UC Riverside

This study analyzes diverse anthropocentric and ecocentric tendencies, fluctuations, and changes among environmental perspectives that present themselves in Latin American narratives chosen for evidencing characteristics of environmentally related literature. In this project, I contend that although anthropocentric discourse concerning the environment has declined throughout the latter part of the twentieth century, in Latin America, this type of discourse has evolved, rejecting earlier misconceptions of the natural world but holding on to technocentric beliefs. At the same time, I present how the works I analyze in this dissertation convey ecosophies, Luddite discourse, and ecological apocalyptic imaginations that portray non-fictitious environmental crises and satirize excessive human dependence on advanced technology. This project also examines the postmodern novel and presents how in certain instances, characteristics of the postmodern novel serve as the "ideal" for the exposition of environmental issues. While analyzing anthropocentric discourses present in The Cosmic Race and in Doña Bárbara, this study identifies the following rhetorical sources for these works: the Christian perspective of providential unconditional provision, which I call the Jehova Jireh Argument; a discourse of subalternity and dominion of the aborigine and the natural world; and technocentric worldviews. None of the works analyzed in this dissertation suggest a return to a pre-modern past as a solution to the present ecological crisis; instead, some of these works, namely, One Hundred Years of Solitude and Mantra, indicate the use of technology by unqualified people as the cause for the continual self-destruction of the human race. Thus, these more recent novels suggest the proper use of technology and learning to live in harmony with nature as a solution to the ecological crisis. In examining The Storyteller, this study exposes the project of The Storyteller, which consists in the transformation of the Amazon region for economic benefit. Furthermore, this study presents that the supposed machiguenga Storyteller of the work offers a pro-indigenous discourse, but does not provide a voice for the indigenous people, maintaining this population unrepresented throughout the work. The works analyzed in this dissertation, I contend, portray anthropocentric and ecocentric regional approaches for a global environmental crisis.