The Devil Wears a Dandy’s Suit: a Critique of Modernity in Amado Nervo’s “La diablesa”

Abstract

This paper analyzes Amado Nervo’s short story “La diablesa” to elucidate how the demonic figure present in the story functions as a critic of modernity. In this Nervo’s work, scientific, progressive, and artistic discourses at the turn of the century are problematized from a satanic perspective. Through a theoretical approach based on literature, semiotics, and cultural studies, this article explores irony and humor as mechanisms for subverting such discourses. The analysis focuses on the semiology of the character and the items that make up the narrated scenarios, as well as the metatextual consciousness of the narrator, which questions his own story and reveals the artificiality of the construction. In addition, the characterization of the devil and the protagonist as dandies is explored, and the category of “disenchanted humor” is used to describe the diabolical statements and their mode of reading. This study seeks to contribute to a better understanding of the complexity and richness of Nervo’s work, while offering an innovative reading of the figure of the devil as a symbol of of the modern individual’s crisis.