Reading Implication: Forgiveness and American Innocence in Catherine Lacey’s "Pew" (2020)

Anthony Nuckols

doi:10.18172/jes.6668

Autores/as

Anthony Nuckols Universitat de València https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2873-7018

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.18172/jes.6668

Palabras clave:

lector implicado, implicación, teoría narrativa, inocencia estadounidense, racismo estadounidense, intervención militar estadounidense

Resumen

Este artículo examina cómo Pew (2020), de Catherine Lacey, retrata de manera crítica los discursos sobre el perdón en relación al llamado “mito de la inocencia estadounidense” y ofrece un espacio productivo para abordar el concepto de la implicación de Michael Rothberg: cómo los individuos se ven envueltos en la violencia y el daño más allá de la dicotomía perpetrador-víctima. Basándonos en trabajos recientes sobre narrativa, subjetividad implicada, narratología y teoría de la respuesta del lector, argumentamos que Pew representa y posibilita la subjetividad implicada: a través de su temática y estructura narrativa, la novela sitúa a los lectores frente a la violencia social e histórica que a menudo queda oculta por los relatos del perdón. Al integrar el marco conceptual de Rothberg con las teorías del afecto y embodiment, mostramos cómo las estrategias formales de Lacey–el uso de la segunda persona, el borrado narrativo y la identidad ambigua del narrador–transforman la lectura en un encuentro ético. El artículo contribuye a los debates sobre la ética literaria, la narratología, y la implicación al demostrar cómo la ficción puede tanto representar como generar subjetividades implicadas.

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