Document Type
Creative Work
Publication Date
2025
Abstract
This study explores how Chilean literature serves as both historical testimony and symbolic resistance by analyzing the works of Gabriela Mistral, Pablo Neruda, and Alejandro Zambra through the conceptual prefixes “sub,” “neo,” and “post.” These frameworks—subalternity, neoliberalism, and post-hegemony—help trace Chile’s sociopolitical shifts across three key periods: the pre-dictatorship era, the Pinochet dictatorship, and the post-dictatorship transition. Gabriela Mistral’s poetry reflects a pre-dictatorial Chile marked by marginalization, where subaltern voices—indigenous, rural, and female—are emphasized. Her work anticipates the cultural erasure to come and highlights memory as a form of resistance. Pablo Neruda, though he died days after the 1973 coup, offers a prophetic critique of oppression in Canto General, where anti-imperialist and anti-colonial themes reject authoritarianism and implicitly challenge the neoliberal model later installed. Alejandro Zambra writes from the post-dictatorship context, portraying a Chile shaped by fragmented identity, historical amnesia, and globalized consumer culture. His stories in Mis Documentos reveal the unresolved trauma inherited by a generation raised under dictatorship but living in a flawed democracy. Drawing on theorists such as Jean Franco, Gareth Williams, and Jon Beasley-Murray, this paper argues that these three authors document a literary response to Chile’s political evolution. Their works resist hegemonic narratives by preserving marginalized experiences and confronting collective trauma. Ultimately, the prefixes “sub,” “neo,” and “post” offer more than linguistic meaning—they provide tools for interpreting literature as political memory and critique in a society shaped by inequality and repression.
Recommended Citation
Jones, Grant, "Los prefijos de la revolución chilena" (2025). World Languages and Cultures Senior Capstones. 26.
https://kb.gcsu.edu/wlc_capstone/26
Included in
Latin American Languages and Societies Commons, Latin American Literature Commons, Latin American Studies Commons, Modern Languages Commons, Political Theory Commons
