The Quest of Self in Aura by Carlos Fuentes

Volume 7, Issue 4, August 2023     |     PP. 287-302      |     PDF (239 K)    |     Pub. Date: August 15, 2023
DOI: 10.54647/sociology841140    66 Downloads     4643 Views  

Author(s)

Shohreh Haji Mola Hosein, PhD of English Literature, Department of English Language & Literature, Kish International Campus, University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran

Abstract
Written by Carlos Fuentes, Aura is a novella presenting murky atmosphere, stunning plot, the spectral world of mind, and the theme of self-identity quest. This article shows how the novella discloses the search of self-realization in connection with memoir of a family belonging to previous generations. It underlines unconscious realm of psyche alongside magical realistic setting and events. Modern self is an unstable, ambivalent, and fluid individuality. It is proposed that the author has utilized many methods to reveal individual identity coupled with the meaning and values of life in the past. The article concentrates on a correlation between Anglo Modernist novels and Aura and attempts to prove that how several-sided self, reality of the magical scenes, blended times, and revelation of self through history, memoir, and conscious/unconscious longing of love and unity have made an incomparable Romantic Modernist novella.

Keywords
Blended Times, Fluid individuality, Longing of Love and Unity, Magical Realistic Events, Self-identity, Several-sided Self, The spectral world of mind

Cite this paper
Shohreh Haji Mola Hosein, The Quest of Self in Aura by Carlos Fuentes , SCIREA Journal of Sociology. Volume 7, Issue 4, August 2023 | PP. 287-302. 10.54647/sociology841140

References

[ 1 ] Adams, Robert Martin. “What Was Modernism”. The Hudson Review, Inc, vol. 31, no.1, 1978, PP. 19-33.www. Jstor. org / stable / 3850132.
[ 2 ] Child, Peter. Modernism. London and New York: Routledge, Taylor and Francis Group, 1999, PP. 157-170.
[ 3 ] Fuentes, Carlos. Aura. Translated by Lysander Kemp, New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1978.
[ 4 ] ---. “On Reading and Writing Myself: How I wrote Aura”. World Literature Today, vol. 57, no. 4, 1983, PP. 531-539. www.jstor.org/stable/40139102.
[ 5 ] Glicksberg, Charles. The Self in Modern Literature. Pennsylvania: Penn State University Press, 1963.
[ 6 ] Hassan, Ihab. “Quest For the Subject: The Self in Literature”. Contemporary Literature andContemporary Theory, vol. 29, no. 3, 1988, PP. 420-437. www. Jstor.org/ stable/1208455.
[ 7 ] Helmling, Steven. “The Desire Called Modernism”. Symploke, vol. 16, no. ½, 2008, PP. 273- 279. www. jstor. org / stable / 40550817.
[ 8 ] Langbaum, Robert. “The Mysteries of Identity: A Theme in Modern Literature”. The American Scholar, vol. 34, no. 4, 1965, PP. 569-585. www. jstor.org/stable/41209312.
[ 9 ] Malpas, Simon. The postmodern. London and New York: Routledge, Taylor and Francis Group, 2005, P. 68.
[ 10 ] McHale, Brian. Postmodern Fiction. London and New York: Routledge, 1987, pp.74-75.
[ 11 ] Ohmann, Richard. “Criticism: Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System”. Wisconsin Studies in Contemporary Literature, vol. 6, no. 2, 1965, PP. 250-266. www. jstor.org / stable / 1207263.
[ 12 ] Rimmon-kenan, Shlomith. Narrative Fiction. London and New York: Routledge, Taylor and Francis Group, 2002, PP.43-66.
[ 13 ] Spear, C. Thomas. “Individual Quest and Collective History”. World Literature Today, vol. 67, no. 4, 1993, PP. 723-730. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/40149570.
[ 14 ] Stoicheff, Peter. “The Modernist self in Twentieth Century English Literature: A Study in Self-Fragmentation by Dennis Brown.” University of Toronto Quarterly. vol. 16, no.1, 1990, PP.131-132. www.jstor.org/ stable/24726057.
[ 15 ] Strecher C. Matthew. “Magical realism and the Search for Identity in the Fiction of Murakami Haruki”. The Society for Japanese Studies, vol. 26, no. 2, 1999, PP. 263-298. www.jstor. org/stable/133313.
[ 16 ] The Modernist Novel. Edited by Morag Shiach, New York: Cambridge UP, 2007, PP.58-59.
[ 17 ] Torrance M. Robert. “Modernism and Modernity”. The Journal of the Association of Teachers of Japanese, vol. 22, no. 2, 1988, PP. 195-223. www.jstor.org /stable/488942.
[ 18 ] Washburn, Dennis: “Manly Virtue and the Quest for Self: The Bildungsroman of Mori Ogai”. The Journal of Japanese Studies, vol. 21, no. 1, 1995, PP. 1-32. www.jstor.org/stable/133084.
[ 19 ] William, T. Stanley. “Aspects of the Modern Novel”. Texas Review, vol. 8, no. 3. 1923, PP.245-256. JSTOR, www. jstor.org / stable/ 43465828.
[ 20 ] Zima, V. Peter. “Love and Longing: Absolute Desire from Romanticism to Modernism”. Primerjalna Knjizevnost, vol. 39, no. 1, 2016, PP. 77-88. www.dlib.si