Space and word: a topoanalysis of the short story Famigerado (original) (raw)
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Bulletin of Hispanic Studies, 2010
In this study, I analyse space as a key marker of the metafictional characteristic of Jorge luis Borges' story 'Tema del traidor y del héroe' (in Ficciones) and Bernardo Bertolucci's film Strategia del ragno. I contend that the presentation of space-this understudied 'other' with regard to time in criticism of Borges-is a major aspect of the self-referential questioning at stake in his work. The descriptions of changeable places, or the blurring of binary oppositions such as the distinction of a stage versus an audience, highlight this questioning of habitual practices of writing and reading space in the literary medium. Similarly, Bertolucci, in his movie inspired by Borges' short story, presents a plurality of puzzling stages, distortions of spatial differentiations and metafilmic commentaries on the medium's techniques and effects of staging and, therefore, draws attention to the challenges of cinematographic (re)presentation. Resumen Este estudio examina la función meta-ficticia del espacio en el cuento 'Tema del traidor y del héroe' (Ficciones) de Jorge luis Borges y la película Strategia del ragno de Bernardo Bertolucci, inspirada en el cuento. arguyo que la creación del espacio-este 'otro' con respecto a la noción del tiempo, a menudo pasado por alto por la crítica sobre Borges-, es un aspecto clave del cuestionamiento metanarrativo presente en su obra. las descripciones de espacios cambiantes y maniobras de difuminar oposiciones binarias, por ejemplo la división entre un escenario y la sala de espectadores, subrayan el afán de poner en tela de juicio las prácticas acostumbradas de escribir y leer el espacio en el medio literario. Bertolucci a su vez presenta pluralidades de escenarios entrelazados y comentarios meta-fílmicos acerca de las técnicas y los efectos del proceso de escenificación, recalcando así las dificultades de una (re-)presentación cinematográfica. A major element in many of Borges' short fictions is the relationship between reality, human perception, and language. Donald l. Shaw, in Borges' Narrative Strategy, compares the texts with 'parables or fables which illustrate aspects of the general collapse of rational or religious certainties in our modern world, and the bewildering possibilities which thus emerge' (1992: 2). as Shaw describes it, bhs, 87 (2010) Ilka Kressner 978 the texts contain an 'implicit "what if…?" [or] "suppose that…"' (2), and thus expose dizzying, vertiginous and fantastic universes, where any previous ontological certainties have been abandoned. among other thematic and narrative elements, the settings convey the main idea of a metaphysical disorientation. The ambiguous spaces radically question any naïve assumption of a stable and reliable world and challenge the characters' ability to make sense of the threedimensional space around them and of themselves within it. Few literary critics have studied space in Borges' texts. 1 I contend that among other elements, the created spaces become markers of the metafictional quality of his writings. I will take as my example the three-page story 'Tema del traidor y del héroe' from 'Artificios' (Ficciones; see Borges 1999). In the second part of this analysis, I will study the elaboration of space in Bernardo Bertolucci's Strategia del ragno, a movie inspired by Borges' short story. The intermedial study allows me to compare the spaces of emulation and evaluate the self-reflexive (metanarrative and metafilmic) endeavours conveyed through space in both works. Borges' 'Tema del traidor y del héroe' has received much critical attention since its first publication in 1944. From its beginning, the story is clearly marked as a self-referential artifice, an artistic work in progress. The narrator considers writing, perhaps, the theme, 2 which, at this point, he barely sees: 'He imaginado este argumento, que escribiré tal vez… Faltan pormenores, rectificaciones, ajustes; hay zonas de la historia que no me fueron reveladas aún; hoy, 3 de enero de 1944, la vislumbro así' (1999: 496). However, while he writes about his decision to put the theme to paper or not, the story itself has already begun.
2019
The present article has as object to study two narratives: Between Silent Memories by Ungulani ba ka Khosa (novel) and Virgin Margarida de Licinio de Azevedo (fiction film). The approximation of the two works is suggested by the thematic exploration – the process of “re-education” of a fringe of society that is held by institutions of power as marginal or diverted from the ideals of the new nation in fields far from the cities. It is intended, in a comparative perspective, to reflect on the two narratives, from the analysis of spaces – topoanalysis – relating this category of narrative to memory: between individual and collective ones.
