Towards a trans-Caribbean poetics: A new aesthetic of power and resistance

This dissertation analyzes how Caribbean-American writers living elsewhere challenge common ideas about power, violence and oppression through the reinterpretation of Caribbean dictatorial regimes in their fiction, and how their stories fare in comparison to other narrative traditions such as the Latin American dictator novel genre. The works of Julia Alvarez (The Dominican Republic), Edwidge Danticat (Haiti) and Junot Díaz (The Dominican Republic) share thematic and biographical similarities and reveal an emerging aesthetic with definite textual and thematic traits that I identify as Trans-Caribbean, a poetics with four main constitutive aspects. First, it addresses the tensions between individualism and collectivism in Caribbean discourse. Second it addresses the implicit role of logo centrism in shaping cultural narratives. Third, it presents fragmentation as a phenomenon that is both discursive and thematic. Finally, it develops the multiple strategies of visual and linguistic disruption in order to suspend normative representations of Caribbean identity. Trans-Caribbean Poetics is trans-continental, fragmentary, personal, relational and multilingual and suggests a plausible model to analyze discursive relations in a transnational context.

Name thesis:degree_name

Ph.D.

Level thesis:degree_level

Dissertation

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Comparative Literature

Grantor

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Year dc:date

2011

Author dc:creator

• Flores-Rodriguez, Daynali

Contributors dc:contributor

• Palencia-Roth, Michael
• Castro, Nancy E.
• Goldman, Dara E.
• Tosta, Luciano

• Trans-Caribbean Poetics
• Caribbean literature
• Latin American literature
• Caribbean literature - History and criticism
• Latin American literature - history and criticism
• Junot Diaz
• Edwidge Danticat
• Julia Alvarez
• Caribbean fiction - 20th century

Statement dc:rights

• Copyright 2011 Daynali Flores-Rodriguez

Language dc:language

en

Handle dc:identifier

http://hdl.handle.net/2142/24226

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/24226