Introduction
The texts of Jeannine Capó, “Magic Kingdoms” and Chantel Acevedo’s “The Child Hero’s Lament” are interesting to read but, at the same time, complicated to understand. The stories are more narrative than fiction, mostly about the experience of Cubans in American society with the application of numerous literary devices. The most interesting is the use of slang and direct speech with elements of Spanish, which helps to feel the mood of the main characters.
Hermeneutics, Metaphors, and Cuban American Identity
Hermeneutics is used to explain philological, philosophical, and legal texts. The texts of Jeannine Capó, “Magic Kingdoms” and Chantel Acevedo’s “The Child Hero’s Lament” are relevant to applying this method. However, they contain many metaphors and describe the depth of life in a segregated environment and discrimination. Metaphors in Capó and Acevedo’s texts describe the lives of people in the United States between the 1960s and the mid-1980s in families of Cuban or mixed ethnic origin. The so-called “AmeriCubans” are experimenting with different formal sub-bases and complementing their work in Cuban Spanish in order to emphasize hybrid identity in the US. For example, “Papi muttered ‘Cono, pal carajo,’ sending all his sore muscles to hell, as if he might berate them into submission” (Acevedo 67). Through this metaphor with Spanish slang, it can be assumed that many people consider themselves Cuban despite losing official Cuban citizenship by birth or were never born in Cuba. Analyzing the main character of Acevedo’s work by the mentioned quote, he is Cubanía; that is, he is Cuban only by personal desire and not by official affiliation to this ethnicity. Crucet’s story reveals how recent changes in Cuban relations have affected Cubans in America. For a long time in the community, the heroes of the story seemed to define themselves in the really polarized term, Cuban; however, they did not feel like that. In another writing, the following quote proves a similar meaning, “She is not ready for Disney World to override her already impressive imagination with its branded version of generic white American happiness” (Crucet 67). Through the metaphor ‘generic white American happiness’, the author wanted to emphasize her exclusion from aspects of the theoretical American Dream
Appropriation
Hermeneutics of appropriation is considered a thematic approach to scientific research. Appropriation in the context of hermeneutics is important as it helps to analyze the subject of writing and interpret it from the context in which it arose. Analyzing the two mentioned works, the concepts of world and horizon are important because they show the American world in which the horizon is the presence of other identities such as Cubans, Latin Americans, or African Americans. Both works’ metaphorical experience of being a first-generation Latino is inseparable from any supposedly non-symbolic “real” thing. Due to the combination of realism and symbolism in the horizon and the world in which people lived at the time, the book is imbued with the contradiction between the American and Cuban worlds.
Relationship Between Existentialism and Psychoanalysis
Psychoanalysis and existentialism, as the theories and practices of treatment of mental illnesses, and hermeneutics, as the theory and practice of understanding spiritual acts, are connected, disparate, and incompatible. However, such influential consciousness analysis programs show that their initial model is conversation or negotiation, and the main problems are understanding interpretation, and communication (Gardner 184). Such a model also defines the limits of the capabilities of these programs, which are set by the resources of the language. Hermeneutics and Marxism are related, as Marxism, like any science, requires interpretation. As an auxiliary method, Marxism comes to the fore where the interpretation of texts is necessary, which is possible with the help of hermeneutics. Psychoanalysis and existentialism can be applied to Capó and Acevedo’s texts to explore assimilation and the failure of orthodox Freudianism to address the problem of the interaction of the individual and society from the point of view of the interface between Cubans and Americans.
Conclusion
In conclusion, the plots of the analyzed books from the points of view of psychoanalysis and hermeneutics are divided into metaphors, concepts, and hidden contexts. The experience of Cubans in American society is quite controversial due to the conditions in which the minorities were placed. In order to explore the meaning of life in a segregated society for Cubans on a psychological level, psychoanalysis or existentialism will be relevant.
Works Cited
Acevedo, Chantel. The Child Hero’s Lament. State University of New York, Albany, 2019.
Crucet, Jennifer Capo. Magic Kingdoms. New York, Picador St. Martins Press, 2019.
Gardner, Sebastian. “Hermeneutics and Psychoanalysis.” The Cambridge Companion to Hermeneutics, 2019, pp. 184–210, Web.