Critical Essay | Critical Essay by P. Eric Henager

Critical Essay by P. Eric Henager

SOURCE: Henager, P. Eric. “Physical Competition and Identity in ‘Día Domingo’ and ‘Final del Juego’.” Aethlon 17, no. 2 (spring 2000): 77-91.

In the following essay, Henager elucidates the role of sport and physical competition and its connection to the development of identity in Mario Vargas Llosa's “Día domingo” and Cortázar's “Final del juego.”

An incident like the murder of Colombian soccer player Andrés Escobar after he had scored an autogol for the U.S. team in the 1994 World Cup reminds us that modern sports differ significantly from “play,” defined by Allen Guttmann as “nonutilitarian physical or intellectual activity pursued for its own sake” (From Ritual 3). Sport is an activity that seems innocent and straightforward on the surface but that often surprises us with its capacity for laying bare serious human problems, fears, and desires. In this paper I analyze the role of sport and physical competition in the...
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