Construction and deconstruction of the position of Columbus in the story "The two Americas" by Carlos Fuentes

Abstract

The paper questions the suspicious position of Christopher Columbus in the “Las dos Américas” (“The Two Americas”) by Carlos Fuentes. The vision that one has of foreign culture is questioned and, therefore, we use the principles of Image Studies. Image Studies consist of the study of images, prejudices, clichés, stereotypes and, generally, the attitudes towards other people and cultures, conveyed through literature. The main goal is to discover the ideological and political significance that some of these images of the Other may have. One of them is related to the indeterminate origin of Christopher Columbus, which leads to many stereotypes and afterwards affects the development of the history of America’s discovery.