Cartografias imaginarias: La creacion de espacios utopicos en el

Abstract

The thesis combines Fredric Jameson's ideas on cognitive mapping with Henri Lefebvre's theories on the production of space and Tom Conley's concept of "cartographic writings" to illustrate how the narrators of Lazarillo de Tormes, the Captive's tale in the Quijote and Cabeza de Vaca's Relacion establish a relationship to the circumstances around them by means of cognitive maps. The created discursive spaces hide an ideology that is not explicit in the text and therefore the decoding of cognitive maps in symbols is the only way to have access to the multiple spaces through which the narrators' journeys take place, and to know the link that narrators have with their present space. The narrations of the picaro Lazaro de Tormes, the soldier Ruy Perez de Viedma and the Conquistador Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca are all examples of the accumulation of lived experiences and the superposition of their own cognitive maps in order to later manipulate and enrich their own story. There is, then, a causal relationship between each narration and the space in which the actions play out that is eventually subverted and manipulated for personal gain.