Hybridity and trepidation of multiculturalism in Gabriel Garcia Marquezs Of Love and Other Demons and Joseph Conrads Heart of Darkness

Abstract

Limiting this analysis to the challenging issue of identity, this work intends to account for how hybridity implies a great sense of trepidation, “cultural anxiety”, othering and shadowy multiculturalism. Running against the contention that hybridity opens up horizons and fertile grounds of cultural negotiation, the author argues that hybridity does not resolve identitary questionings and enigmas inasmuch as it obfuscates the quest for a gravitational center from which to launch a civilizational project. There is, therefore, a demanding need for retrieving the specificities of national culture as Frantz Fanon posits, which is only guaranteed through solidifying a sense of belonging to a well-defined cultural context. With this in mind, the author proposes to build his arguments on Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s Of Love and Other Demons and Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darknessas two case studies. Both novels tackle the issue of hybridity in Latin American and African contexts. The figures of Sierva Maria and Kurtz are, in fact, emblematic of false catalysts of cultural mobility. This can be inferred from their conducts and responses to their surroundings. Their madness and irrationality allude to the pathological drawbacks of an identity fraught with cultural duality. To this point, it is obvious that the scope of this study is to account for the fallacy of multiculturalism once associated with hybridity. The corollary pursuit of this hypothesis is both characters do inhabit two cultural realms without being able to fully situate themselves into one of them either. Key words: Identity, hybridity, irrationality, colonial culture and postcolonialism.