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Literary Nonfiction in Works by Isabel Allende and Guadalupe Loaeza

Morales McKale, Margaret A.
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1394791357

Abstract Details

2002, Doctor of Philosophy, Ohio State University, Spanish and Portuguese.
This dissertation analyzes selected works by Isabel Allende (Chile) and Guadalupe Loaeza (Mexico) within the theoretical framework of literary nonfiction. It also provides a comparative study of the history and the characteristics of literary nonfiction in both Latin America and the United States. For Allende, this analysis is limited to her novels La casa de los espiritus (1982) (The House of the Spirits; 1985), De amor y de sombra (1984) (Of Love and Shadows; 1987), and El plan infinito (1991) (The Infinite Plan; 1993). The focus is on the literary nonfictive techniques or characteristics of these books, revealing how they coincide with testimonial novels and documentary reportage. At the same time I show how Allende's writing not only lies in a borderland between fact and fiction, but also that it has a distinctive testimonial purpose. However, I do not argue that these novels are literary nonfiction, or that Allende intentionally writes literary nonfiction, but rather how different elements of this literary form appear in these works as part of her writing style. Unlike Allende, Loaeza is an active literary journalist, a chronicler of the here and now. At this point in time the body of her work is comprised of seventeen published texts. This dissertation centers mainly on her chronicles, which I investigate within the framework of Mexico's unique type of literary journalism --the contemporary Mexican chronicle. Loaeza and her fellow Mexican chroniclers document and critique the society in which they live -including its economy with all of its failures and its corrupt and inept power system--, referring again and again to the political misfunction of their society. I therefore do not study specific texts, but rather themes that reappear in many of them, what Loaeza calls her "obsessions." I demonstrate how her writing has a definitive purpose: to expose events to the public so they may demand accountability. Allende is most widely known as a novelist, whereas Loaeza is a practicing literary journalist and has not published a novel. My choice of these two writers who appear so fundamentally different, whose only point in common would seem to be the mere fact that they are --or were, in the case of Allende-- also journalists, is to analyze literary nonfiction in two distinct literary genres --the novel and the Mexican chronicle. This dissertation also reveals both authors' similarities, for not only are they natural storytellers, but they also hold many other things in common that include comparable backgrounds, their style of using a matter-of-fact tone and underlying sense of humor in their writing, and their moral and ethical insights addressing primary issues of our time.
Fernando Unzueta (Advisor)
Jorge Abril Trigo-Ehlers (Committee Member)
Ignacio Corona (Committee Member)
305 p.
Romance Literature

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Morales McKale, M. A. (2002). Literary Nonfiction in Works by Isabel Allende and Guadalupe Loaeza [Doctoral dissertation, Ohio State University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1394791357

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Morales McKale, Margaret. Literary Nonfiction in Works by Isabel Allende and Guadalupe Loaeza. 2002. Ohio State University, Doctoral dissertation. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1394791357.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Morales McKale, Margaret. "Literary Nonfiction in Works by Isabel Allende and Guadalupe Loaeza." Doctoral dissertation, Ohio State University, 2002. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1394791357

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

osu1394791357
192
© 2002, all rights reserved.
This open access ETD is published by The Ohio State University and OhioLINK.