginalized by the realist/nationalistic paradigm, to make both a more and less realist literary Mexican historiography. The first chapter explores the properties and definitions that critics have traditionally associated with the fantastic. It is from this analysis that I derived the definition of fantastic used for this dissertation: that cultural production in which reality-perceived as such by a consensus of a community--becomes fractured by the intrusion of an element which breaks the natural laws accepted by the community. The second chapter studies the political and cultural context following the Mexican revolution, the reasons and devices behind the implementation of a realist esthetic, and the relegation of the fantastic. Chapter three explores the relationship in the nineteen century between the use of literature (both realist and fantastic) and the building of the Mexican nation. Finally, chapter four studies the fantastic narrative production published in postrevolutionary Mexico and the function it performed in this period either as support or as critical of the establishment.