20th Century Hispano-American Narrative: A Literary Journey
Narrative of the Twentieth Century Hispano-American Literature
1. First Half of the Twentieth Century
Stories:
Horacio Quiroga represents the beginning of the narrative of this century with stories that explore new subjects with drama and show great interest in the unknown and the world of fear and the inexplicable.
Themes: death, madness, horror, doom, mystery, the overflowing and uncontainable force of nature, fear, and the irrational.
Fiction of Madness and Death
Novels:
A very important literary movement emerges: Realist Regionalism.
- Search for the essence of the Hispanic in folklore and customs.
- Identification with the landscape.
- Discovery of the land’s force and a powerful, overwhelming nature.
- The fight of man to gain control of the land, often defeated by nature.
a. Mexican Revolution Novel:
A personal interpretation of the revolution and its related problems. Some disappointment, characters looking for their own benefit, betrayal of the leaders of the movement.
Novel Techniques: different points of view, beginning “in medias res”, realistic dialogues.
Mariano Azuela: Los de abajo (1915)
b. Novel of the Land:
A vision of Hispanic nature as a character within the novels, whose strength can defy and defeat man.
Eustasio Jose Rivera: The Vortex (strength of the jungle, mighty nature, primitivism, savagery) (Jungle Novel)
Ricardo Guiraldes: Don Segundo Sombra (Gauchismo)
Rómulo Gallegos: Doña Bárbara (struggle between barbarism and civilization)
c. Indian Novel:
Denounces the exploitation and oppression of the Indians by the three traditional powers of the white world: the law, the church, and the military. It defends the right of the Indian to the land and showcases the magical and wonderful world of Latin American literature of this century.
Alcides Arguedas: Raza de Bronze (1919)
Jorge Icaza: Huasipungo (1934)
Ciro Alegría: El mundo es ancho y ajeno (1941)
2. Second Half of the Century: The Great Authors
Jorge Luis Borges (1899-1986)
- Topics from mythology, Arab culture, the reality of Argentina.
- Manipulation of history and mythology to introduce his own creations.
- Expository tone, close to the essay.
- Chinese-box structure: stories inserted into other stories.
- Use of fantasy and symbols: Maze (ordered chaos, representation of the Universe), Library (summary of the world), double (alter ego), mirror (reflection of reality), Tiger (represents divinity), time (destroys everything).
Julio Cortázar (1914-1984)
- Characters face unexplained situations.
- Anecdotes seasoned with vulgar and mysterious fantasy elements.
- Mixed reality and fiction.
- Precise, rich, and varied lexicon, but with little adjectivization.
- Interest in the absurd and inconsistent.
Hopscotch: a complicated novel that uses perspectivism, interior monologue, and the disappearance of the border between reality and fiction. It has different reading keys: from chapter one to 55, 73 to 154 in the order marked by the author, etc.
Gabriel García Márquez (1928-2014)
- Ability to create fictional worlds.
- Use of language with humor, symbolism, ellipses, and deformation.
- Utilization of magical realism.
- Theme of cyclical time and solitude due to lack of communication and love.
- Transcript of Colombia’s history in his novels.
- Anachronisms, narrative jumps, anticipations, perspectivism, etc.
Mario Vargas Llosa (1936-)
- Characters are sometimes violent misfits.
- Low use of magical realism.
- Stories that intersect and overlap in a novel.
- Use of free indirect style, interior monologue, different linguistic registers.
- Use of humor and irony.
The City and the Dogs, Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter, Death in the Andes, The Feast of the Goat
Ernesto Sabato (1911-2011)
- Search for the limits of rational knowledge and the impact of scientific thought on the existence of contemporary man.
- Bleak view of reality, preoccupation with social injustice.
- Investigation of the border of madness and lucidity, the reasons for evil, the importance of the intuitive and the irrational.
El túnel, On Heroes and Tombs, Abaddón el exterminador
Juan Rulfo (1918-1986)
- Closed world, hostile, lonely characters, self-absorbed, overwhelmed by guilt.
- Wasteland landscape, inhospitable, desolate plains, remote and abandoned villages, scorching climate (Jalisco).
- Lack of communication, loneliness, violence, pain, suffering, adverse fate, destiny, and death.
- Stream of consciousness, perspectivism, chronological breakdown of order, timelessness.
- Comala: a mythical world that represents purgatory and death.
Pedro Páramo, El llano en llamas
Carlos Fuentes (1928-2012)
- Finding the Mexican identity.
- Critical vision of his country from his cosmopolitan position.
- Perspectivism, temporal dislocation, use of the second-person narrative.
- Use of Mexican history to understand and interpret the country.
The Death of Artemio Cruz, Cambio de piel, Terra Nostra, Aura, La cabeza de la hidra
3. The Latin American Boom
Jorge Edwards: The Silent Witnesses
Manuel Mujica Lainez: El escarabajo
Alfredo Bryce Echenique: A World for Julius, Exaggerated Life of Martín Romaña
Luis Sepúlveda: The Old Man Who Read Love Stories
Laura Esquivel: Like Water for Chocolate
Isabel Allende: The House of the Spirits, Eva Luna, The Infinite Plan, Paula, Portrait in Sepia, Of Love and Shadows