Ecos Goticos En La Novela del Cono Sur (Spanish Edition)

Ecos góticos en la novela del Cono Sur analyzes a wide range of gothic allegories in relation to their social contexts. Olmedo interprets latent motifs from the past and present-including the metaphorical presence of vampires, ghosts, monstrous figures, and houses in ruins-and expounds upon them, examining transformations and reinventions of the genre while offering new and original categorizations of Southern Cone Gothic. Chapter one explores the dissemination of gothic figures and forms from their eighteenth-century Nordic and European origins to arrival to Latin America, emphasizing this trajectory especially in the context of those countries located in the south of the southern hemisphere. Chapter two discusses how gothic æsthetic was used at the beginning of the twentieth-century to comment on the effects of modernization and scientific/psychological discoveries in the region through the study of works by Atilio Chiápori and Horacio Quiroga. Chapter three analyzes the gothic as a powerful feminist discourse for female authors of the first half of the twentieth century, such as María Luisa Bombal and Armonía Somers. Chapter four focuses on the way the gothic æsthetic was employed as a mechanism to communicate social and moral decay in works by José Donoso and Beatriz Guido. Chapter five explores how gothic was used to question political-social repression and a dictatorship by Alejandra Pizarnik. Finally, the conclusion demonstrates that while the Gothic æsthetic maintains certain constants throughout the twentieth-century, its underlying meaning shifts to reflect the dominant political-social themes of each era, thus ensuring its continued appeal to popular audiences.