Doctoral Dissertations

Date of Award

5-2004

Degree Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy

Major Professor

Oscar Rivera-Rodas

Committee Members

Michael Handelsman, Nuria Cruz-Camara, Michael Logan

Abstract

The focus of this dissertation is the analysis of the Mexican History as a literary tool in the production of drama plays by Mexican playwright Juan Tovar, as well as the study of the technique known as Intertextuality. Both, History and intertextuality, are elements that have been identified by critics as a characteristic of literary Postmodernism. This work reveals that History is a part of Latin American literary production and as such, is what makes it different from the European-American Postmodernism and, still, it is a literature that belongs to this contemporary movement.

In order to show that History is viewed from a different perspective in postmodern drama, five plays by Tovar were chosen and analyzed. The result of this research shows that History is revised with a critical attitude and that the analytic thought of the playwright is revealed through out his plays, which are the place where he questions the Established History by adding parts of it that had been hidden. This is what I call ‘the Hidden History’ and both, the Established and Hidden Histories, become part of one same National History. As for the technique of Intertextuality, it complements the critical thinking of this postmodern epoch, and achieves what has been called the ‘disappearance of the author’.

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