An Analysis of and from the Gaze in "Largo noviembre de Madrid" and in other Short Stories by Juan Eduardo Zúñiga

Abstract

This paper proposes an analysis of the short stories in Largo noviembre de Madrid and in other stories in Juan Eduardo Zúñiga’s Spanish Civil War trilogy, with a multidisciplinary approach based on the notion of the gaze –within a Lacanian theoretical framework. The analysis surveys the evident demand that is placed on the readership in the construction of text, a consequence of the author’s elliptical and elusive style. We elaborate an approach in a scopic key that differentiates the uses of ver (to see) and mirar (to look) as elements that articulate the psychological relationships between the characters and, also, that contribute to an immersive reading. In Zuñiga’s stories, a complicit readership is elicited, and things are often “seen” without being looked at, while characters may also look without seeing. Along those lines, the lexical recurrency of ojos (eyes) is analyzed to interpret how the gaze contributes to shaping both the stories’ structure and their endings. Finally, we propose that there is a sort of after-the-fact poetics of the gaze in Zuñiga’s trilogy, as outlined in the central passages of the short tale “Ruinas, el trayecto: Guerda Taro”, in Capital de la Gloria. There, the most accomplished execution of the gaze as a mechanism takes place in the author’s short narrative.