Eva in the Shadows: The Partial Revenge of Dr Pedro Ara

• Autores: Lloyd Hughes Davies
• Localización: Hispanic Research Journal: Iberian and Latin American Studies, ISSN 1468-2737, Vol. 8, Nº 2, 2007, págs. 123-140
• Idioma: inglés
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• Resumen

  • Pedro Ara, Eva's embalmer, is the author of an enigmatic text, "Eva Perón: la verdadera historia contada por el médico que preservó su cuerpo" (1996), which focuses to a large extent on the writer himself rather than on his subject. It offers a remarkable illustration of how written language escapes authorial intention and control. The text is purportedly a true account but itself seems to elude clear definition by evading the law of genre and while it seeks to offer an authoritative version of events, it cannot stem its own generation of proliferating meanings. The Ara-Eva situation forming the basis of the text is obviously suggestive of patriarchal gender relations. Ara offers, unwittingly, a treatise on death and femininity, seen as the central enigmas of Western discourse, both conspiring to thwart his bureaucratic urge to circumscribe and control by means of rigorous documentation. His authority is undermined further by the forces of gossip and allegory which themselves generate secondary meanings. Though seemingly in total control of Eva, Ara is vulnerable to her female principle that invades his text: something of Eva remains inviolate: "algo queda". Even Ara's photographs, associated with the "reality effect", generate meanings extraneous to the author's purpose and intention.