Spaceships and vampiressexual dissidence in Tennessee Williams’s ‘The Knightly Quest’

  1. Mauricio Aguilera Linde 1
  1. 1 Universidad de Granada, España
Revista:
Atlantis: Revista de la Asociación Española de Estudios Anglo-Norteamericanos

ISSN: 0210-6124

Año de publicación: 2012

Volumen: 34

Número: 2

Páginas: 67-83

Tipo: Artículo

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Otras publicaciones en: Atlantis: Revista de la Asociación Española de Estudios Anglo-Norteamericanos

Resumen

Pese a que Gore Vidal calificara ‘The Knightly Quest’ (1966) como uno de los mejores relatos de Tennessee Williams, lo cierto es que el cuento distópico con final intergaláctico ha sido lamentablemente objeto de escasísimos estudios críticos. Bosquejado durante la represión de los años cuarenta y concluido a mediados de la turbulenta década de los sesenta, la obra, un híbrido de ciencia ficción y literatura gótica, revela no solo la conciencia ideológica de Williams sobre el papel de resistencia política del desviado en un sistema que raya en el totalitarismo, sino que muestra algunas de sus estrategias contranarrativas en la lucha contra el orden (hetero) normativo. Al elegir el desenlace típico de la ciencia ficción apocalíptica, Williams invierte la lógica del género popular favorito de la Guerra Fría. La amenaza ya no procede del espacio exterior (la invasión alienígena o el inminente ataque nuclear soviético) sino del propio sistema: el surgimiento de una nación que aniquila cualquier forma de alteridad y disidencia. De idéntico modo, al convertir al vampiro homosexual, la quintaesencia del perverso polimorfo y de la sombra jungiana, en el héroe moralmente superior de un mundo agonizante y en el superviviente de una incierta utopía futura, el escritor sureño otorga un papel privilegiado al Otro demonizado como salvador del sueño americano de una libertad individual sin límites.

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