Daily Life of Azarías on a Rural Farm
We face a descriptive text, where we examine the tasks involved in the daily life at the farm of Azarías. To portray the character’s routines, Delibes has used a technique that might be described as impressionistic. Through the accumulation of elements, the profusion of detail, and juxtaposed actions, he brings to life the figure of the undisputed protagonist of The Holy Innocents.
Lexical Choices and Setting
The lexicon used by the author is essential to understanding the area where life unfolds (the farm). It includes elements and actions specific to this place. We see how lexemes are organized around a semantic axis that might be called “Animals of the Cortijo,” such as:
- Dogs (which in turn include pointer, setter, *zorrero*, mastiff)
- Turkey
- Owls
- Partridges
- Spout
- Doves
- Bargains (grouped around the latter as “game pieces”)
- Milan
There are also numerous terms that refer to places within the house (the oaks, the *Tajuelo*, the hallway, the perches), vegetation, both wild and natural (the oaks), and the more domestic area of the *finca* (geraniums, willow). Terms related to “work” or activities of Azarías (cleaning the car—the only sign of modernity and technology in the text—, unscrewing the caps, chicken scratch, water, cleaning up the hovel of the owl, plucking birds) are arranged as they develop throughout the day, but with a clear message of routine and systematic repetition.
The profusion of animals and places situates us in an artificial or unsophisticated space, where our protagonist moves with ease and safety. The presence of nature makes us clearly link the essence of the character with the context in which he lives. Conversely, when the car appears at the beginning of the fragment, it merely establishes a clear contrast with what comes later, and the “work” Azarías develops is totally absurd and unproductive. This link with the environment even causes the innocent character to be marked with certain animalistic traits (he is *rutando* all day, as if chewing nothing).
Dominant Nouns and Adjectives
Nouns predominate in our text: Delibes intends to present the elements that make up the picture through description, which refers to a significant number of names, mostly common and concrete. Adjectives are not plentiful and generally tend to be placed after the noun they accompany. The author does not provide details with elaborate descriptions, but the accumulation of objects, places, and animals creates the feeling he is after. In any case, the adjective with the prefix “desolate hallway” draws attention, insisting on the idea of deprivation and poverty faced by Azarías. Similarly, the lyrical tone is particularly significant with the use of the adjectives used at the end of the fragment: “round yellow eyes,” seeking to provoke a series of sensations about the Milan and *emphasize* Azarías’ connection.
Verbal Usage
We have to talk about the verbal usage that characterizes the fragment. Note that most of them are conjugated in the imperfect indicative. Delibes thus describes what the character *did* every day, because he *has done* it before. It is a clear narrative, pretending to be a more or less objective view of reality. But we also discovered the use of verbs in the subjunctive (also imperfect) to express assumptions, personal assessments, and unreal actions of the protagonist.
Syntactic Structures
Regarding the syntactic structures of the text, we see how the sentence periods tend to be short, like brief strokes or brushstrokes that create the image he seeks to draw for us by accumulation. In this sense, we speak of the predominance of coordinated sentence structures with a profusion of the coordinating conjunction “and” (*copulative*), which produces a feeling of a well-knit and connected text, an intense attachment of a significant number of items that otherwise would not have much to do with each other. The same effect occurs with the use of the coordinating conjunction “or” (*disjunctive*), which, in addition to further connecting the text, produces a clear sense of orality and spontaneity.
In short, we have a text that manages to convey, with the simplicity that only a master can achieve, the everyday life of Azarías. Through the apparent objectivity and naturalness of expression in the fragment, Delibes makes us lean, with delicacy and sympathy, towards the harsh reality of the innocent.