The Eldorado Episodes of Voltaire's ;Candide ; as an Intertext of Augusto Roa Basto‘s ;Yo el supremo ;: A Utopia, Dystopia Relatioship

Abstract

;Yo el Supremo ; is an example of historical fiction, yet it resembles dystopian fiction in one important respect: it reveals the cruelty of dictatorship by commenting on the reversal between high utopian expectations and deep disillusionment. The invention of dystopias necessarily implies the complementary conceptualization of utopias. A purposeful pattern of references to the Eldorado chapters of Voltaire's ;Candide ; points to the latter as an intertext. This relationship must be seen in the context of Rodriguez de Francia's claimed adherence to Enlightenment political ideals. This intertextuality takes two forms. In many respects, the Paraguayan dictatorship is the opposite of Eldorado, which difference illustrates what a good society ought not be. In other ways, however, the dystopia strangely resembles its utopian counterpart, except that those similarities have different causes and effects and they embody different value systems. In this way Roa Bastos shows how the perversion of admirable ideals can have disastrous consequences.