The Postcolonial Narrative in Borges' Ficciones and Orozco's The Epic of American Civilization (2011)

Undergraduate: Rachel Horres

Faculty Advisor: Inger Brodey
Department: Comparative Literature

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Postcolonial artists are burdened with the difficult task of self-definition as they attempt to define their countries as independent nations while creating a unified national identity. My study demonstrates how Jorge Luis Borges, an Argentine short story writer, and José Clemente Orozco, a Mexican muralist, step up to this challenge through the use of narrative, whether it be through words or images. Through an analysis of Borges’ 1944 Ficciones and Orozco’s 1932-34 The Epic of American Civilization, I investigated how each artist constructs national identity through their work as well as how each artist develops his own solution to the need to find an equilibrium between the global and the national that allows for a connection with the world yet does not dilute national culture. I find that, to overcome the danger of marginalization, Borges incorporates foreign languages into his Spanish text and Orozco employs the unifying power of myth; and through these solutions, Borges becomes a cosmopolitan as he connects Argentina to a global world and Orozco becomes a myth-teller as he connects Mexico to all of humanity as a whole.