| This dissertation examines the process of nation formation and state consolidation in Venezuela through a close reading and analysis of a group of narrative texts that symbolically create and question the formation of national identities. Also, this investigation analyzes how this narrative corpus relates the configuration of national identities to aspects such as tradition, the dichotomies of progress/backwardness, science/religion, civilization/barbarism, the access to citizenship, the education of social groups, and in general the access of the different social components of the Venezuelan society to the national project.;The main thesis behind this work is that literature played a fundamental role in building the nation since it defined political agendas and configured a symbolic space where basic ideological, political, economical, social and cultural issues were proposed and/or questioned. In that sense, the Venezuelan narrative of this time elaborates a representation of the social groups that were to become the citizens of the new nation and of who of them were to have access to power and why. It created and organized national symbols, characters and stories, a genealogy that conceptualizes the historical "origin". Also, this narrative elaborates topics such as race and language and their articulation to the national project. To summarize, it is a literature that creates not only the "desired" nation but also the "possible" nation, one that is ruled by the liberal utopia of progress, social order and modernization.;The creation of a "national literature" was an ideological project proposed from hegemonic positions and therefore it is a project originated from and directed to the "lettered" sectors of the Creole population. The nation proposed, an unified and homogeneous nation, it is represented as a large patriarchal family, one that is a space of unity, stability, authority and hierarchy. |
