Metafiction, dialogue, and otherness in the works of Carmen Martin Gaite and Miguel de Unamuno

In the present study I will analyze the development of the notion of identity in Carmen Martin Gaite's El cuarto de atras and Miguel de Unamuno's Niebla. Beginning with a psychoanalytic approach, I will read the novels alongside Lacan's mirror stage and Freud's idea of the uncanny. This analysis of the relation between the self and the other will provide the foundation for an examination of the roles that dialogue and the interlocutor play in the novels. Finally I will explore the circles of textuality created by the authors, particularly with respect to the epistolary aspects of each. I will demonstrate that much of the metafictional nature of each text results not only from the appearances of the authors within the texts, but also from the inter/intratextual elements of the works and the search for identity that both Martin Gaite and Unamuno perform as selves in the novels.