Text, metatext, mise en abyme: Towards a reflecting (self)knowledge in El gran mal by Gonzalo Contreras

Abstract

This article discusses and analizes the levels and hierarchical relationships among the texts inside the novel El gran mal by the Chilean writer Gonzalo Contreras. The analysis focuses on the three kinds of comments the narrador carries out in his progressing biography: as self reflexivity, as comments addressed to the implied reader and those he exchanges with Agata, the intradiegetic reader of the biography. The analysis deals with the technique of mise en abyme that makes possible the various narrative levels as well.