Contemporary Poetics to the Rescue: The Enigmatic Narrator in Sábato's El túnel

Contemporary Poetics to the Rescue: The Enigmatic Narrator in Sabato's El túnel Luis T. González-del-Valle and Catherine Nickel The University of Nebraska-Lincoln Although Ernesto Sábato is clearly among the most significant contemporary Latin American novelists, his ranking derives more from the quality than the quantity of his works, since Sábato to date has produced only three novels. The briefest of these, El túnel (1948), has enjoyed the most attention. Though a leading specialist on SpanishAmerican narrative believes that El túnel has attracted "an almost excessive amount of critical attention" (Foster, Currents 71), important facets of this multidimensional and enigmatic short novel remain unexplored. To date most studies on El túnel have concentrated on its underlying ideology and the traits of its major characters. Specifically, the novel has been seen as a statement about man's alienation in modern society as manifested by his solitude and inability to communicate with others. The protagonist, Juan Pablo Castel, has been interpreted as a man obsessed with the twin demons of jealousy and logic, who ends up imprisoned (in a jail or an insane asylum) because his obsessions drive him to murder his mistress, Maria Iribarne. Although she appears to be the single most important character other than the protagonist, Maria's personality remains much more mysterious and she is, consequently, more difficult to define (some critics, for instance, give excessive weight to Castel's assertions about Maria because so few independent observations can be made about her). All in all, to most critics the novel seems to center on the difficult relationship between these two characters , and critical evaluations of the work thus far have generally concentrated on such areas as the exploration of Sartrean existential philosophy, Jungian and Freudian beliefs, abnormal psychology, the links between reality and fiction.1 While the observations in previous studies of El túnel have generally been enlightening, they have concentrated primarily on ideological issues. This study does not attempt to refute earlier interpretations of the novel but rather seeks to approach it from another perspective, to explore a significant dimension of the work which so far has remained largely unexamined, and in so doing affirms Jonathan Culler's assertion that ' 'To engage in the study of literature is not to provide yet another interpretation of King Lear but to advance one's understanding of the conventions and operations of an institution, a mode of discourse" (5). 6 Rocky Mountain Review More specifically, using as a point of departure the narratological approach of Shlomith Rimmon-Kenan,2 this study will focus on three chapters ofEl túnel which have received little attention from the critics as well as the text as a whole in order to shed light on this work as narrative fiction. I Juan Pablo Castel is generally acknowledged by critics to be the narrator-protagonist of El túnel. The significance of the same character serving as both protagonist and narrator, however, has received little or no attention: what transpires in the novel is, as a rule, discussed as if it represented an essentially objective, factual account of events, ignoring the possible distortions inherent in any first-person narrative.3 It is, in fact, very difficult to take Castel's perceptions about what happens at face value because of the many inconsistencies throughout the novel and, more specifically, in light of the glaring incongruities within chapters 2 and 39. The following brief examples illustrate a dichotomy between the narrator 's version of events and counterindications that his interpretation may not completely correspond to reality. Contrary to the narrator's constant assertion to the narratee that he wishes to know María better, when she finally attempts to reveal intensely personal feelings and memories to him, he is so wrapped up in his own thoughts that he fails to pay attention to what she says (138). His own deeds thus contradict what he insists is real, and he, consequently, discredits himself as a reliable narrator. A second situation revealing the inaccuracy of Castel's perceptions occurs in chapters 36-38 when psychological time becomes more important than chronological time. As Castel spies on Maria...