The Effects of a Fragmented Narrative: Community and Alienation in the City

Abstract

The reciprocal dynamic between form and content will be central to our reading of two novels set in Central American cities, published in the 1970s: Manlio Argueta’s Caperucita en la zona roja (1977) and Carmen Naranjo’s Diario de una multitud (1974). With similar aesthetic intentions, both of these authors resort to the narrative strategy of interweaving disconnected, nonlinear fragments that initially tend to disorient their readers. In Argueta’s text, a difficult, fragmentary narrative is used to portray the urban guerrilla movement in San Salvador, while a long series of anonymous fragments is adopted by Naranjo to convey a sense of urban alienation in a fictional rendition of the Costa Rican capital city, San José.