Children in the City: Mass Culture and Childhood in Chilean Narrative (1930-1965)

Abstract

This article discusses the manner in which the concepts of mob, masses, mass culture and childhood are related in three Chilean novels: Hijuna (1934) and La fábrica (1935), by Carlos Sepúlveda Leyton, and El río (1962), by Alfredo Gómez Morel. In Sepulveda Leyton's novels, the author explores how children are subjected to homogenization, schooling and massification processes. On the other hand, Gomez Morel argues that the school system failure causes alternative subjectivities that -although safe from the State's homogenization processes- are mediated by mass culture.