The vampire figure in contemporary Latin American narrative fiction.

摘要

Although there are fewer literary examples than in British, North American, French, and German literatures, the vampire figure in Latin American narrative fiction appears with a more profound sexuality. This dissertation examines six Latin American novels from 1910 to 1979 that have vampire characters with highly visible sexualities that stand apart from the traditional heterosexual paradigm of sexual behavior as compulsory tools for the re-examination of traditional sexuality in Latin American literature.;Before examining the six novels named below, the dissertation presents for the first time a comprehensive review of Latin American literature with vampire characters. This dissertation then compares the vampire figure within six Latin American narratives with Bram Stoker's character Count Dracula from his 1897 novel Dracula. The difference between Count Dracula and the six vampire characters examined in this study is their narrative presence: in Stoker's novel, the vampire appears very seldom in the narrative; he is a secondary figure left to the descriptions of those pursuing him. By contrast, the six vampires examined in this dissertation remain consistent and visible parts of the novels. A more important difference between the eight narratives is what Stoker only indirectly addresses through his title character. Through the vampire's extreme sexuality, the six Latin American novels allow a reconceptualization of human sexuality from the point of view of one of popular culture's most famous horror icons.;The French post-structuralist critic Michel Foucault argues in The History of Sexuality (1976) that human sexuality has undergone since the seventeenth century a steady shift into silence because of restrictions placed on it. At the same time, however, Foucault points out that sexual activities remain a point of interest in Western societies, especially in legal, medical, and juridical discourses; at once, then, sexuality is voiced/not voiced. This dissertation looks at the concept of the confession discussed in Foucault's History of Sexuality as it applies to six Latin American novels and their expression of sexuality.;The six novels and their countries are: Froylan Turcios's El vampiro (1910) (Honduras), Manuel Bedoya's El general Bebevidas, Monstruo de America (1939) (Peru), Jose Abimael Pinzon's El vampiro (1956) (Colombia), Rafael Maluenda's El vampiro de trapo (1958) (Chile), chapter ten of Manuel Mujica Lainez's Cronicas reales (1967) (Argentina), and Luis Zapata's Las aventuras, desventuras y suenos de Adonis Garcia, el vampiro de la Colonia Roma (1979) (Mexico). These works have received very little attention in critical studies of contemporary Latin American narrative not only as stories about vampires, but as valid treatments of the topic of sexuality as well.* ftn*Originally published in DAI Vol. 57, No. 9. Reprinted here with corrected bibliographic information.