Author: Kelly, Deirdre

Source: The Journal of Romance Studies, Volume 9, Number 1, Spring 2009 , pp. 31-45(15)

Abstract:

The cultural anthropologist Ernest Becker claims that death denial is the fundamental motive of human behaviour, and that this denial occurs through heroic and symbolic immortality projects. Drawing on Becker's theory, this article considers how the protagonist of Rosa Montero's second novel, La función Delta (1981), deals with her own approaching death through the writing process. On the one hand, Lucía takes up the pen in order to repress her awareness of her ineluctable departure. Conversely, writing helps her to come to terms with her imminent end. When she tries to deny her awareness of death in order to curb anxiety, Lucía also negates consciousness of life, and represses the physical and relational aspects of her being. It is only when she comes to terms with her mortality that she can open herself up to alterity and appreciate her life, her body and other people. When she accepts herself as a mortal, corporeal, relational being, her writing becomes more fluid and her awareness of life more intense. This article identifies two conflicting tensions at play in Montero's text: the nostalgic desire for unity, independence, autonomy and death denial, on the one hand (associated with the traditional model of autobiography, humanism and the memoir format), and the acceptance of fragmentation, plurality, transience and mortality, on the other hand (related to recent theories of autothanatography, postmodernism and the diary genre). Each of these narrative tendencies will be explored in relation to three principal issues of autobiography: embodiment, temporality and identity.

Keywords: MONTERO; DIARY; AUTOTHANATOGRAPHY; DIALOGIC AUTOBIOGRAPHY; ERNEST BECKER; DENIAL; CORPORALITY; MORTALITY

DOI: 10.3167/jrs.2009.090104

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