This article aims to redefine the identity traits of an Andean protagonist presented in the narrative of Peruvian author Ulises Gutiérrez Llantoy. In first novel, Ojos de pez abisal, I shall... Show moreThis article aims to redefine the identity traits of an Andean protagonist presented in the narrative of Peruvian author Ulises Gutiérrez Llantoy. In first novel, Ojos de pez abisal, I shall concentrate on the way he modifies the traditional landscape. Andean geography is readjusted as it is presented through the eyes of an andino living in Japan. His second novel, Cementerio de barcos, presents the global experience of the main character, how he engages in the construction of urban alliances as part of peripheral dynamics. Gutiérrez Llantoys’s Andean protagonist emerges as a polyglot inhabitant of shanty towns, a world traveler that loves rock. Following James Holston’s concept of insurgent citizenship, I aim to reveal the contribution of recent Andean narrative to the global debate on identity construction. This exploration of the globalized andino implies taking on the challenge of redescribing traditional Andean components in a radical new setting. Show less
p.p1 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-align: justify; font: 12.0px 'Times New Roman'; -webkit-text-stroke: #000000}span.s1 {font-kerning: none}James Purdy’s novel Eustace Chisholm and the... Show morep.p1 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-align: justify; font: 12.0px 'Times New Roman'; -webkit-text-stroke: #000000}span.s1 {font-kerning: none}James Purdy’s novel Eustace Chisholm and the Works (1967) challenges the notion that sexuality is part of an identity that is interior to one’s self. Central to this argument is a brief scene from the novel in which the sexual identity of one of the characters, Amos Ratcliffe, is narrated as an Oedipal fantasy of patricide and incest. Read through the lens of melodrama this article suggests that the novel, and this scene in particular, exposes sexual identity as an exteriority that is projected onto a person by his or her environment. This constitution of sexual identity is enforced through the confession, which is central to both the psychoanalytic Oedipal scenario and melodrama. Melodrama, however, problematizes the psychoanalytic confession to an interior truth that is subsequently assumed as sexual identity, for it foregrounds the exteriority onto which the truth-claim of the confession is based. As such, reading Eustace Chisholm through the lens of melodrama opens up a way to think about sexuality without taking recourse to identity. Show less
