Enaction of mestizo identity in Pedro Páramo

transgression as care for the embodied soul

Abstract

Juan Rulfo’s Pedro Páramo (1994 [1955]) is one of the milestones of Mexican literature and it holds an important place in the global canon of the twentieth century. Despite the wide spectrum of interpretative possibilities it offers, there are almost no studies of this important novel from the perspective of embodied cognition. This article draws on the vocabulary of contemporary philosophy to address this critical gap, deconstructing the full range of traditional binary oppositions articulated by Rulfo, which includes: body and mind, cognitive and moral, imaginative and perceptual, mystical and lived, freedom and responsibility, individual and social. However, to establish the relevancy of our chosen conceptual apparatus, we return to Aristotle to offer a novel interpretation which also allows us to situate and correlate both the universal (human) and particular (mestizo) projects laid out by the author of Páramo. We demonstrate both the usefulness of Aristotle’s universal descriptions of the human being and the shortcomings of their rationalism and optimism in the context of the postcolonial world. To modify and extend this adaptation we reflect further on the specific ‘movements’ of the mestizo soul, which privilege embodied moments of cognition and transgression as the proper care for the soul, a soul that embraces both individual and socio-cultural aspects. This finally allows us to address the question of how the post-logocentric enaction and mediation of mestizo identity is possible.