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

60 reframing latin america
deviant, magical, mystical, and, most important, different. But Boom literature
was consumed avidly by international readers and by Latin Americans,
and in great quantities at that. Many Boom authors became national heroes
or cultural icons and many complicated and interesting questions were
raised as a result. Were Latin American readers defi ning themselves through
the lens of “otherness” that was being nurtured in an international arena of
expectation about Latin America?
The Boom is even more problematic when we consider its authors’ backgrounds.
Almost to the last, they are middle- or upper-class white or mestizo
men who have traveled widely. Many of them have lived outside Latin
America for many years and many have held high political positions inside
their home countries. Though they claim to represent Latin America’s heterogeneous
condition, they are actually highly homogeneous and represent
a distinct minority. Rarely have they been excluded from political, social, or
economic power, and rarely have they lived the lives of the characters they
create in their writings. This does not mean that a rich, white, urbane male
is incapable of writing about a poor, rural, Indian woman. But when virtually
all of the Boom authors are rich, white, urbane men, their claims about
revealing the authentic Latin America become more problematic.
In short, a semiotic approach examines how narrative constructs cultural
meanings and identities. This text will examine readings on the basis
of how their narration creates meanings and defi nes identities, not on
authorial intention. As readers, we will be challenged to interpret the text
not in terms of what the author claims to believe or to portray, but rather
on what these claims reveal about the author’s lens. How do narrated ideas
become part and parcel of the events portrayed, and how is the meaning of
this reality in a state of constant fl ux? No longer does narrative belong only
to the written world. It becomes the stuff of everyday telling, listening,
acting, reacting. It is all around us all the time.
Notes
1. Theorists who argued for the need for aesthetic literary standards are
said to belong to the school of New Criticism. Some of these are: Ivor Armstrong
Richards, William Epson, F. R. Leavis, Kenneth Burke, John Crowe
Ransom, Allen Tate, Yvor Winters, Cleanth Brooks, R. P. Blackmur, William
K. Wimsatt, Jr., and René Wellek. It should be noted that Wimsatt and
Monroe C. Beardsley wrote a famous article, “Intentional Fallacy,” which
argues that confl icts over interpretation of a work cannot be resolved by
returning to the author’s intentions and should focus on the work itself.
William K. Wimsatt, Monroe C. Beardsley, “The Intentional Fallacy,” The
Verbal Icon (Lexington: U of Kentucky P, 1954). See for a defi nition of intentional fallacy.