Apr
17
Asturias, Marquez, and Carpentier
Posted by: | April 17, 2010 | Comments Off on Asturias, Marquez, and Carpentier
First of all I have found that it was very interesting to experience the theme of identity in vary different ways throughout the books.
In El Reino de Este Mundo, for example, we have seen how Haitians have had to form a sense of national identity. At the beggining of hte novel, their identity was a mixture of the remains of their chilhood culture and of the identity imposed upon them by "los amos". Over the course of the book, everything from the economic order of the country to national identity had to be reformed, therefore it was interesting to ‘witness’ the formation of a national identity.
In Cien Anos de Soledad, however, we have seen how a town has lost, in a sense, its common identity. At the start of the novel, the town is united and comes together for example to watch the gypseies bring in fogeign artifacts (technologies); the excitment that is felt around these ‘showings’ as well as the sense of community within the town give it "spirit" in a sense. The town is full of magical beliefs which give it a sense of unique cultural identity and separates it – in a good way – from the rest of the world. Over the course of the novel we see how this good separation turns into alienation and solitude as technologies from the outside world begin to enter the town and the sense of magic, as well as the sense of community in the town dissipates and Macondo loses its "spirit". In this case, the book does not take us through the creation of an identity as it does in El Reino de este Mundo but rather through the destruction of an identity.
In Leyendas de Guatemala, the sense of identity also appears. The theme of identity int his novel revolves around the meeting of two identities, especially in the Leyenda del Sombreron, for example. The anecdote in which the ball enters the religious world from the outside world can serve to symbolize the fact that once two identities are living together there is no way that they will not affect eachother, (eventually becoming intertwined) therefore overall the sense of identity in this novel can be expressed as the combination of two identities into a new, common one.
