The radical self : metamorphosis to animal form in modern Latin American narrative

Abstract

This essay approaches modern Latin American narrative from a predominantly phenomenological and existential perspective and therefore marks a departure from the main currents of contemporary Latin American criticism, which are sociological, historical, semiotic, feminist, even deconstructionist. Although several of Latin Americas most prominent writers and critics have alluded to a tendency to ontological inquiry as an essential ingredient of Magic Realist writing, very little critical attention has been paid to this element. The prevalence of the theme of metamorphosis to animal form provides a significant and immensely valuable key to the revelation of this fundamental aspect of modern Latin American narrative because, as Harold Skulsky has ably demonstrated in Metamorphosis: The Mind in Exile, metamorphosis in serious literature inevitably raises questions about what it is to be human.