The Human Condition in Female Narrators of the Special Period: Anthropogenesis in La nada cotidiana (Zoe Valdes) and Habana año cero (Karla Suarez)

Abstract

 This article analyzes the novels The Everyday Nothing (Zoé Valdés, 1998 [1995]) and Habana Year Zero (Karla Suárez, 2016 [2012]), narratives framed in the Cuban social and economic crisis known as the Special Period in Times of Peace. The study explains the formation of the human condition and the functioning of anthropogenesis in the stories. To do this, it uses Hannah Arendt’s theory set forth in the book The Human Condition (2009 [1958]), specifically the notions related to the formulation of man’s active life through three fundamental dimensions: labor, work and action. The work also relies on elements of the classical tradition present in the Platonic dialogue Protagoras, specifically regarding the myth of Prometheus and the values that constitute humans themselves in Western culture: reason, technique, moral virtue and justice. The analysis concludes the preeminence of an anthropogenic process characterized by the inhibition of the instincts of the human being, the clinging to the classic values of humanistic thought, and the consequent inadaptation to the predominant animalizing influence in the context of the crisis; Likewise, it emphasizes the underlying conception that splits man into two irreconcilable and opposing natures (the divine and the earthly), and the practical results of such opposition.