In this thesis, I engage in a careful literary analysis of major texts that deal with the Latin American rainforest as setting and, at times, a character in and of itself. I emphasize a close reading of narrative voice in order to better understand the representation of natural space that each work produces, with a particular focus on themes of gender and national identity. The first chapter discusses Alexander von Humboldt's Essay on the Geography of Plants, a scientific text intended for a broad European audience that carefully catalogs natural phenomena in the Orinoco region. The second chapter deals with one of the most famous Latin American regional novels, José Eustasio Rivera's La vorágine, which situates the rainforest as a dangerous space that devours the urban men who enter. The third chapter focuses on El hablador, by Mario Vargas Llosa, which produces a contrast between an urban narrator and the titular \"Storyteller\" in order to satirize anthropological projects and justify efforts to modernize Amazonian indigenous tribes. The fourth and final chapter considers alternative representations of the rainforest in short stories by Horacio Quiroga and Juan Carlos Galeano. These authors present the rainforest as a space that blurs boundaries between animal and human bodies and, in the case of Galeano's stories, supports feminine indigenous resistance. I propose that these narratives challenge colonialist constructions of Latin American natural space.
"},{"label":"Degree","value":["Bachelor of Arts with Departmental Honors"]},{"label":"Administrative Note","value":"Drupal Node ID: 23731