Abstract

“Las siete palabras” by ángel lozada: two discourses of one agony This paper is a literary analysis of “Las siete palabras”, a short story by the Puerto Rican author Ángel Lozada published in the anthology of Latin American short story named Líneas Aéreas. The objective is to approach the construction of the parodic double based on parody and metaphor. Both irony and metaphor are generating elements of new semantic constructions, related to the parodic-carnival-like nature of the main character.

It uses as point of departure the theory of carnival developed by the theorist Mijail Bajtín, specifically the concepts of inversion and parodic double. This is how the he establishes a metaphorical equivalence of the main character with the figure of Christ, and how it becomes a parodic double by reformulating each of the words pronounced by Christ during his agony on the cross, and they are later applied to the agony of the human being. Hence, the displacement of the usual meaning of metaphor, because it goes from the sublime agony of Christ to the mundane agony of the character. In the end, the agony of Christ blends, is confused, and becomes human in the agony of the character, which completely contradicts the discourse of sanctity and purity, from the point of view of religion. This paper is the result of qualitative research, develops an analysis of content focused on the handling of the elements of symbolic nature present in the discourse.

Key words: metaphor; irony; Ángel Lozada; Las siete palabras; figure of Christ