The dialectical configuration of letrado character on The Obscene Bird of Night of José Donoso

Abstract

The novelistic work of the Chilean writer, José Donoso, has a constant element, it is the use of characters that are socially determinated as artists, intellectuals, in one word: ideologists. The value of the narrative facts is centralized by the conscience of those characters. Our proposal in this article consists in investigating this element, first on The Obscene Bird of Night, because this novel condenses Donoso’s aesthetic program. The intellectual labour is shown as Ángel Rama’s developed concept, known as “letrado”, which implies the appraisal of artistic work as an aesthetic manifestation. Therefore, this investigation needs a review of internal process of “letrado” character configuration. Thereby we found the artistic evaluation and the place of this social labor, the art.

Keywords

• dialéctica
• letrado
• configuración artística
• señor
• siervo
• modelización