El discurso apocalíptico en La guerra del fin del mundo

Abstract

This article explores the visionary register of Mario Vargas Llosa's La guerra del fin del mundo (1981). In Vargas Llosa's novel, there is a narrative tension between the historical context in which the action takes place and the religious discourse that tries to transcend it. The context is the construction of a modern order on the continent; the Counselor's religious discourse represents the rebellion against that order being imposed on the countryside from the capital. Vargas Llosa's apocalyptic narrative is proof of the limits of the liberal oligarchy's modernizing project against the popular classes’ severe questioning. In the end, the State imposes its law through war and, with victory, founds a new order, but that foundation—modernity's cost—must be carried out by assimilating certain values espoused by the defeated rebels. The visionary register aims to transcend its historical context, but in all actuality, it represents it. This novel's apocalyptic discourse is the discourse upon which all of Latin America's uneven modernities are founded.

Keywords:

• apocalyptic narrative
• La guerra del fin del mundo
• Latin America
• liberal oligarchy
• modernity
• narrative tension
• rebellion
• religious discourse
• popular classes
• Mario Vargas Llosa

Acknowledgments

Edmundo Paz Soldán teaches Latin American Literature at Cornell University. He is the author of nine novels and three books of short stories.