"Nadie llegó a saber nunca": José Luis González and the Work of Mourning for the Unknown

Abstract

Set during the Korean War (1950–1953), Puerto Rican writer José Luis González's short story "Una caja de plomo que no se podía abrir" centers on the trauma that a working-class urban community in Puerto Rico undergoes when the remains of one of them, a soldier named Moncho, are delivered home in a small box that cannot be opened. Focusing on the point of the view of the unnamed narrator, one of Moncho's childhood friends, this article engages with Freud's and Derrida's theoretical approaches to the work of mourning, ultimately relying on psychologist Pauline Boss's concept of ambiguous loss, which refers to a type of grief without closure. Last but not least, the article unravels the massive participation of Puerto Rican soldiers in the Korean War.