Cultural Intertexts (Dec 2014)
Representations of the Other in Duiliu Zamfirescu’s Viaţa la ţară
Abstract
An impressive number of articles, (monographic) studies, edited volumes and doctoral theses have already been written about the other/otherness/alterity, as concepts shared not only by literary criticism but also by numerous social sciences. This approach brings forward representations of the other as they appear in a Romanian novel also translated into English which was famous ever since its publication, namely Duiliu Zamfirescu’s Viaţa la ţară. The whole text was scoured with the purpose of identifying the elements of alterity to create a corpus recording all the instances where heroes and heroines discuss with or about the other, interrelate with the other or even misbehave in relation to the other. The 34 excerpts were collected into a corpus which was further submitted to analysis and revealing seven sets of such representations scattered throughout the novel, but not all of them were discussed herein because of their repetitive character. In general terms, irrespective of his/her identity, the other is described directly or indirectly. In the case of the former category, the characters pertaining to the category of the self give details about their friends or, maybe, the narrator himself intervenes with details. In the case of the latter category, the other presents himself/herself through personal deeds, opinions and more or less harmful gestures. The attitudes of the self towards the other seem to depend on the other’s ethnical group and they encompass a rather limited repertoire of opposite manifestations which include both respect and disrespect, friendliness and distance, neutrality or even an absolute lack of interest.
