ABSTRACT
Estelle Tarica's analysis takes aim at the recuperation of Deep Rivers by certain critics, such as prominent Latin American literary critic Angel Rama, her sharpest criticism revolving around what she views as hegemonic representations of mestizaje, or racial/cultural mixing. Key to her argument, Tarica draws our attention to Rama's paradoxical position that, as an individual with insider status in the indigenous community, Jose Arguedas was capable of mediating between "regional interior" and "external-universal" and of articulating the mythical thought of a Quechua people holding 'magical' beliefs about language. Tarica points out that one cannot simultaneously believe that language has special powers of connotation and denotation and that signifier and signified have no logical internal relationship. The chapter looks at the structural relationship between the inner and outer courtyards, as well as the implied relationship between 'inner' turmoil and 'outer' acting out in terms of trauma.
