EL PAÍS DEL MIEDO BY ISAAC ROSA: IDEOLOGY AND NARRATIVE STRATEGY

Abstract

This paper proposes an analysis of the novel El país del miedo (2008) by Isaac Rosa. This writer and dramatist is one of the most representative voices of contemporary Spanish literature. The hypothesis considers the novel as a fable for adults showing the relation with children's stories and the sinister of Sigmund Freud. Also, in his aesthetic proposal Rosa calls into question the gender and inquires about our status as readers.
The story of Carlos, the main character, presents a catalog of contemporary fears in an urban environment and relieves a social diagnosis of the reality. It is constructed and amplified by the media and the cinema. All of this creates a paranoid story unfolds the reality that displays the ideology of the characters and social class increasingly individualistic and unsupportive. It also allows the reflection on psychological and sociological aspects. The former are dealt with from the Freudian concept of the sinister and paranoid perception of the world. The second analyze the list of subjects that frighten to the protagonist: the socalled "poor desperate". Hence, appealing to authors such as Loïc Wacquant and Richard Sennett, the author of the novel is concerned with the conditions of urban sociability and security in the late twentieth century.