Noticing presences

An analysis of an Elena Garro's short story

Abstract

This work intends to analyze the presence of Catholicism in a short story from the book La Semana de Colores (1964) by the Mexican writer Elena Garro. The term presence is understood as a reference to the idea of ​​Catholicism that appears in the use of a specific media, which leads to an understanding of its presence in the narrative. The short story to be analyzed is “La Semana de Colores”, the fourth in the homonymous book with thirteen stories. In “La Semana de Colores” the allusion to Catholicism is seen through the portrait of the Spanish King Felipe II. In the narrative, the king interacts with the sisters Eva and Leli. The presence of Catholicism can be understood here as an opposition to the pre-Columbian indigenous culture. The portrait is understood as a visual medium that dialogues with the short story, a verbal medium. Therefore, the relationships established here go beyond intertextuality, and can be understood as intermediality. This media configuration is not there by chance, there is a reason for that, and it is, in the understanding of this analysis, the actualization of the opposition between Christian and pagan in 20^th century Mexico.