Literary approaches to truth in selected novels of Carlos Gamerro

Abstract

This thesis studies the centrality of truth as the motivational force in a selection of Carlos Gamerro’s novels. The analysed corpus conforms a tightly interwoven universe of characters, places, and events around the figure of the magnate Fausto Tamerlán and the fictitious village of Malihuel, which works as a representation of the whole Argentina. My dissertation shows that the decisive events in these novels are episodes leading to, or issuing from, the period of radical evil the country endured—the so-called ‘Proceso de Reorganización Nacional’ (1976-1983).

In this regard, the destruction of language is a crucial outcome of such totalitarian regimes. As an ‘interrupted chain’ between words and their meanings is verified after mass massacres, survivors are left without the appropriate tool for uttering their truths about the experiences they underwent. Memories and collective bonds are also annihilated, as individuals are forced into the ‘grey zone’ of collaboration. The restoration of language serves thus as the essential instrument to face up the aftermath of these totalitarian regimes, which, in Gamerro’s novels, is achieved through the employment of specific literary genres and traditions.