La violencia en cuatro obras de Elena Poniatowska

Abstract

This dissertation deals with the theme of violence in four works by Elena Poniatowska: Tinisima, La noche de Tlatelolco, Fuerte es el silencio, and Hasta no verte Jesus mio . It consists of an analysis on the way in which violence is to be found in the four narratives by Poniatowska, as applies the theory of effect of Hans Robert Jauss in the principal area of analysis. The method of analysis is carried out in pairs: Hasta no verte Jesus mio and Tinisima, due to the fact that both of these works are novels in which the protagonists are of female gender, as opposed to: La noche de Tlatelolco and Fuerte es el silencio which are testimonial works in which the theme of violence is of an intensive political nature throughout the whole book. Because of the magnitude and complexity of violence, the nature of violence is explained with an interdisciplinary approach in order to cover its multidimensional framework within the four works. There is an emphasis on the way that violence perpetrates the lives of the female characters, even though the study includes the presence of violence in the lives of the male characters with whom they interact, as well as in the political environment in which they exist. The major contribution of this dissertation is the fact that it is the first so far, to study violence as the main theme in four works by Elena Poniatowska, and which with an interdisciplinary approach to the explanation of violence, promotes the interaction of literature with other areas of study to bring about a more complete analysis and understanding of social issues in literature, such as the study of violence. In the four works by Poniatowska studied in this dissertation we may also take into consideration the fact that the author deals with violence in historical events, and that the main characters are real life characters whose lives are written in the midst of a hostile and volatile environments.