Anthropology as a final ritual of infancy in Efrain Barquero's "El regreso"

Abstract

This paper sets out to investigate the representations of childhood in El regreso by the Chilean poet of the 50s, Efrain Barquero. We propose that in this poem there is a scenic disposition where an adult -represented a child-, standing opposite his dead father, is about to carry out the anthropofagical rite of eating him up. By means of this cannibalistic act, the lyrical persona manages to close his childhood and to go on fully into adulthood.