Constructing Space Through Words
The purpose of this study is to present a comparative approach on three different kinds of narration, which are all located while narrating the same event. They are all about the personal story of an immigrant - Aristotelis Rizos- from the area of Zagori, in Epirus, at the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century, who had developed entrepreneurship in Sofia and was later found imprisoned in Kavala in 1914, where he died under unexplained circumstances shortly after. The material providing the specific comparative approach is a) the correspondence of Aristotelis Rizos from Sofia with his wife in Zagori, Greece and b) the interview with Arisotelis’ granddaughter who is alive nowadays. Based on the material collected, one could observe the following three kinds of narration: a) the direct written narration of Aristotelis himself, b) the indirect narration about the events of life from his wife towards his (and her) granddaughter and c) the narration of Aristotelis’ granddaughter during the interview. On the methodological part, the material collected is perceived in a semiotic way: the three narrations (two direct, one indirect) are differently constructed on the level of the correspondence between the ‘signifier’ and ‘signified’ elements, meaning the difference between the various social contexts /codes of producing nodes. Through the analysis of the three narrations both in a linguistic and in a narrative level, important aspects of the social dynamics and the stratification of Zagori in the dimensions of space and time are rising: Zagori can be reconstructed as the ‘experienced place’ of its inhabitants and immigrants, during the time of action (the phase of the national integration in Balkans- integration in the Greek state) and the narrative time, which sometimes coincides with the time of action (the narration of Aristotelis Rizos) and sometimes with the ethnographic present (interview with his granddaughter). For this interpretation not only the socio-semiotic data of the narrations (linguistic and narrative) are being used, but also the bibliographic data on the history of Zagori in the 20th century.
Memory and Spatiality in Post-Millennial Spanish Narrative
2014
Departing from an interdisciplinary basis of the history and sociology of Spanish space and memory, Lorraine Ryan examines the narrative representation of the relationship between the preservation of a prohibited Republican memory of the Spanish Civil War and Franco Dictatorship, the transformations of Spanish public space, and the violation of domestic space during the period, 1931-2005 in seven texts of the Spanish memory boom. The interrelationship between Republican subalternity and space is redefined by the writers under study as tense and constantly in flux, undermined by its inexorable relationality, which leads to subjects endeavouring to instill into space their own values. The influence of gender, class, and generational status on the subjects' experience of space is also examined. A secondary theme of this monograph is the motivation underlying this coterie of authors’ commitment to the issue of historical memory. My typology of non-participatory generations defines the principal characteristics of the three generations who have narrativised memory in the noughties. Contesting postmemory as the dominant explanatory framework, my analysis reveals a diverse spectrum of motivation, ranging from identity differentiation and the reclamation of a gendered historical memory to the counteraction of the increasing politicisation of the memory boom. Table of Contents Introduction • Cultural Memory in Contemporary Spain. • Authorial Motivation • Memory and Spatiality: Theoretical Framework. • Memory and Spatiality in Spain: A History. Chapter One: Degenerative Rurality, Fertility, and Post-Transitional Justice in Dulce Chacón´s Cielos de barro. Chapter Two: The City and the Body in Ángeles López's Martina, la rosa número trece. Chapter Three: The Nullification of Domestic Space in Alberto Méndez’s 'Los girasoles ciegos.' Chapter Four: Spatial Assimilation and the Corruption of the Child in Emili Teixidor´s Pan Negro. Chapter Five: A Resistant Barcelona: Postmemorial Work and Hidden Transcripts in Carlos Ruiz Zafón’s La Sombra del Viento. Chapter Six: Rurality and the Second Space in Bernardo Atxaga´s El hijo del acordeonista. Chapter Seven: Rememory, Hybridity, and In-Between Space in José María Merino's La Sima. Conclusion Authorial Motivation. Memory and Spatiality. """"""""
Space-time and the production of meanings in Nuno Bragança's Directa
Time and Space, 2023
Various disciplines have studied the Space and Time categories over time, both separately and together. For humans, according to Tuan, "The experience of space and time is largely subconscious" (2014, p. 118). As in human experience, these two categories are inseparable in narrative genre because "'story time' emerges from the interplay of space, events, characters, and plot structure" (Scheffel, 2014). The inseparability of Space and Time is also present and visible in a city, as shown by several authors. Concerning these two categories, in Nuno Bragança's novel Directa, the author explores simultaneously the potential offered by the city of Lisbon and the narrative genre. In this chapter, we intend to show how the author treats space and time in the novel, especially, how he uses the practice of the city space as an intentional way to establish and treat various times and build essential messages of the work, especially through hero maps and routes, and reflections.
Review of International American Studies, 2022
A conversational exchange between German A. Duarte and Eva Leitolf, deals with the com-plex and problematic relationship between text and image. Through the Greek concept of topos (τόπος)—from which it seems to emerge the rivalry between text and image in the contempo-rary knowledge production—the text reformulates an interesting phenomenon raised with the development of digital technology: the spatialization of narratives. Once this theoretical framework is settled, the text proposes an analysis on the construction of social imaginaries, propaganda, and the mechanisms of meaning creation in our technological context. This first text develops arguments around a corpus composed by a series of photographic images that influenced Latin American public opinion and, at the same time, reinforced a series of stereotypes on that meridional part of the continent.