Faculty Advisor
Benveniste, Michael
Area of Study
Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences
Publication Date
Summer 2015
Abstract
My research examines the concept of the void in the fiction of Roberto Bolaño. I devote particular attention to the posthumous novel 2666, which concerns the real life murders of women in Ciudad Juárez. Informed by readings in philosophy and theology, I use the void to center two antithetical penta-dimensional frameworks that constitute five areas of qualitative assessment in an interpretation of the feminicides: being/non-being, goodness/evil, fate/coincidence, order/chaos, the existence of God/the non-existence of God. I use these paradigms to read the feminicides portrayed by the novel as evidence for the existence or non-existence of God. In the dialectic of the novel, this approach translates to a way to understand evil, begging the question, “How do readers understand an evil that defies explanation in a world characterized by secularity?” In light of the recent proliferation of world crises, this question demarcates a context that allows for paradigmatic synthesis and that reflects the dissonance between being in a state of evil and understanding it.
Recommended Citation
Chun, Cody, "Meaning Out of Nothing: A Penta-Dimensional Framework to Understand the Feminicides of Roberto Bolaño’s 2666 as Evidence for the (Non-)Existence of God" (2015). Summer Research. 261.
https://soundideas.pugetsound.edu/summer_research/261
Rights
Publisher
University of Puget Sound
Included in
English Language and Literature Commons, Latin American Literature Commons, Modern Literature Commons