The Modern Autobiographical "I" in Bernal Díaz del Castillo

Abstract

The Modern Autobiographical "I" in Bernal Díaz del Castillo Yanira Angulo-Cano In The Writing of History, Michel de Certeau, characterizes the role of writing in the recovery of the past as a kind of tomb, a historiographic tomb connecting the past to the present. In fact, he asserts that, "A society furnishes itself with a present time by virtue of historical writing" (101). Ever since Europeans settled in the New World, they and their descendants—from Fray Ramón Pané to Octavio Paz—have tried to furnish a present by recovering the past in what de Certeau calls a scriptural gallery. Critics of the Historia verdera de la conquista de Nueva España1 have commented repeatedly about the linkage of the past to the present by means of historical writing.2 For four centuries, they have debated the historical veracity and/or literary characteristics found in Bernal Díaz del Castillo's text, and they have reminded each successive generation of their responsibility for making sense of Bernal Díaz's text in their own circumstances.3 Likewise, recent writers have linked [End Page 287] Bernal Díaz to the modern Latin American narrative; among them, Enrique Anderson Imbert points out that Bernal Díaz was, "el único cronista que se atreve a citar libros de caballerías" (19); while Carlos Fuentes credits him as, "nuestro primer novelista" (74). Writing on the threshold of the 21st Century, in her Memoria original de Bernal Díaz del Castillo, Verónica Cortínez has found, tucked away in an obscure provincial Chilean publication (El Diario Color), an article where Pablo Neruda had bested Fuentes by classifying Bernal Díaz's text as a "long novel" (8). As we know, Hayden White in Tropics of Discourse, among other critics, has pointed out the similarities between writing history and writing fiction (125). But even though the historical contributions and literary praise add clarity to the critical discourse, a measure of uncertainty remains concerning the generic profile of the Historia verdadera de la conquista de Nueva España. Perhaps that is why Walter Mignolo, in his generic approach to the Spanish chronicles of the conquest, "Cartas, crónicas y relaciones del descubrimiento y la conquista," admits to not being able to classify Bernal Díaz's text, and he limits himself to stressing its special place as "discurso" structured around "las historias clásicas o sobre los preceptos del relato histórico" (83). Verónica Cortínez, on the other hand, treats this generic question as one of the objectives of her recent book. She suggests that Bernal Díaz's memory contains a seed bearing the future magical literature of New Spain: "La Historia verdadera, crónica atenta a la realidad de ese nuevo mundo, nueva forma de historiar, contiene la memoria original de alguien para quien la extraña grandeza de la Nueva España alberga ya la semilla de una literatura hecha de novedades y nostalgias" (301). The act of highlighting the poetic experience that Bernal Díaz's text induces in its readers, allows Cortínez to claim it as the foundational base of the contemporary Latin American narrative (300). By highlighting the old chronicler's introspection ("memoria original"), Cortínez has nudged the voluminous Díaz del Castillo research towards a new stage: the autobiography.4 More recently still, Oswaldo Estrada, in "Concierto de voces y andares en la Historia verdadera de Bernal Díaz del Castillo," argues very persuasively that Bernal Díaz displays a whole range of literary characteristics; such as, round and flat characters (45–42), an inserted short-story (47), character growth (50), and an autobiographical "I" (55). My objective in this paper is to analyze [End Page 288] those life experiences that motivate and guide Bernal's writing of the Historia verdadera, within the context of the autobiographical genre. James Goodwin, in Autobiography: The Self Made Text, states that this type of genre "marks the confluence of self (auto-), life (-bio-) and writing (-graphy)" (3). The self, revealing its experiences through the medium of writing, is a personal journey of discovery. Along these lines, Georges Gusdorf has pointed out how typical Western...