Document Type
Dissertation
Degree
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
Department
Spanish
Advisor's Name
Santiago Juan-Navarro
Advisor's Title
Committee Chair
Advisor's Name
María Asunción Gómez
Advisor's Name
Maida Watson
Advisor's Name
Ana María Bidegain
Date of Defense
10-24-2011
Abstract
This thesis examines the phenomenological projection of space in two Cuban novels: La ninfa inconstante (2008) by Guillermo Cabrera Infante (1929-2005), and Todos se van (2006) by Wendy Guerra (1970-). Both novels are paradigmatic of two generations of Cuban writers who portray the city of Havana as a backdrop against which to project socio-political and biographical narratives. To problematize ethical and political omissions in the novels, this work incorporates disciplines such as philosophy, sociology, urbanism, architecture and literary theory. Through the concepts of prominent phenomenologists, such as Gaston Bachelard, Martin Heidegger and Maurice Merleau-Ponty, amongst others, this study evaluates how space becomes a construction to ambivalent dynamics of truth telling within contrasting, suffocating sociopolitical contexts. In addition, it explores how these phenomenological spaces are defined in relation to power.
For instance, the Cuban Revolution, and its aftermath of more than 50 years, brings forth a sense of displacement and placelessness. The novels present and develop both authors’ spatial consciousness (that we call “ontological space”), which is not necessarily a container of three-dimensional objects, but instead, fictional emergent constructions. This thesis concludes that literature can become a meaningful space to cope with unbearable realities.
Recommended Citation
Inguanzo, Rosa M., "Incursión en el Espacio Ontológico de las Novelas la Ninfa Inconstante de Guillermo Cabrera Infante y Todos se Van de Wendy Guerra" (2011). FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations. Paper 533.
http://digitalcommons.fiu.edu/etd/533