El espacio de la ciudad como personaje marginal en la novela posmoderna urbana La ciudad de los umbrales de Mario Mendoza.

Abstract

This essay analyzes the narrative, rhetorical and postmodern mechanisms implemented in the postmodern urban novel The city of thresholdes (1994) by Mario Mendoza to turn the space of the city into a marginal character. To do this, this study applies Hermeneutics as a method that puts the novel in dialogue with the following categories: the three levels of meanings of Janusz Slawinski's space that, together, configure it as a structure with signs; in addition, the rhetorical phase of elocutio and metafiction as narrative self-awareness were taken into consideration. Through these categories, it was discovered how the author carries out a reciprocal and rethorical communicative process in which he relates city/fictional subjects. The city transmits its marginal discourse to the fictional subjects, which is represented by them as an urban image through their literary and metafictional dialogues from two perspectives: space (Garden of Eden) and character (conscience/body/sexual woman and ill/disease).