The Anatomy of Detail in "China" by José Donoso

Abstract

This work offers an analysis of the short story "China" (1998) by José Donoso, as a narrative world where power is fictionalized, and exerts physical discipline on the characters, through devices and technologies characterised by their wealth of detail. It is in the detail that the marks of disciplinary power are observed, and at the same time resistance to that power. Among the procedures standardized and characterized by imperceptibility and wealth of detail, we find the look - optimized through detail of the dark glasses, the mattress, the map, the female hair-do and syllabic reading. These details act not only as "realistic effects", determining the realist aesthetic which defines the text, but as forms of power which produce resistance when they are introduced: where there is power, there is resistance.