In Francisco Nieva’s works, all dramatic components reflect the elements of the supernatural. It can be observed in the construction of the dramatic situation, in the action, the characters, space relationships, and in the visual as well as acoustic signs in the performance. This paper aims at analysing the elements of the extraordinary and fantastic such as ‘terror’ by which the author creates the atmosphere of dread. The analysis focuses on Nieva’s recent works collected in Teatro caliente and published in 2013. Deriving from the definition of terror, the paper further examines various devices implemented in order to evoke the sense of fear of obscure and dreadful details. Among these are some of the elements characteristic of the genre of the gothic novel.
After the excesses of his previous terror movies, the Spanish director Jaume Balagueró returns to a more sober narrative to explore the mechanisms of anguish in an oppressive thriller behind closed doors, Sleep Tight (Mientras duermes, 2011). Influenced by Hitchcock and Polański, he proposes a new variation on the spatial motif of a building which becomes the nest of daily evil embodied by César, an ominous concierge who intrudes into the residents’ intimacy and endeavors to ruin their existence. The present article aims at analyzing the principal filmic and narrative strategies of anguish deployed in this movie. The director elaborates a Manichean costumbrista tale where he probes the atavistic fear of a nocturnal monstrous presence that may perturb the reassuring normality of domestic space. Through the construction of a rigorous rhetoric of repetition, Balagueró places the viewer in a disconcerting narrative in-between and invites him to participate actively in the pernicious game orchestrated by his protagonist, depicted as a methodical agent of everyday terror.
Key words: terror cinema, Jaume Balagueró, anguish, space, costumbrismo
Gothic fiction in Argentina, represented by such famous authors as Borges, Cortazar, Bioy Casares or Silvina Ocampo has its followers in the 21st century. In our paper, we present one of the contemporary authors, Pablo De Santis, born in Buenos Aires in 1963. His novel Los Anticuarios (The Antiquarian) is about vampirism in the Buenos Aires of the 1950s. Following the tradition of Gothic literature, the main character is involved in the lugubrious story of vampires known as the antiquarians. Although these long-lived creatures have adapted to living in our times, they must still feed on blood. However, they prefer a substitute in the form of an elixir which allows them to dominate their victims’ minds. Besides, being victims of unrequited love themselves, just like classic vampires, they have a predilection for female blood.
Key words: De Santis, Gothic fiction, antiquarians, vampires, Peronism, Buenos Aires
The tragic end of the Templars turned them into a myth that has left a deep mark on the contemporary narrative. Currently, seen as innocent martyrs, the Templars acquired features, as wanted San Bernardo, of celestial militia, fighting the forces of evil. However, the legends that bind tight and unorthodox beliefs have shifted even historiographical versions, and the Templars also become dark and intriguing characters. Before the massive appearance of the Templars in Spanish narrative of the end of the millennium, the Galician filmmaker Amando de Ossorio made some films about the warriors-monks, giving them horror film features and binding them to the family of vampires, mummies and zombies. The treatment they were given by the Galician filmmaker, despite the originality and some of the literary reminiscences, is to be inserted in the continuous process of mystification of the Templars.
Key words: Order of the Temple, mythology, Amando de Ossorio, cinema, medieval-themed narrative
Most of the literature devoted to Emilia Pardo Bazán places her work in the naturalist school, and despite the gore elements present in it, her oeuvre is not usually interpreted as representative of the horror or the gothic genre. The writer has often expressed her belief that crime is embedded in the daily lives of people, which is manifest in her conviction that “without strange, monstrous and creepy events, we do not know reality.”
This article aims to analyze a brief narrative by Pardo Bazán, to address the criminal phenomenon manifest in the author’s newspaper articles. Putting into question the Italian criminology school, where crime is treated as an atavism and a hallmark of our most primitive self, through the projection of violence in its various forms, the writer develops a complicated portrait of the human being (complex, repression or retaliation), which leads us to wonder whether th macabre elements of the narrative are Pardo Bazán’s mirror of reality or the expression of her own ghosts.
