The Exhaustion of the Bilingual Tongue: The Failure to Recuperate Meaning in José María Arguedas’ Los ríos profundos

Abstract

In Jose Maria Arguedas' novel Los rios profundos (1958), protagonist, a young boy named Ernesto, embodies friction and subsequent violence that arises from two opposing languages and cultures, that of neo-colonial Peruvian and indigenous Quechua peoples. As a bilingual and bicultural child in process of conceptualizing his environment and forming a notion of self, he struggles to interpret meaning with language due to harsh external and internal divisions between frameworks that comprise power in society in which he lives. For some concepts Ernesto thinks in Quechua; while for others, he processes information in Spanish. In addition, when these attempts fail to provide a comprehensible meaning, he blurs border between linguistic codes and mixes them. To shed light upon bilingual dilemma and negotiation of identity that this character faces, I will address role of external neo-colonial social system in Peru and its relationship to protagonist's internal cognitive-bilingual processing system. Based on research of cerebral functioning of dual language mind as provided by Kecskes in Foreign Language and Mother Tongue (2000) and theory of exhaustion of transcultured subject as developed in Alberto Moreiras' article, End of Magical Realism: Jose Maria Arguedas's Passionate Signifier (2001), I conclude that Ernesto's inability to encounter a peaceful compromise between these two systems and languages--whether it be integration into dominant neocolonial world, Quechua reality or a mixture of two--forces him into a place of self-exile where his subjectivity becomes erased. In Ernesto's case, words serve as means in which he classifies and understands environment in which he dwells (an inward view looking outward); and on other hand, they also exist as a tool that groups use to define his person (a view that originates from outside and is directed inward toward protagonist). Regarding latter, it remains evident that dominant Spanish speaking class in novel utilizes language to label, manage and organize happenings of those that they consider inferior. Referring to relationship between linguistic contact and power in society, Benjamin Bailey states following: communication and efficiency [are] intertwined with living in capitalist, industrialized, bureaucratized widely literate societies, which privilege certain types of productivity and efficiency [...] This folk understanding [of language] is layered with hegemonic ideologies that privilege language varieties that are associated with powerful and privileged groups in society. (261) Here Bailey reminds us that certain classes use language to exercise control over others with their particular ideologies in order to achieve a goal. Consequently, for one language group to gain privileges and productivity, another linguistic system must be subordinated. In case of Arguedas' work Los rios profundos, linguistic power structure in novel remains embedded in roots of a deep and painful colonial and neo-colonial history. The entire notion of colony resides in dominant Spanish speaking group subordinating or civilizing Quechua speaking natives of Peru. In order to carry out such an endeavor, empowered class uses language to maintain control over indigenous population and manage their activities. Naturally, when one community asserts power over another, latter resists, and this creates friction between two linguistic systems and cultures. As a result, this tension between neo-colonial reality and subsequent subordination of native peoples affects dynamics of language on a personal level. In case of Ernesto, Quechua serves as his mother tongue. As defined by Istvan Kecskes, this is the language that our mother first exposed us to, language we try to maintain no matter how difficult it is when living in a country where that language is not valorized, and referring to language that is closest to our heart no matter how many other languages we speak (2). …