Variants of estrangement in Julio Cortázar’s "Historias de cronopios y de famas" (and a comparison with Eugène Ionesco’s "L’œuf dur")

This paper arises from a specific question: what is the function of estrangement in Cortázar’s collection of short stories Historias de cronopios y de famas? To answer this question, I shall initially carry out an in-depth analysis of one: Instrucciones para subir una escalera; then I shall set up a comparison between the use of estrangement made by Cortázar in this story and the one made by Ionesco in the screenplay L’œuf dur, in such a way as to illustrate the difference between these two seemingly similar texts, while also clarifying what features are specific to Cortázar. Finally, I shall evaluate whether and how the model obtained from a close reading of Instrucciones para subir una escalera may be applied to other stories from the same collection.

Jaar van publicatie:2019