Publication Date
12-1-2008
Abstract
In my essay titled, Una cartografía interior: El espacio geográfico y las distancias en la novela Ucrania, I explore the way the author, Pablo Aranda, uses a geographical discourse to create a metaphor for the interior self. I also show how he ruptures and collapses different forms of distance, be it geographical, emotional, or temporal throughout the book in an effort to connect not only the characters, but also the reader to the book as well. The first part of my essay looks at the means of communication in the novel, and how they are bridges of geographical space. I then take a more analytical approach to these various media, and show how they are in fact underlined by tones of emotional distance between the characters. This would show that though we have been able to breach the gap in a physical distance, emotional and interior gaps or distances still separate us. In the second part of my essay, I show how the book in itself becomes a physical manifestation of what the author characterizes as life, of as he calls it, a travel itinerary. I show how his use of different points of views, time, and his writing in stream of consciousness, or “interior monologue”, are in themselves different characteristics of life and are all necessary for one to understand the identity of the self. In this case, these different characteristics make up the book’s own identity.
DOI
10.32727/13.2018.2