Abstract
ABSTRACT In literary analysis, discourses of degeneration and illness have often been used to “diagnose” the ills plaguing a nation. This study seeks to expand this traditional assumption, suggesting that the pathologies found in two recent Dominican novels are actually part of a therapeutic experience. In both Alanna Lockward’s Marassá y la nada and Rita Indiana’s Hecho en Saturno, existential anxieties are produced by a profound feeling of not belonging. These anxieties cause protagonists to engage in pathological behaviors related to addiction – self-starvation and substance abuse – to self-medicate painful affective states of isolation, disconnection and unhappiness. In both texts, the experience of these pathologies forms an inherent part of a therapeutic journey and works as a catalyst to discover a new way of thinking about nationhood, belonging and identity.
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Schedule a callMore From: Canadian Journal of Latin American and Caribbean Studies / Revue canadienne des études latino-américaines et caraïbes
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