Analysis on “Diario Para Un Cuento” and “the Moon in Its Flight”

Only available on StudyMode
  • Download(s) : 53
  • Published : February 6, 2011
Open Document
Text Preview
Analysis on “Diario para un Cuento” and “The Moon in its Flight”

“The Moon in its Flight” by Gilbert Sorrentino and “Diario para un Cuento” by Julio Cortazar are both self- reflective fiction. There are two storylines in both stories. One is the romantic story, between Rebecca and a boy in Sorrentino’s narrative, and between a translator and Anabel in Cortazoar’s story. The second storyline is the narration of how to write the story. What makes the stories so interesting is that both depict the ardous efforts of a narrator- writer who is trying to tell an anecdote. The two stories also depict narratives in which the happy ending, usual in romantic stories, is absent. What also makes the stories attracting is the intrusion of the narrator- writers which show a praticular way of writing. Seemingly, both stories depict a sense of failure when writing the story, arisen by different reasons. In “Diario para un Cuento”, the narrator- writer is the protagonist of the love story and of the story of telling a story. He is a middle-aged translator who belongs to the middle class. He has a conventional life and a girlfriend he can introduce to his friends. A prostitute called Anabel usually visits him to have some letters translated. After some time passed he becomes one of her clients. He begins to like Anabel’s generosity, innocence and sincerity, and he even feels jealous of other men, William for instance, a seaman who is in love with Anabel. In one of the letters he translates Anabel so that she can send it to William, he adds an extra note to it in which he asks William to meet him as soon as he lands because he needed to warn him that if he did what one of the letters said, Anabel would be in danger. So William decides to do what is better for Anabel. However, after some weeks, the narrator- writer reads in a newspaper about the death of a prostitute, the same who was going to be the victim of Anabel’s attact in case William acceded to do what he had been asked to. Apparently, when William got to know that the translator had an affair with Anabel, he decided to take revenge.The narrator- writer fells afraid of being accused of complicity, does not return to his office, moves to Europe and never meets Anabel again. “The Moon in its Flight” is about a summer romance which is narrated through a voice which is constantly coming between the reader and the writer. The story takes place in 1948, in a New Jersey summer cottage.A young man and Rebecca, a Jewish fifteen years old girl, meet and fall in love. Love is the only thing that unites them: they belong to different social classes, and they both profess different religions. Rebecca’s parents do not like that kind of match. They are very concerned about him because he belongs to a poor family and he becomes an Irish Roman Catholic. Through out the novel, different circumstances prevent them from having sex. Finally, they separate and they both get married. Ten years later, they meet again and at last they make love ‘without elaboration’. The encounter is necessary to exorcize the ghosts of the past, but they are different people now and are no longer in love. “The Moon in its Flight” and “Diario para un cuento” tell two stories: the anecdote and the story of writing. Both stories may be defined as those of failure too, and it is the context which brings about the failure of the love story in “The Moon in its Flight”. Social differences separate Rebecca from the poor boy. As he is an Irish Roman Catholic and belongs to a low class, Rebecca’s parents would never accept him. Social circumstances prevent them from making love since in those days nobody would lend them an apartment because they were respectable people, and consequently, should never repress their instincts. In the 1950s women were not allowed to express their sexual desires and could only have sex after getting married. This society which is very conservative and careful about...
tracking img