Ethnic Vision and Narrative Style: A Psychostylistic Analysis of Selected Works of Ramon Diaz Sanchez (Venezuela)
Persico, Alan Wilwood
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https://hdl.handle.net/2142/70969
Description
Title
Ethnic Vision and Narrative Style: A Psychostylistic Analysis of Selected Works of Ramon Diaz Sanchez (Venezuela)
Author(s)
Persico, Alan Wilwood
Issue Date
1983
Department of Study
Spanish, Italian, and Portuguese
Discipline
Spanish
Degree Granting Institution
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Degree Name
Ph.D.
Degree Level
Dissertation
Keyword(s)
Literature, Latin American
Abstract
This study focuses on Mene, La virgen no tiene cara and Cumboto, works of the Venezuelan essayist and novelist Ramon D(')iaz Sanchez (1903-68). The method used for the analysis is termed Psychostylistics. There are several guiding principles underlying the psychostylistic approach to literary analysis, and these are explained in detail. Essentially, Psychostylistics argues that the message of the literary work determines the means through which that message is expressed, and also, that specific stylistic features in a writer's expressive system can indicate the nature of the writer's world view. It is demonstrated that one can trace the development of D(')iaz Sanchez's vision regarding matters of ethnicity, not only through the ideas and affirmations of the characters in the works, but also through the stylistic devices which the writer exploits. Although to a large extent D(')iaz Sanchez's fictional works are a dramatization of the views contained in his essays, they also indicate, through elements such as structure, metaphor, simile, and certain linguistic phenomena, the conflicts that D(')iaz Sanchez may have experienced between the period when he created Mene and that in which he advocated mestizaje, in Cumboto. The evidence arising from the psychostylistic analysis of his works suggests that some of D(')iaz Sanchez's conflicts spring from the fact that he is mulatto. Other conclusions arrived at indicate that D(')iaz Sanchez perceives of reality as being basically bi-polar, yet interdependent, and that phenomena that appear mutually exclusive can in fact be integrated and reconciled. This view of reality transcends ethnic matters, although ethnicity is highlighted in the works analyzed. Some attention has also been paid here to evaluating the role of the three works within the context of Spanish-American and Afro-Hispanic-American literature. This is particularly true in the case of Cumboto.
Despite D(')iaz Sanchez's contribution both to Venezuela and to Spanish-American literature, his works have not, before now, been given the attention they deserve, nor has any attempt been made previously to trace his literary and linguistic perspectivism. The present study is a significant step in that direction.
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