Narrative Intertextuality: How Pacheco Appropriates The Go-Between

Abstract

This essay explores the role of rewriting in postmodern fiction, whether it goes under such names as appropriation, adaptation or the interaction between a hypotext and a hypertext. The core of the article is concerned with a minute comparison between H. P. Hartley’s novel The Go-Between (1953) and José Emilio Pacheco’s Las batallas en el desierto (1981). Similarities such as the role of a child/adult narrator, his infatuation with a mature woman, the traumatic experience it entails, how a distant past is recreated, the clash of opposite social classes, the narrative thematics of music, as well as other minor details are brought to the fore.

Keywords

• The Go-Between
• Las batallas en el desierto
• intertextualidad narrativa
• reescritura postmodern
• apropiación