The present thesis studies the concepts of mestizaje and Mexican identity in five essays and two short stories: La raza cosmica and Indologia, by Jose Vasconcelos; El perfil del hombre y la cultura en Mexico, by Samuel Ramos; El laberinto de la soledad and Posdata, by Octavio Paz; and finally the short stories "Chac Mool" and "Por boca de los dioses", by Carlos Fuentes. The thesis shows how the confrontation between the European and the Pre-Columbian cultures, still very much a part of the Mexican reality, affects the intellectual efforts by which those authors try to grasp the problematic of mestizaje and Mexican cultural identity. The perspectives of those four authors, from the racial and optimistic vision of Vasconcelos to the psychoanalytical and rather bleaker approach of Paz, are unable to give an objective account of mestizaje and Mexican identity, precisely because of the confrontation, never settled, between the two cultural universes.

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Esta tesis estudia al personaje de Claudia Nervo en la novela Zona Sagrada (1967) como una figura mítica contemporánea. La investigación, conformada por tres capítulos, abarca distintos aspectos del personaje, que permiten comprender la manera en la que este desempeña funciones similares a las atribuidas a los protagonistas de los relatos míticos desde la psicología analítica. Se exploran las afinidades de Claudia Nervo con el arquetipo de la Gran Madre; la importancia que el personaje, en tanto estrella de cine, adquiere en la formación de la subjetividad de sus espectadores y la relación que establece con un contexto de producción particular, México de mediados del siglo XX, marcado por el discurso patriarcal hegemónico. Todo lo anterior permite proponer un análisis detallado de la manera en la que Claudia Nervo, tal como las figuras míticas, representa una imagen de estructura universal, pero cuyo contenido y relevancia social están fuertemente determinados por su espaciotiempo.

This thesis sets out to investigate the development of the recent historical novel in Mexico by examining a corpus of five novels. Elena Garro’s 'Los recuerdos del porvenir' (1963) represents the final point of the novel of the Revolution and it is the link with the recent historical novel. Carlos Fuentes’ 'Terra Nostra' (1975) and Fernando del Paso’s 'Noticias del Imperio' (1978) belong to the group containing the postmodern historical novel. 'Terra Nostra' summarizes all the concerns of postmodernism and can be considered as a paradigm of this current of thought. 'Noticias del Imperio' seeks a reconciliation between history and literature in an attempt to get closer to the historical truth. Paco Ignacio Taibo II’s 'La lejanía del Tesoro' (1992) is a representative novel in the way it melds history with the mystery novel, developing the genre of the historical thriller. Lastly, Rosa Beltrán’s 'La corte de los ilusos' (1995), and in particular its treatment of history is pertinent to this thesis due to the fact that women have been traditionally silenced by official history. This novel gives them a voice. From its beginnings, the historical novel confronted the problem of being questioned for its lack of accuracy when dealing with the past. This skepticism sparked a long lasting debate that initially degraded the historical novel as secondary genre that could never contribute to historical knowledge. However, as a result of recent theories that seek to defend the poetic nature of history, a theory developed initially by Hayden White, the recent historical novel has sought to debunk historiography’s claim to be the only possible way to recount the past. This thesis advances the theory that the recent historical novel in Mexico is the result of a search for a genuine identity, as well as a quest to develop an alternative, yet truthful, interpretation of a past whose true nature has been distorted by decades of historical officialdom. This process is seen in a context of increasing democratisation and globalisation.