The Intertext of History and Literature in Face of an Angel, a Postmodern/Post-neocolonial Memoir by Denise Chávez.

• Main Authors: Lana Beth Araujo, Peonia Viana Guedes
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina 2014-12-01
• Series: Ilha do Desterro
• Subjects: literatura de língua inglesa; língua inglesa
• Online Access: https://periodicos.ufsc.br/index.php/desterro/article/view/34674

As the title itself suggests, the present article aims at tracing a parallel between history and fiction in the novel Face of an Angel, a fictional autobiography by Mexican-American writer Denise Chávez.  Therefore, it is the focus of the current paper to analyse how the intertextuality between Chávez’s plot and the historical periods that work as backdrops to the narrative operate. In order to set the boundaries of this research, three phases were selected for their relevance to the development of the narrator/protagonist, Soveida Dosamantes and also to the Chicanos’ historical process: the period that followed the Mexican-American War, the boiling 1960’s and the supposedly promising 1980’s. For the purpose of carrying out this paper, the works by Stuart Hall, María Antonia Oliver-Rotger, Ellen McCracken, among others, were used as its theoretical support