The "imaginative geography" in Arturo Islas' The rain god

Abstract

Between a conception of the “other” which is enclosed inside the boundaries of an essentialist worldview unilaterally projected, and a postmodern reassessment that deconstructs reality and exposes it as an arbitrary cultural invention, contemporary literary theory on multicultural studies endorses the possibility of a version of constructivism for identity that avoids both essentialist and skeptic positions. By acknowledging that social identities are social constructions, the Chicano elaboration of identity focuses on the analysis of the theoretical understandings of the workings of oppression and resistance on which identities are based. The analysis of the formal and semiotic features in Arturo Islas’ The Rain God shows how the interpretation of experience can yield broader knowledge about the way in which hierarchies of race, class, gender and sexuality operate to uphold existing regimes of power in our society. In this sense, by reflecting on experience as we make sense of it, that is, in its mediated form, it is possible to gain access to the ideological mechanisms that entangle our social and historical worldview, and therefore, to perceive deeper comprehension of the world.

La letteratura cicana costituisce un ricco ambito di indagine all’interno del dibattito multiculturale sull’identità. Gli studi cicani contemporanei sull’identità evidenziano come questa si definisca attorno alle categorie sociali di genere, razza, classe intese come costruzioni culturali ideologiche. Tali studi focalizzano in particolar modo l’analisi dell’identità sulla dialettica tra l’esperienza e la sua interpretazione. Nel romanzo The Rain God, Arturo Islas narra la propria esperienza familiare e ne mette in luce gli aspetti ideologici che la formano. L’interpretazione dell’esperienza conduce ad un’elaborazione dell’identità come cosciente “riappropriazione” attraverso l’individuazione di prospettive ideologiche falsate. L’analisi delle caratteristiche formali e contenutistiche del romanzo di Islas rivela come l’esperienza costituisca fonte epistemologica per uno studio dell’identità nel mondo contemporaneo.