From the individual to the collective first person: The unfolding of identity in Juan Carlos Onetti´s work

Abstract

Juan Carlos Onetti´s work is characterized by setting forth a crisis and an unfolding of the identity of today´s man, from an elaborate use of the fictitious narrator´s voices, in the first person, third person, and a collective first person plural. Today´s man is represented by impoverished and subjected characters that fill up the author´s novel. Mainly focused on the author´s short stories, this essay attempts to analyze how Onetti extends the boundaries of the narrator´s traditional typology, and builds up new sinuous borders.