"Ava en la noche", de Manuel Vicent: formación artística y concienciación política bajo la noche franquista

Abstract

In "Ava en la noche" (2020), Manuel Vicent narrates the learning process of a young aspiring screenwriter and film director who, in the early sixties, shapes his conscience as he experiences Franco’s repression and perceives a demanding society of change. The objectives of this paper are to explore the novel from the theoretical perspective of the Künstlerroman (or “artist’s novel”), and to apply certain initiatory categories of the hero outlined by mythical studies. The analysis of these elements makes visible the vital and aesthetic phases that lead the protagonist to existential maturity, to his historicity and to the commitment of his filmic art in correlation with the questioning of the dictatorial regime.