"To dream reality" : the reification of History in the novels of Ariel Dorfman /
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| Other Authors: | , , , |
| Format: | Thesis Book |
| Language: | English |
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1994.
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| Online Access: | Link to ProQuest copy Link to OAKTrust copy ProQuest, Abstract |
| Abstract: | This dissertation analyzes Ariel Dorfman's concept of "dream reality" and applies his theory to his four novels: Widows, The Last Song of Manuel Sendero, Mascara, and Hard Rain. Dream reality, the dynamic balance between a population's definition of its past, present, and future, is constructed in four stages. First, individuals internalize ancestral testimonies. Second, they determine which voices define their cultural identity. Third, they learn that an overreliance upon the past and the future obfuscates or nullifies the present. And finally, they articulate their own narrative voice, the result of combining the historical voices with their perspectives of the present. When these articulations are verbalized within a discourse community, they combine into a collective cultural identity. In the first chapter, I discuss Dorfman's theories concerning politics, culture, and literature, presented in How to Read Donald Duck, The Empire's Old Clothes, and relevant interviews. Applying Fredric Jameson's critical perspectives, I explain how Dorfman allegorizes his ideas in his own fiction, demonstrating to his readers how to dream reality. In the subsequent chapters, I apply the critical framework of dream reality to Dorfman's novels. In Widows, Dorfman shows the importance of familial identity to self-concept and illustrates how native history unifies a population against repression. In The Last Song of Manuel Sendero, he exemplifies through the failure of the fetus rebellion that a change will not occur if ideals remain unexpressed. In Mascara, he displays how history can be commodified and how relying extensively upon past voices erases self-identity. In Hard Rain, he enables his readers to experience the difficulty involved in the construction of history and he parodies the process of critical interpretation. In the last chapter, I apply Dorfman's theory of testimony in "Political Code and Literary Code: The Testimonial Genre in Chile Today" to the four novels analyzed in this dissertation. Similar to contemporary Chilean writers, Dorfman describes in his own narratives the accusing, recording, inspiring, and rationalizing processes essential to the preservation of cultural identity. |
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| Item Description: | "Major subject: English." Vita. |
| Physical Description: | vi, 244 leaves ; 28 cm |
| Bibliography: | Includes bibliographical references. |