There will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Space anxiety, biblical myths and madness in Demonia by Bernardo Esquinca

Abstract

In Demonia, by Bernardo Esquinca, some biblical myths are inscribed, at a symbolic level, in the spaces of the texts. In this way, places are modified, they are composed of amalgamated time curves that interact in the same space-time. This writing technique, frequent in the Mexican author's narrative, generates protean places, where discourses from different eras coexist in the development of the plots and in the visceral ways of experiencing and apprehending the places. From a geocritical perspective, this paper analyzes spatial anxiety in “Moscas” and “Deuteronomio”, short stories from the aforementioned volume. Such representations call into question the sanity of the characters based on the effects produced by spatial practices that have their origin in stories from the Old Testament, especially around the predominance of evil in the worlds referred to and in the protagonists of the stories.