National ethnicity and culture in the works of Mario Vargas Llosa.

摘要

In this dissertation I have analyzed five novels by Mario Vargas Llosa: Historia de Mayta, Lituma en los andes, La casa verde, El hablador, and ¿Quien mato a Palomino Molero? I have utilized several of the author's narrative techniques in order to demonstrate the connection between events and the change from one objective to another subjective or fantastique reality. By means of Todorov's narrative theory, I highlight the contrast and similarities between Vargas Llosa negative representation of members of the developed national culture of Peru's major cities as opposed his positive portrayal of the inhabitants of the underdeveloped societies country's mountain and jungle regions. Vargas Llosa's narrative realistically displays the racism, acculturation, and poverty of Peru in the period from the 1950's to the present day. The novels under discussion plunge the reader into the great problems of ethnicity, politics, and culture of a country in ruin. The author's objective is to make the reader aware of the marginalization of various jungle and mountain communities by the national culture's dominant sociopolitical groups. The result has been the creation of various isolated orphaned cultures. The author chooses the themes of racism, marginalization, acculturation, and the destruction of certain communities and political groups in order to show an authentic vision of a society in danger of dehumanization. The totality of destructive aspects of a society in decline is the result of the centralization of the government. Vargas Llosa indicates how the elite political, religious, military, business, and intellectual organizations exploit the diverse marginalized groups. This system abondons the outlying communities which, in consequence, create their own "nations", with their own cultures and myths. Throughout the work of Vargas Llosa, one sees the contradictor reality of the present cultures of Peru.