TY  - JOUR
T1  - Rethinking the Man in Black: The Unconscious as a Mechanism in El cuarto de atrás
AU  - Sotelo, Elizabeth
PY  - 2019
DA  - December
JF  - Litera: Journal of Language, Literature and Culture Studies
JO  - Litera
PB  - İstanbul Üniversitesi
WT  - DergiPark
SN  - 2602-2117
SP  - 207
EP  - 217
VL  - 29
IS  - 2
LA  - en
AB  - This study offers new thoughts on the ambiguous presence of the man in black in the novel El cuarto de atrás (1978), by the Spanish writer Carmen Martín Gaite, Throughout the text, we have the uncertainty of not knowing if the man in black really exists, if he is a mental creation of the protagonist C., or if, indeed, any of the dialogue is trustworthy. Martín Gaite employs the enigmatic presence of the man in black to produce uncertainty throughout the plot. Based on this ambiguity, we seek to provide a new rethinking of the representation of the man in black. It is established that the man is a mechanism of the protagonist C., to guide her in her search to overcome her fears rooted in her turbulent past. Following the theoretical concept of Sigmund Freud, we seek to argue that, within an abstract dream, the unconscious of the protagonist is depicted in the shape of the man in black. It is only through the personification of her unconscious how C. examines her past, explores her present, and exhibits social and political criticism. She defeats her fears, reconstructs herself, and obtains a narrative for the book she is writing.
KW  - Interlocutor
KW  - Unconscious
KW  - Spanish novel
KW  - Twentieth century
KW  - Freud
CR  - Buczek, O. (2009). La Búsqueda de Interlocutor en la Novelística de Carmen Martín Gaite  (Entre Visillos, El Cuarto de Atrás, Nubosidad Variable). LSMLL, 33, 7-20. http://www.lsmll.umcs.lublin.pl/issues/33-2009/1buczek. pdf.
CR  - Carbayo Abengózar, M. (1998). Buscando un Lugar Entre Mujeres: Buceo en la España de Carmen Martín Gaite. Madrid: Universidad de Málaga.
CR  - Freud, S. (1963). The Unconscious. In P. Rieff (Ed.), General Psychological Theory: Papers on Metapsychology. New York, NY: Macmillan Publishing Company.
CR  - García, A. M. (2000). Silence in the Novels of Carmen Martín Gaite. New York, NY: Lang Publishing. Guerrero Solier, E. (1992). El Interlocutor en la Obra de Carmen Martín Gaite. Analecta Malacitana, 15, 319-331. http://www.anmal.uma.es/numero2/Solier.htm.
CR  - Herzberger, D. K. (1991). Narrating the past: History and the Novel of Memory in Postwar Spain. PMLA, 106 (1), 34-45. http://www.jstor.org/stable/462821.
CR  - Martín Gaite, C. (2003). El Cuarto de Atrás. Barcelona: Ediciones Destino. __________. (2000). La Búsqueda de Interlocutor. La Búsqueda de Interlocutor (pp. 23-32). Barcelona: Anagrama.
CR  - Ricoeur, J. P. G. (2000). El Recuerdo y la Imagen. La Memoria, La Historia, El Olvido (pp. 66-79). Buenos Aires: Fondo de Cultura Económica de Argentina.
CR  - Santana, M. (2011). De el Cuarto de Atrás de Carmen Martín Gaite a La Meitat de L’ànima de Carme Riera: Notas Sobre la Memoria Histórica en la Novela Contemporánea. Tejuelo, (10), 97-110. http://dehesa.unex.es/ bitstream/handle/10662/4658/1988-8430_10_97.pdf?sequence=1.
UR  - http://dergipark.org.tr/tr/pub/iulitera/issue//664880
L1  - http://dergipark.org.tr/tr/download/article-file/900792
ER  -