“Con absoluta libertad”: estrategias discursivas y conciencia crítica en Paralelo 35, de Carmen Laforet

Abstract

In the fall of 1965, Carmen Laforet made a three-month trip to the United States at the invitation of the U.S. government. Her impressions of the country were portrayed in Paralelo 35, which was intended to be an “objective account of adventures and encounters.” Despite the claim of objectivity, these travel chronicles do not hide the writer’s admiration for the freedoms and rights enjoyed by American society, thus contrasting with Spain under Franco, the frame of reference from and for which Laforet writes. This essay identifies several rhetorical tools that allow us to read in Paralelo 35 the author’s emerging critical perspective through the tension between the portrait of the United States as an example of progress and democracy versus the lack of freedom in Spain. Connecting with scholars who recognize in Laforet’s work elements of dissidence with Francoism, I propose that Paralelo 35 reflects the search for narrative formulas that would allow to convey a critical message while securing publication in an editorial world strictly controlled by censorship.