THE SELF-FICTIONAL ELEMENT IN THE ACCOUNTS OF SHIPWRECKS NARRATED BY EUROPEAN CHRONICLERS ABOUT THEIR ARRIVAL TO AMERICA
ABSTRACT
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Accounts about shipwrecks and captivities are a significant part of literature that narrates how Spaniards and the Portuguese experienced their first encounters with the natives who lived in America when the settlers arrived. By exploring these accounts, this paper shows how a reality is affected and shaped not only by events and facts, but also by how a discourse develops relying on rhetorical resources and strategies. Its main objective is exploring the concept of self-fictionality in accounts about shipwrecks as an event linked to the adventures of a settler, historian or chronicler. It is hypothesized that this kind of account tends to be a mix of history and literature, being written to entertain people, not only to register facts. Its audience, material setting, political and social context, and the author’s personal goals generally could explain the literary approach adopted. Here two emblematic cases are examined, namely that one represented by Hans Staden (1525-1579), whose book narrates his captivity among the Tupinambas in Brazil, and by Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca (1488/90-1559), who tells how he, as a Spanish conqueror, arrived at Florida and other parts of Latin America after surviving more than one shipwreck. The internal similarities of these narratives with certain literary works can shed some light on the concept of self-fictionality as an element actively employed by chroniclers to narrate historically relevant facts and events. Concepts like locus of enunciation, distorted looking glass, and power coloniality are also analyzed and debated.
Keywords: narratives, conquest of America, self-fictionality, locus of enunciation, power coloniality, literature, interpolation.