Nineteenth-Century Realism, Media, and the Representation of Violence in Fernando Vallejo's La virgen de los sicarios

This paper contends that contemporary representations of violence are profoundly shaped by two interconnected elements: realism and the influence of the media. For the most part, Fernando Vallejo's work has been classified and analyzed in terms of realism. In my view, however, it also contains a radical criticism of today's realisms, their links to the media, and their treatment of violent events. While many current portrayals of violence depend on a consensus regarding realistic and objective images of our world, Vallejo refuses to participate in any form of representation based on consensus. In order to discuss Vallejo's critique of contemporary depictions of violence, I focus on his novel La virgen de los sicarios and two of its defining elements: its first-person narrator and its frontal attacks on the media. I also analyze his unorthodox portrayal of violent realities with the help of two theoretical concepts: Walter Benjamin's information and Slavoj Žižek's subjective violence.