The Image of Power in Pretexta or The Masked Chronicler. By Federico Campbell.

Abstract

This article analyzes Federico Campbell’s novel Pretexta or the Masked Chronicler as a critical reflection on the nature of power in post-1968 Mexico. Drawing on Michel Foucault’s theoretical framework, particularly the concepts developed in Discipline and Punish and The Archaeology of Knowledge, the study examines how power is represented in the novel as an invisible network of relations that permeates society and operates through institutions, discourse, and surveillance practices. The analysis focuses on the figure of the Archive, understood both as a panoptic space of control and as a documentary device that enables the manipulation of individual memory and official history through the production of libels. The article also explores writing as a technology of power that transforms the protagonist, Bruno Medina, into both an accomplice and a victim of the system he serves, progressively erasing his identity. The study argues that the novel exposes the fabrication of historical and personal truths through anonymity and secret writing, thereby revealing the fictional nature of official history. Ultimately, Pretexta is interpreted as a work of denunciation that unmasks the disciplinary, panoptic, and dehumanizing mechanisms of modern power.