La biografía difusa de Sombra Castañeda: un análisis histórico-literario | La biografía difusa de Sombra Castañeda: un análisis histórico-literario

Authors

MR Ramón Fernádez

Type

Text

Type

Thesis

Advisor

Melgosa, Adrián Pérez | Burgos Lafuente, Lena

Date

2013-12-01

Keywords

Balaguerismo, Cultural identity, Dominican Identity, Dominican literature, Sombra Castañeda, Trujillato | Caribbean studies | Balaguerismo, Cultural identity, Dominican Identity, Dominican literature, Sombra Castañeda, Trujillato

Department

Department of Hispanic Languages and Literature.

Language

es

Source

This work is sponsored by the Stony Brook University Graduate School in compliance with the requirements for completion of degree.

Identifier

http://hdl.handle.net/11401/77692

Publisher

The Graduate School, Stony Brook University: Stony Brook, NY.

Format

application/pdf

Abstract

The novelist Marcio Veloz Maggiolo is one of the most prolific Dominican writers of the last decades. In this thesis we devote our attention to the novel biografía difusa de Sombra Castañeda. We go through many of the modulation of the construct Dominican cultural identity presented in the novel. Trying to objectively define the construct Dominican Cultural identity, La biografía difusa de Sombra Castañeda explores its character's way of life, displaying the complex relationships between the dictator, Sombra Castañeda, and his subordinates, the Dominican people. We analyze these relationships with an eye on the way in which the subordinates are capable of imagining themselves as members of a community that transcends the geographical boundaries of Villa Francisca, a popular neighborhood of Santo Domingo. The novel not only refers the reader to specific historical facts, but also proposes spaces to re-think them. Through a study of the allegories, shadows, ironies and sarcasms presented in the novel, we identify how the novel depicts the trujillato and its effects over the present and future of Dominicans. The death of Esculapio Ramirez, main and absent protagonist of the novel is the passcode to the world of Serapio Rendón and Sombra Castañeda, respective alter-egos of Esculapio Ramírez and Rafael Leónidas Trujillo. Serapio Rendón is the main character in the town of Barrero; a town imagined by Esculapio Ramírez in the delirium of his last minutes of life. Sombra Castañeda is the dictator of Barrero. The town of Barrero provides us with a myriad of symbolisms; the perspective of a community darkened and silenced by the shadows of a dictatorship that is corrupted, demoralizing and unscrupulous. Through the way of life of the novel´s main characters, we offer the reader an historical retrospection that challenges the notion of cultural homogeneity promulgated by the trujillato, and the government of Joaquín Balaguer, known as the neo-trujillato. Within this historical retrospection, we analyze the construct Dominican cultural identity and its formation and evolution through time; we also analyze the vicissitudes of those Dominicans whose identities did not fit the rubric of the cultural identity delineated by the trujuillato. We utilize theoretical arguments made by Paulo Freire in Pedagogy of the Oppressed to show how Sombra Castaneda's government is a baking-government. | The novelist Marcio Veloz Maggiolo is one of the most prolific Dominican writers of the last decades. In this thesis we devote our attention to the novel biografía difusa de Sombra Castañeda. We go through many of the modulation of the construct Dominican cultural identity presented in the novel. Trying to objectively define the construct Dominican Cultural identity, La biografía difusa de Sombra Castañeda explores its character's way of life, displaying the complex relationships between the dictator, Sombra Castañeda, and his subordinates, the Dominican people. We analyze these relationships with an eye on the way in which the subordinates are capable of imagining themselves as members of a community that transcends the geographical boundaries of Villa Francisca, a popular neighborhood of Santo Domingo. The novel not only refers the reader to specific historical facts, but also proposes spaces to re-think them. Through a study of the allegories, shadows, ironies and sarcasms presented in the novel, we identify how the novel depicts the trujillato and its effects over the present and future of Dominicans. The death of Esculapio Ramirez, main and absent protagonist of the novel is the passcode to the world of Serapio Rendón and Sombra Castañeda, respective alter-egos of Esculapio Ramírez and Rafael Leónidas Trujillo. Serapio Rendón is the main character in the town of Barrero; a town imagined by Esculapio Ramírez in the delirium of his last minutes of life. Sombra Castañeda is the dictator of Barrero. The town of Barrero provides us with a myriad of symbolisms; the perspective of a community darkened and silenced by the shadows of a dictatorship that is corrupted, demoralizing and unscrupulous. Through the way of life of the novel´s main characters, we offer the reader an historical retrospection that challenges the notion of cultural homogeneity promulgated by the trujillato, and the government of Joaquín Balaguer, known as the neo-trujillato. Within this historical retrospection, we analyze the construct Dominican cultural identity and its formation and evolution through time; we also analyze the vicissitudes of those Dominicans whose identities did not fit the rubric of the cultural identity delineated by the trujuillato. We utilize theoretical arguments made by Paulo Freire in Pedagogy of the Oppressed to show how Sombra Castaneda's government is a baking-government. | 88 pages

Recommended Citation

Fernádez, MR Ramón, "La biografía difusa de Sombra Castañeda: un análisis histórico-literario | La biografía difusa de Sombra Castañeda: un análisis histórico-literario" (2013). Stony Brook Theses and Dissertations Collection, 2006-2020 (closed to submissions). 3483.
https://commons.library.stonybrook.edu/stony-brook-theses-and-dissertations-collection/3483