Dialogues with history : discourses of the Spanish Civil War and Francoist Dictatorsip in the Spanish novel (1996-2011)

Abstract

Drawing upon the novelistic and linguistic theories of Mikhail Bakhtin, this thesis investigates the narrative strategies used by four novels to inscribe, challenge or subvert current and past discourses about the Spanish Civil War and Francoist Dictatorship. It also considers the underlying philosophy of history and asks how each of these works opens up a dialogic space within which the reader can engage critically with the interpretation of the past. The four texts are Eduardo Mendoza's Riña de gatos (2010), Antonio Muñoz Molina's La noche de los tiempos (2009), Rafael Chirbes' La larga marcha (1996) and Ignacio Martínez de Pisón's El día mañana (2011), works which allow us to compare the treatment of two periods of Spanish history: the spring and summer of 1936 in the case of the first two novels, and the Francoist regime in the case of the second.