LUISA VALENZUELA – CUENTOS
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Luisa Valenzuela
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Argentina, 1938-present
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Journalist, and writer of some short stories and
novels
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Focus in traumatic memory (particularly as
related to the period of repression related to the “guerra sucia”)
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Also interested in sexual oppression and
feminine desire, and gender
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Use of “lo lúdico” and metafiction
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Use of satire and irony
Social/political context – “Guerra sucia” in Argentina
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Political right’s attack against and oppression
of the political left (with supposed goal being the “montoneros” or the urban
guerrillas)
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Many unexplained disappearances (somewhere
roughly between 15,000 and 30,000 – no number ever presented officially,
because still haven’t discovered all the cadavers)
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Large political cruelty – torture and
assassination
“Cuarta versión”
Characters
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Bella – self-conscious society beauty; actress
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Pedro – ambassador from an unnamed Hispanic country
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Compiler of story / principal narrator
Notes from story /
Summary / Main events
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Different narrative voices – narrator in italics
suggests he’s gathering this story from several scattered pages; he’s trying to
piece the story together
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Various mentions of the mirror – Bella looking,
talking into the mirror, not trusting it
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Little mentions that provide social context: man
with a machine gun, messenger, embassy, whispers about 15 corpses that appeared
in the river and a friend gone underground
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Embassy party where Bella meets the ambassador,
Pedro
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Party at a friend’s house with the ambassador
there – a bomb goes off nearby… “Maybe the next day they’d read about it in the
papers. Or maybe not”
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Another party
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Narrator: “What bothers me most about this story
is what’s being disregarded, what isn’t being told”… the political refugees are
being concealed within the story
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Narrator: “This seems to be a story about what
is left unsaid”
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Narrator: “I believe Bella was far more
politically committed than she had ever wanted to admit, even to herself”
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The refugees – Pedro is sheltering them secretly
in the embassy
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Pedro’s Uncle Ramon – stories Pedro tells about
him are actually code
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The refugees sometimes go crazy and anxious,
etc. Bella helps Pedro with problems.
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Bella and Pedro’s intimate relationship – she wants
it to be secret so it can’t be used against them
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Pedro arranges for Bella to go on an acting tour
in his country – he wants her away from danger. She enjoys it for a while, but
soon wants to go back home, is worried about her friends.
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Bella: “If I go back to my country and they
torture me, it will hurt. If it hurts I’ll know that this is my body”
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Bella’s phone call with an old friend back home –
conversation in code
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Bella and Pedro eventually return to her country
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Pedro’s government is removing him from his
post; he has to return to his country and wants Bella to go with him.
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Bella and Pedro have a big last party; she
invites all her old friends. That way they’re protected from raids outside. The
party comes to an abrupt end late at night, armed guards come in and attack…
the end.
Themes
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Hidden political message
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Fairy tales
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Sexuality
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Sex as mundane, where as real life (politics) is
hidden interesting focal point
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The title, "Cuarta versión", seems to
suggest that this is the fourth version of the story, that there are other
buried versions. From the very outset, the title indicates the themes of
re-writing and censorship, and the theme of the SUB-TEXT.
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Experimentation / avant-garde
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Play on words/language
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“languid, avid hand”
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Use of alliteration at times to play with
language
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Influence of metafiction
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Various narrative voices
Influence of
post-modernity / Post-modernism
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Multiple narrators
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And principal narrator has multiple roles –
sometimes narrator and sometimes transcriber
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There are gaps missing from the story –
unreliable source that doesn’t guarantee a full story
Influence of
metafiction
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The title – implies that it’s the fourth
version/draft of the text; there’s not one single version of the text
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Use of an authorial mask
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Questioning
of the text: “Uno de los tantos principios - ¿en falso?” (4) --- don’t even
know if this beginning is correct
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Bit of chinese box structure – story of tío
Ramón
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Undermining of fictional conventions
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Can’t trust in narrator
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Characters unlike traditional types
“Cambio de armas”
Characters
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Laura – protagonist; seems to have suffered
amnesia
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Roque – Laura’s husband, called by many names
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Martina – the maid that lives in the house, very
soft character
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One and Two – men that arrive with Roque and
always wait outside the apartment door
Notes from story
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A woman who seems to have suffered amnesia; she
interacts with only her husband (Roque), who she doesn’t really remember, and
another woman who lives in the apartment, Martina
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There is a picture of Laura and Roque’s wedding
that she’s fascinated with because it’s the only clue to who they are
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Also fascinated with the door, and the concept
that she could leave through it if she wanted to
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The plant – wilting, “like it should”
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The mirrors – he puts one on the ceiling and
forces her to watch herself when they have sex
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He yells at her violently and it triggers a
memory (a memory from torture?)
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She yells NO (or remembers yelling it?)
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“a window limiting a view instead of revealing
one”
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Roque has colleagues over for a drink before
lunch; he buys her a new dress – she feels like they interrogate her… vague
references to the Guerra Sucia
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Refers to her sexual desire / sexuality as a
well (I think?)
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Roque brings a whip to the apartment and Laura
freaks out --- tries to soothe herself and has the sudden conviction that her
loved one is dead, that he was killed
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Roque: “don’t torture yourself, let me torture
you”
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Roque undresses Laura in the living room instead
of the bedroom, and opens the peephole on the door so that One and Two can
watch them have sex… she’s very aware that they can see and hear her… her sense
of separation from her own body
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Laura’s realization that she has no true escape
– the keys he leaves by the door don’t even match the lock
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“He wants her to be erased, a malleable woman
that he can put together as he pleases”
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Roque is revealed to be a military colonel; he
brings her a handbag with a gun inside… she recognizes it but doesn’t want to,
tries to deny it.
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Roque insists that he saved her – she wanted to
shoot him and he attacked her but didn’t go as far as he could have… so as
revenge for her wanting to kill him, he forced her to depend on him. “I’ve got
my weapons too” Now the “game” is over… he tries to reject her and force the
truth on her, so she kills him.
Themes
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Play with idea of memory –
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Very abstract, each word cuesta
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Writing style reflects the sense of memory
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Sense of amnesia
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Traumatic memory – repression of things too
difficult to recall
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Sexual tones
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Making love
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She touches his penis, even when it’s not erect
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Idea that sex is only time she’s real, only
moments that “really belong to her”
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Sadist side of sexuality, also aspect of
voyeurism with peephole bit (and with reader, who is “observing” this sexuality
and torture)
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Somewhat
similar to Bombal (La última niebla)
– idea of female sexual desire
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Violence
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The way he hugs her so tight it hurts – more out
of hate than love/desire
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Scar on her back
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Idea of Laura’s complete lack of power, compared
with his power/ability
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Sense of fragmentation of the body
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Use of masks / deception
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The creation of a fake marriage
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Gender
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Sense of masochism – Laura seems to sometimes
enjoy the savage way that Roque treats her sexually
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Postmodernist influence
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In the beginning the reader is just as lost as
the protagonist in terms of what has happened
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More than one version of events (what she
thinks, what he has made her believe, what actually happened)
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