Framed Narration in Three Argentine Dictatorship Novels: El fin de la historia, Doble fondo and Noche de lobos

Abstract: El fin de la historia (1996) by Liliana Heker , Noche de lobos (2011) by Abel Posse, and Doble fondo (2017) by Elsa Osorio are all framed narratives based on the Montonero leader, Mercedes Carazo. Not much has been written about these novels. However, it is striking that the literary criticism that does exist, particularly on the last two novels (Bilbija, Álvarez) approaches them solely from the perspective of historical truth value. In this study, I illustrate how through the use of framed narration and other fictional techniques, these novels distance the character based on Carazo from her historical counterpart and shift the focus of the narrative to the role of the writer-protagonist. The dialogue between embedded and embedding narration serves to emphasize the importance of the writer in interpreting events of the Argentine military dictatorship and in comprehending the past, while simultaneously examining the fictionalized Carazo as a symbol of the collaborator, rather than as a historical individual. Using the theories of William Nelles, Gary Johnson, and Jeffrey Williams, among others, I show how framed narration is employed to construct very different protagonists in each novel, creating unique messages about the figure of the collaborator according to the type of story each author wishes to tell.