Reframing Latin America: A Cultural Theory Reading ... - BGSU Blogs

212 reframing latin america
Regardless of the explanation for these differences, simply noting their
existence allows us to recall Hall’s argument about place, or the Latin
American–based theories of local knowledge. The authors of Latin American
romance novels operate within a broad sea of discourses about romance
and nationalism, but they are also coming from a distinct place, with particular
needs and conceptualizations. Thus, their novels or the broader,
foundational fi ction discursive genre in which those novels are participating,
will moderate or alter global frameworks to the needs of their localities.
Sommer’s arguments about foundational fi ctions provide an excellent
opportunity to see how discourses shape perception while being affected
by the human conduits through which they operate. As we said in the introduction,
all of us participate in discursive production and transmission,
even though we are not at all aware of it. While no one necessarily controls
discourse, involvement in it has the potential to alter it.
One of Sommer’s primary contributions to our understanding of Gallegos
is her demonstration that he participated in a larger Latin American discourse
of using heterosexual love to legitimize the state’s power. Whether
or not Gallegos was aware of that larger pool of writers and romance novels
is irrelevant. What is crucial is that his foundational fi ction reveals the
ways that discourse speaks through Gallegos. His national project was just
one of many being written in the nineteenth century.
Sommer begins this excerpt by examining how Gallegos’s life and historical
era informed his nationalist project. This is a good opportunity to see
how someone conducting literary analysis practices Stuart Hall’s approach
to identity. Sommer identifi es Gallegos’s place and uses it as a basis to understand
where he was situated when he wrote Doña Bárbara.
As you read, keep in mind that the most challenging part of the excerpt
is her explanation of “semantic bleeding.” Sommer uses this term to credit
a text for offering nuanced appreciations of complex issues, such
as the arbitrary nature of language in a legal system, the distinction between
right and wrong, and the defi nition of civilization and barbarism.
Nevertheless, Doña Bárbara remains a deeply essentialistic work in which
Gallegos insists on the importance of a system that draws clear lines
between these complex differences. In this way the novel asserts the need to
establish truth. Order, however arbitrary it may be, is restored through the
legal system. It is the legal system that, in turn, restores land to Santos
Luzardo and allows him to marry Marisela. In the end, national consolidation
and the state’s authority are achieved nonviolently through Marisela
and Santos’s love and their desire to procreate and populate the vast, empty
lands.