Language as an Ambiguous Instrument in Me llamo Rigoberta Menchú

Abstract

This paper provides an overview of the ideological contradictions depicted in Mellamo Rigoberta Menchú, not just for the adoption of this genre to frame and shape the text, but mainly for the explicit display of the topic of language as a colonial instrument that should be subverted or destroyed from within, by voicing it from the “vanquished” (or “subaltern”) point of subjectivity. This testimonial narrative, even after more than twenty years of critical approaches, is still a case in point on the paradoxical networks that surround the attempts to define and grasp the ideological implications of the genre.