The article analyses the importance of the minor genre of horror tale in the development of the Portuguese fiction written by women during the 1980s. It permitted to find a literary expression of the silenced topics, such as the fear of pregnancy and childbirth, domestic violence, prostitution. The narrations of anxiety created by such writers as Luisa Costa Gomes, Maria Ondina Braga, Lídia Jorge, Teolinda Gersão, and Hélia Correia mark a period of transition in the Portuguese culture, questioning both female and male condition. Exploration of the gender perspective leads to the utmost triumph of women that finally achieve recognition in the fields of literature and cultural criticism. At the same time, it contributes to exorcise the spectres of the patriarchal culture that became obsolete after the end of Salazarism and the Portuguese colonial empire.
Key words: Portuguese women writers, tale of horror, anxiety, intimacy
Concentrated on four short novels by the prominent Mexican modernist writer Amado Nervo (1870–1919), namely, El donador de almas (1899), Mencía (1907), El sexto sentido (1913) and Amnesia (1918), this article argues that Nervo uses the fear sentiment in a subtle and quiet way, but nonetheless effective in its purpose of generating an atmosphere of unrest and mystery. Although Nervo’s stories show similitude with those of, for instance, R. Darío and L. Lugones, through a skilful use of dark humor, ironic distance and moderate skepticism, the author creates a disturbing and mysterious world very much of his own. In this article, Nervo’s fantastic texts are also viewed in the context of the rich Spanish American Modernist movement.
This paper aims at analyzing figures and functions of fear in a significant part of Spanish American fiction at the turn of 21st century. Both as a literary motif that organizes the plot in various kinds of criminal fiction and as a state of mind that seems to be rooted specially in postcolonial societies, the fear and a sense of foreboding is overhelming in fictional universes of Roberto Bolaño, Horacio Castellanos Moya, Juan Villoro, Daniel Sada, Cristina Rivera Garza and many others. A traumatic recent past in the region (military dictatorships, civil wars, drug wars in many countries) partially accounts for this, but this tendency can also be explained by the world democracy crisis and the global growth of insecurity in the beginning of 21st century. The article also takes into consideration the aspects of style, composition and narrative techniques that perpetuate the atmosphere of fear and the notion of an unpunished crime.
Key words: Spanish American contemporary fiction, images of fear, detective novel, open-ended fiction
The crime novel, which in modern literature has become a kind of a new social novel dealing with topics such as different expressions of violence, crime or corrupt societies, is hardly ever separated from its true realistic and urban Aesthetics. However, in order to build a scenario of a noir novel and convey the air of terror and threat, some authors resort to a repertoire of narrative aspects typical for a horror story, thus transforming the reality into a thriller or giving it some fantasy touch.
The following article analyses the space configuration presented in Angosta, a novel by Colombian writer Héctor Abad Faciolince and it proposes to interpret the story as a sort of universalistic thriller in which various human fears of an era of globalism and late capitalism get together.
Key words: Colombian fiction, violence, Héctor Abad Faciolince, crime fiction
The present article outlines the problem of terrorism in The Sewers of Paradise by Jorge Diaz. Moving it to the current times, the play uses the Biblical myth of Cain and Abel, however, with a completely changed original meaning. The world presented in the play is full of absurd situations highlighting an individual’s incomprehension of the events that shape today’s socio-political scene. Díaz questions the ethics of the current world, emphasizing the following problems: the religious intolerance, authority abuse, opportunist manipulation, xenophobia, discrimination of women, conformism and solitude of the individual lost in a cruel and hostile universe. Generally, the work investigates the concept of terrorism and shows its complexity. The model of the “triangle of violence” by Johan Galtung is used here. Diaz presents the phenomenon of aggression in terms of structural, cultural and direct violence.
Key words: Jorge Diaz’s The Sewers of Paradise, terrorism, religious intolerance, the Biblical myth of Cain and Abel, the violence triangle.
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