This essay analyzes the connections between some of the theories about masculinities and the sociopolitical context of Chile under the dictatorship of General Augusto Pinochet in the movie Tony Manero, by Pablo Larrain, and the novel Mala onda, by Alberto Fuguet. It proposes that the dictator and consequently the ideology of dictatorship are exacerbated representations of masculinity, and this study signals their inherent contradictions and repercussions in this country\'s social environment during its period of authoritarian regime. From this perspective, the protagonists of both fictional works, who come from different social and economic sectors of the Chilean society, can be considered oppressed individuals and oppressors themselves within this context, establishing different kinds of relationship with it. The oppression that they suffer is not only characterized by the authoritarian practices in force but also "and mainly" by the explicit and implicit guidelines of a "code of masculinity" that is put across by the regime and which affects society as a whole. Additionally, actively or passively and in a more or less conscious way, from the male groups to which they belong, both leading characters dominate (or try to do so) the groups of men from lower levels of the hierarchical social ranking and all groups of women. Therefore, oppression is an effective tool used to help maintain the structure of the dictatorship itself and, as a result, the ideological basis of men\'s domination. / Master of Arts

La temprana obra de Alberto Fuguet (Chile, 1964-) presenta las múltiples facetas de los adolescentes y adultos jóvenes chilenos. Entre las muchas realidades expuestas, el fracaso social es, quizás, uno de los más representados, ya que se exterioriza repetidamente en las experiencias de los personajes y las páginas de las obras están impregnadas con una sensación de pérdida y vacío. Esta tesis se centra en la colección de cuentos Sobredosis (1990) de Alberto Fuguet, con especial énfasis en el cuento "Pelando a Rocío." Este análisis literario estudia como el texto despliega el fracaso social experimentado por la generación chilena de finales del siglo XX. Se propone una interpretación que resalta esta frustración generacional a través de la fragmentación de los personajes que se presentan a lo largo del cuento. El primer capítulo se enfoca en los protagonistas, principalmente los jóvenes, y en el comportamiento y las actitudes que demuestran a lo largo de sus interacciones sociales y personales, las cuales son superficiales e indiferentes. El segundo capítulo exhibe la fragmentación mediante la división física y simbólica que existe en la ciudad de Santiago, siendo la urbe el protagonista del segundo capítulo por medio de su limitante estructura. La fragmentación de los protagonistas del texto, tanto los individuos como la ciudad, apunta directamente al fracaso experimentado por la generación representada en este texto. Esta tesis menciona el contexto socio-histórico chileno, con especial énfasis en la historia del país durante la década del setenta, en base a la importancia de este contexto en la formación y en el desarrollo de los personajes. Este estudio presenta el problema social y generacional que resultó en la producción de individuos apáticos, representados en los protagonistas del texto.

The urban landscapes of Chile, Argentina, and Uruguay lay bare the markings of these countries‘ turbulent political and economic pasts, their transition to democracy, and diverse efforts to preserve memory. Claudia Feld‘s observation that these countries have experienced a 'memory boom‘—not a deficit—in recent years manifests itself as much culturally and politically as it does spatially, through the creation of memorials, memory parks, museums, and memory-related performances and discourses. Along these same lines, narratives of memory recur among artistic and cultural works of the post-dictatorial Southern Cone—not exclusively among memorials and other designated sites of recollection, but along the everyday corridors and causeways of some of South America‘s most populous cities, and rather unexpectedly, among seemingly generic sites of consumerism and transit. In fact, my reading of literary and cinematic works by Alberto Fuguet, Sergio Chejfec, Ignacio Agüero, and Fabián Bielinsky, and my examination of Uruguay‘s Punta Carretas Shopping Center, suggests that memory has not been easily corralled into designated sites nor erased through modern spaces and lifestyles; instead, each of the works analyzed in this study reveals that palimpsests of memory can appear often and, in many cases, spontaneously among all angles of the cityscape.

This thesis explores the relationship between literature and politics through a study of novels published by Diamela Eltit (1949-) and Alberto Fuguet (1964-) in the Chilean post-transition to democracy period (i.e.: after the year 2000). It attempts to demonstrate that Chilean post-transition to democracy literature foregrounds the socio-cultural legacies inherited from the dictatorship (1973-1990), which have been to a great extent endorsed by the Chilean neoliberal transition to democracy. This thesis considers the more recent narrative fiction published by these authors as representative of Chilean post-transition to democracy literature, that is, a literature that shares a politico-historical legacy inherited from the Chilean dictatorship, and highlights a social imaginary permeated by the contemporary neoliberal politico-cultural project imposed by the military and to a great extent endorsed by the transition to democracy. In doing so, this work focuses on questions related to the portrayal of contemporary Chilean society and the political status of women. Commitment in literature does not necessarily come from the author's subjectivity or intention, but from his or her study of society and the way in which s/he presents it. Literary commitment, whether overt or not, remains fundamental in the case of contemporary Chilean writers, who have inherited a neoliberal socio-cultural context imposed by a dictatorship, and who may deploy strategies to either disseminate, perpetuate or resist such a cultural model, creating new ones. Therefore, the values to which literature commits can be traced in the case of both the overtly politically committed author and the apparently apolitical one. This methodology allows us to reveal the way in which Eltit and FuguetÊ1⁄4s writing projects represent different but implicitly related views of Chilean society as well as two semi-canonical standpoints which are prominently representative of the twenty-first century Chilean literary sphere.