Commutation zones in Mariana Enriquez's fiction

a textual-receptive model of the fantastic experience

Abstract

This article proposes a methodology for analyzing the reader's experience of the fantastic, named Commutation Zones, aiming to map the textual mechanisms that produce the reader's destabilization. Grounded in Reception Theory (Iser, Eco, Jouve) and in dialogue with theorists of the fantastic (Todorov, Roas), the model investigates how the text-reader interaction generates the genre's characteristic effect. The methodology identifies four zones — Unrest (affective), Transgression (ontological), Hesitation (cognitive), and Contagion (symbolic) — which operate in a dynamic of mutual intensification called the Spiraled Effect. To demonstrate its applicability, this article conducts a case study of the short story “A casa de Adela” by Mariana Enriquez. The analysis concludes that the methodology is an effective tool for understanding how the author's work constructs the fantastic by systematically eroding the reader's codes of reality, thus validating the model as a contribution to the field.