El duelo y el tiempo mítico en Rosa Cuchillo y La hora azul

Abstract

In this paper, I propose that the novels Rosa Cuchillo and La hora azul project individual processes of mourning in a mythical social order that limits itself to reproduce the phantom of the enclosed nation (Ubilluz) as a (seudo) proposal to solve the internal conflict that took place in Peru between 1980-2000. In Rosa Cuchillo the main character, Rosa Cuchillo, goes through a process of mourning due to the loss of his terrorist son, Liborio, whereas in La hora azul the main character, Adrián Ormache, undergoes a process of mourning due to the crisis of the idealized paternal figure he had of his dead military father. These individual experiences of mourning result in an opening to the social order by means of the myth of the eternal return (Debord) in Rosa Cuchillo and the myth of progress (Benjamin) in La hora azul. Located in a mythical time, the social consequences of the novels become apparent: they reproduce proposals that do not question the phantom of the enclosed nation, since Rosa Cuchillo proposes a pachacuti of runas, whereas La hora azul suggests a form of tutelary ethics that maintains the status quo.