Una nación burlona : Virgilio Piñera y el "choteo" cubano

Abstract

While Jorge Mañach’s analysis of choteo in 1928 categorized it as an impediment to the development of a nation’s mature cultural institutions, Virgilio Piñera’s plays Electra Garrigó (1942), Jesús (1948), and Aire frío (1960) employ this type of mocking verbal humor in ways that challenge such a perspective. Rather than their cause, the choteo that these works reflect is the product of the difficult historical conditions of the 1940’s and 1950’s, in particular the absence of political stability and legitimacy. By reimagining and enacting choteo dramatically according to this new conceptualization, Piñera redeems it, and marks it as a powerful force for community and shared identity during the tumultuous pre and immediate post-Revolutionary period.