Thresholds of Writing: Text and Paratext in Sandra Cisneros’ Caramelo or Puro Cuento

Abstract

This chapter explores the construction of different enunciative spaces associated with the paratextual level in Caramelo or Puro Cuento. A Novel (henceforward, Caramelo) by Sandra Cisneros (2002). More specifically, this study attempts at explaining the enunciative and discursive mechanisms of the endnotes accompanying some of the chapters of the novel while accounting for the relationship between text and paratext as discursive spaces that reenact the border conflict. Critics have drawn attention to the endnotes in the novel as one of its most distinctive aspects (Kline 2002, McCracken 2003, Paulino Bueno 2007, Van Hecke 2007, Ledwith 2008, Bilevich 2008). Following Genette ([1987] 2001), we will argue that notes provide a second discursive level that is crucial for the constitution of global discourse in terms of its texture, and the reading effects and shades of meaning it may convey. Within the universe of Caramelo, three kinds of notes can be distinguished: fictional notes proper, historical-cultural notes, and metadiscursive notes. We will argue that in the novel, the notes, which can be regarded as mechanisms of discursive control (Zoppi Fontana 2007), are set to reposition (paratextual) marginality into the center of action in order to question and elaborate on the notions of center and margin from a literary as well as cultural and political point of view. The analysis will also show that the reading dynamics and instructions, which may be derived from the notes, tend to define a general reading gesture that affects the readers’ interpretation of the whole novel, not just of the notes. As will be seen, these instructions, in turn, contribute to the construction of a certain discursive image (Ducrot 1984, Amossy 1999) associated with the fictional entity responsible for the global enunciation of the novel—that is, the Author.