“Not yet”: Zama, a Creole, an Indian

Abstract

The protagonist of Zama (1956) evolves “backwards”: throughout the progression of the narrative he goes from fame to relegation, from relegation to misery, from misery to debasement, from debasement to mutilation. This regression, which is among the novel's main allegorical procedures, is also found in its taxonomic and onomastic spheres, but perhaps its most expressive corollary is the survival of the encomienda in Paraguay at the end of the 18th century. This work traces the aforementioned regression and reads it as analogous to Latin American dependency, concentrating its attention on the protagonist’s relationship with three figures who, in an evident way, embody aspects and contradictions of Zama himself: Ventura Prieto, Manuel Fernández and Vicuña Porto. In the subsequent sections, this regression is associated with the American “rapture” of the protagonist and, finally, with the context of dependency contemporary to the novel.