The recontextualizing function of masking in Eduardo Mendoza's parodic detective series
Abstract
Eduardo Mendoza's four-novel series, comprising El misterio de la cripta embrujada, El laberinto de las aceitunas, La aventura del tocador de señoras, and El enredo de la bolsa y la vida, spans over thirty years in the post-Franco transition. It is nominally a detective series, yet many aspects of it borrow from other sources such as the picaresque and the quixotic genres. This creates a complex, humorous pastiche of genres and generic types masking a pointed social critique of transitional Spain. In this book, I define these masks as neutral identity markers that serve to regulate the context in which a given interaction occurs; masks define the expectations governing these contexts. Mendoza's masks studied in this project include those of identity, gender, genre, urban space, and temporality, and the interaction of these masks underscores the complex social situation of Spain during the transition to democracy and into the Eurozone. By applying the dialogic theories of Mikhail Bakhtin developed over the whole of his work, I demonstrate that in Mendoza's series, an astute understanding of marked identity, and the ability to present oneself in certain ways, is the hallmark of the investigator's successful search for agency and liberty. Masks are interactive and responsive to one another; we use masks to understand one another and the world around us, responding to it by identifying our place in it, and anticipating the spaces we and others can occupy in the future.
Degree
Ph.D.
Advisors
Hart, Purdue University.
Subject Area
Modern literature|Romance literature
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