"La ocasión": a novel on the edge of hesitation

Abstract

This paper aims to analyze Juan José Saer’s narrative strategy in the novel "La ocasión". The author takes over some of the characters belonging to Argentinian collective imagination –who are national mythts–, what allows him to show the pampas as a misty and insurmountable mythical place. The especial mapping of plain he draws is not only a geographic framework in which the landowner, the gaucho or immigrant face both the environment and the otherness. This may be understood as a metaphor of man’s general condition. From a Lacanian orientation, the second part of this article examines the configuration of the main character from its central theme: spirit-matter dichotomy.

Keywords

• pampa argentina
• mito
• lo real
• materia vs
• espíritu
• imaginario social