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Reflexiones de la representacion: Cultura popular y resistencia en Manuel Puig, Rosario Ferre y Angeles Mastretta
Abstract
Due to the recent increase of Spanish American literary works that incorporate elements of popular culture, this dissertation explores to function of popular culture in three texts by three Spanish American writers: Manuel Puig's Kiss of the Spider Woman, Rosario Ferre's “La belle durmiente” and Angeles Mastretta's Arráncame la vida. The study of the terms popular and high culture demonstrates that these have emerged from a desire to separate and distinguish one culture from the other. In addition to esthetic criteria, this separation has been politically, economically and socially motivated. The study of the issues that support this distinction reveals that many of the characteristics that supposedly belong exclusively to high culture are also present in many works belonging to popular culture. Therefore, the boundaries separating one culture from another are not as clear as it has been thought. One of the major arguments used against popular culture proves to be revelatory. It views this culture as a vehicle for ideological manipulation by those in power to perpetuate the status quo. Ironically, recent literary theories prove that a text or any representation can provoke different interpretations depending on its audience, thus undermining the view that popular culture can ideologically manipulate all people. If indeed popular culture, because of its omnipresence, can be used as an instrument for ideological manipulation of the masses, it can also be use to resist it. This dissertation explores how the aforementioned texts use popular culture as narrative strategy and as a vehicle for resistance and social criticism. It shows how these literary works appropriate yet subvert popular culture's strategies to acknowledge their effectiveness while simultaneously illustrating their possible manipulative effects. The texts also re-evaluate the function of high culture in society, questioning but not refuting completely, the binary opposition between high and popular culture. These literary works, however, present a popular culture that provokes introspection, creates social criticism and enriches high culture.
Subject Area
Modern literature|Latin American literature|Caribbean literature|Literature
Recommended Citation
Santiago-Stommes, Ivelisse, "Reflexiones de la representacion: Cultura popular y resistencia en Manuel Puig, Rosario Ferre y Angeles Mastretta" (1999). ETD collection for University of Nebraska-Lincoln. AAI9951305.
https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/dissertations/AAI9951305