Text as a Dialogue: The Role of Paratexts and Intertexts in Hemingway’s Death in the Afternoon

Abstract

The main aim of this paper is to demonstrate that the vibrancy and multidimensionality of Hemingway’s work lies in its dialogic nature. In the light of the above-mentioned, referring both to Kristeva’s notion of intertextuality and Genette’s concept of paratext, the paper constitutes an attempt to bring into focus a dynamic network of interactions, which manifest themselves at the level of the text’s structure and meaning. Correspondingly, an outgoing dialogue between Spanish and American culture, between the factual and the fictional, between the articulated and the unsaid, should be viewed as breeding ground for the reader’s role in the negotiation and co-creation of meaning. As a result Death in the Afternoon becomes something more than just a manual on how to look at the bull fight. With its internal diversification, the text becomes a chance of meeting, a carnivalistic space opened for an ongoing dialogue and interaction between the elements both internal and external to the text, inviting the reader to immerse fully into a constant and always relevant conversation between writing styles, forms of artistic expression and culture.