Demythologizing Mexico: Counternarratives in twentieth century American literature and film

This dissertation explores twentieth century novels and films---which I call counternarratives---that denaturalize the way Mexico has been mythologized in the American imagination as a savage and premodern frontier space. Each counternarrative investigated in this dissertation appears, at first, to sustain the myth of Mexico. Ultimately, however, each of these texts contain a north-to-south border crossing that, I assert, allows Mexico to be juxtaposed with the United States. In so doing, I argue that these counternarratives problematize the delineation between civilization and savagery that sustains America's frontier narrative and exposes the myth of Mexico qua myth. More specifically, I am concerned with the way Mexico is mythologized in the twentieth century and how specific literary works and films operate to disrupt that myth. Chapters 1 through 3 assert that the popularity of Frederick Jackson Turner's Frontier Thesis, coupled with Turner's declaration in 1893 that the American frontier had vanished, aid in establishing Mexico in the American imagination as a natural extension of the now-closed frontier that is capable of providing America and Americans with economic, political, and social renewal. In each of these chapters, I argue that the work under investigation deconstructs the myth of Mexico because the characters within the text are denied the specific type of renewal---economic, political, and social---they believe they will find in Mexico. Chapter 4 explores three American films that reveal what I refer to as the savagery of civilization. In effect, each film disrupts the myth of Mexico by problematizing Turner's delineation between civilization and savagery that is at the heart of his Frontier Thesis.