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Espacio y marginalidad en la narrativa mexicana del siglo XX

Abstract

This dissertation examines the relationship between marginalized individuals and space as it is represented in a selection of 20th century Mexican novels. I focus on analyzing the differences and inequalities expressed within specific ethnic (indigenous), gender (feminine), sexuality (homosexual) and socioeconomic categories (the working class). I rely on national and urban theoretical discourses in order to distinguish and delineate the voices and minority perspectives that are ever present in Mexican culture. I argue that the individuals in these novels become subjected to multiple forms of marginality which ultimately shape the types of cartographies they construct. Additionally, I demonstrate how in the novels: Balún Canán, Oficio de tinieblas, Los albañiles, Chin chin el Teporocho, El vampiro de la Colonia Roma and Las púberes canéforas, these alternative discourses challenge and subvert the ethical values established and legitimized by an institutionalized patriarchal order. By constructing these cartographies they are not only able to survive within the spaces they inhabit but also contest and problematize pre-established notions of Mexico's national identity.

In addition to analyzing urban spaces, I examine the interstices of domestic space; a place of reception and rebellious subversion of patriarchal regulations in the novels: Los recuerdos del porvenir, Como agua para chocolate, Dos Mujeres and La cresta de Ilión. I also focus on female characters who venture outside the private sphere of the home and into "public" spaces previously inaccessible to them in Hasta no verte Jesús mío, La insólita historia de la Santa de Cabora and Duerme. Ultimately, these novels reconfigure the parameters of traditional gender identities and demonstrate how various characters' subjectively create new meaning by re-mapping and dismantling the fixed and unitary nature of the official national discourse which they re-appropriate.

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