Dialogic Identity as a Vindication of the Secondary

Abstract

In this essay the author proposes to establish a dialogue between
the Bakhtinian doctrine of dialogism and the novel El hablador
by Mario Vargas Llosa. The article bases itself on the working
hypothesis called dialogic identity: an identitary profile forged
as much by a dialogue between its organic side as well as from
the side of choice. That is the case of Saul Zuratas, a young
Jewish Peruvian who assumes the precarious identity of a small
tribe in the Amazon. The two facets of his new identity play the
alternative heteroglossic role with each other. Besides, their dialogue
induces the gradual emergence of the secondary, or rather,
the ideological and cultural content that was marginalized and
inhibited at the same time by the great stories of modernity from
the age of Enlightenment to Marxism.