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Uniform TitleA country where everyone was happy: incest, trauma, and the missing father in the memory of post-war Spain
NameGragera de Leon, Flor (author), Sifuentes-Jauregui, Ben (chair), Martin-Marquez, Susan (internal member), Diamond, Elin (internal member), Kim, Yeon-Soo (outside member), Gragera de León, Flor (author), Rutgers University, Graduate School - New Brunswick,
Degree Date2008-01
Date Created2008
SubjectComparative Literature,
Spanish fiction--20th century--History and criticism,
Franco, Francisco, 1892-1975
DescriptionMy dissertation explores the ways in which the traumatic penetration of Francoism pervades and is reformulated in Spanish contemporary fiction and cinema by women through symbolic incest. I develop the concept of "ideological incest" as a critical tool to read Franco's penetration of his infantilized daughter-Spain, which models the interdependent relationship between the State and citizens through the perverse "love parameters" of incest. While the novella El sur stages the trauma of autarky without palliatives, the novel La veu melodiosa and the film Cuando vuelvas a mi lado challenge the trauma of Francoism, giving way to the theorization of "trauma's flexibility," related to the idea of "working through" and of mourning.
I contend that a reading of traumatic symptoms alongside historical analysis serves to illuminate trauma as a concept that can be reformulated through the awareness of and emphasis on generational distance. Incest is the principal textual device that I explore, and it is also the axis around which the idea of the mutual seduction of State and home revolves. Incest is redefined in such a degree that it is no longer confined to the realm of the unspeakable. The incest taboo is transformed through monstrosity (La veu melodiosa), and the reversal of the Oedipal paradigm (Cuando vuelvas a mi lado), making the construction of memory possible. The path of violence at work in the national unconscious expressed through cultural manifestations can be contested through fiction and psychoanalysis. Such resistance does not entail closure on the past or its cleansing; rather, following Jo Labanyi's trope of haunting, it makes a dialogue with those who were forgotten possible.
I contend that a reading of traumatic symptoms alongside historical analysis serves to illuminate trauma as a concept that can be reformulated through the awareness of and emphasis on generational distance. Incest is the principal textual device that I explore, and it is also the axis around which the idea of the mutual seduction of State and home revolves. Incest is redefined in such a degree that it is no longer confined to the realm of the unspeakable. The incest taboo is transformed through monstrosity (La veu melodiosa), and the reversal of the Oedipal paradigm (Cuando vuelvas a mi lado), making the construction of memory possible. The path of violence at work in the national unconscious expressed through cultural manifestations can be contested through fiction and psychoanalysis. Such resistance does not entail closure on the past or its cleansing; rather, following Jo Labanyi's trope of haunting, it makes a dialogue with those who were forgotten possible.
NotePh.D.
NoteIncludes bibliographical references (p. 246-261).
Genretheses
Persistent URLhttp://hdl.rutgers.edu/1782.2/rucore10001600001.ETD.17255
LanguageEnglish
CollectionGraduate School - New Brunswick Electronic Theses and Dissertations
Organization NameRutgers, The State University of New Jersey
RightsThe author owns the copyright to this work.