Sobre la autora y la obra
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Castellanos
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México,
1925-1974
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Generation of 1950 (poets who wrote during World
War II, influenced by Cesar Vallejo and others)
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Focus on gender issues and also interest in
indigenous problems (despite not being indigenous herself)
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This is an indigenist novel
Comps Example Questions
- The development of Spanish American identity and issues of race, class, and gender in numerous authors, from modernismo to the present (although they occur earlier as well). Authors: Agustini, Arguedas, Argueta, Storni, Burgos, Castellanos, Cardenal, Ferré, Berman, Álvarez, Williams, Puig, Barba Jacob, Sarduy, Menchú, Alzandúa, Paz, Fernández Retamar, Galeano, Rama, etc. Some suggested readings: Foster and Altamiranda, Cornejo Polar, Meyer, Castillo, Stabb, Martin, Kaminsky, Beverly and others under testimonio.
2. Indigenismo. Definition, origins, thematic elements and representative works that
characterize the genre (Works: Matto de Turner, Varela, Icaza, J.C. Mariátegui
and R. Castellanos), or Indigenismo avec
Indigenous self-representations.
What Franco says (Intro to
Spanish-American Lit, Chapter 8)
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Castellanos’ novels draw on the Indian legends
and religious practices from the Chiapas region of southern Mexico (252)
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Less concerned with the interpretation of Indian
attitudes than with the interpretation of Indian and non-Indian cultures – shows
Indian world in conflict with white/mestizo world (252)
What Cambridge Companion: Latin
American Novel says (Chapter 2)
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Castellanos = Latin America’s most important
woman author of indigenista fiction
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Her novel centers on gender categories as
markers for regional and native identities (56)
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Work focuses on a land-owning family whose
social standing is eroded by reforms from the national government. (56)
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“History is allegorized by incapacity of family
to sustain its patriarchal line. When her sickly brother dies, the novel’s
protagonist, a young girl, becomes the sole heir, threatening the continuation
of the family name. That crisis produces a sense of stagnation, and the
indigenous peasants’ face-off with the girl’s father in a conflict that
ultimately drains both sides. Caught in the middle, Castellanos’s young
narrator portrays how powerful forces of socialization, particularly the
Church, break the girl’s identification with the local Maya culture in order to
mold her according to dominant models of feminine subjectivity.” (56)
Characters
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Protagonist – 7 year old girl, daughter of a
landowner
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Ladino landowners – protagonist’s parents (César
is father, Zoraida is mother)
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Indian workers
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Mario – protagonist girl’s brother
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Ernesto – bad teacher
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Nana – Indian woman that takes care of
protagonist and her brother Mario
Summary
The story (beginning in
Comitán) is told from the perspective of the seven-year old female child of a
landowner (the Argüellos). She has an indigenous woman that takes care of her
and her brother and she goes to an all-girls private school taught by a woman
from Comitán. Her parents don’t really care for her at all—they rely heavily on
“Nana” to rear their kiddies. Being a young child, the narrator doesn’t know
what is going on politically at the time, but she relates events that show the
unrest of the indigenous people and their discontent with the landowners. On
the other hand, her landowning parents can’t conceive of a change to the
long-standing laws that have favored them, not requiring payment for certain
kinds of work that los indios do for them, actually paying their native
employees minimum wage. They cannot believe that natives will work hard or not
use all their money on booze. The parents resist strongly the imposition of new
political policies that seek to improve the lot of the native people. Indians
that are on the side of the landowners show up from time to time at the house,
maimed and/or dying. These events impact the young girl—she sees a
correspondence between a graphic crucifix and a mutilated native that she saw
die in front of her home. Eventually the private school is closed by the
government, as there are new policies about public education, and the family
goes with the father as he travels out to some of his other holdings. There are
laws requiring teachers to work with native farm employees, and the father,
César, employs the bastard son of his dead brother Ernesto (whose name the son
shares) as a teacher and he travels with the family and is taught the ropes by
his uncle. The father is proud and he begins to impart his customs onto
Ernesto, who is only too proud to take them up (such as fathering an army of
illegitimate children among the native women he employs).
An indigenous man named
Felipe, who has met President Cárdenas, gets his fellow workers to demand a
school be put in and the children on the farm be taught. The workers build the
school and the Ernesto is forced to teach but, after he has his way with
Matilde (a cousin of César) and she tries to kill herself when she discovers
she is pregnant with his child, he begins to drink. He eventually hits some of
the school children when he is drunk and they demand another teacher. Ernesto
is sent by César to the municipal capital to get the government’s attention,
but he is shot by indígenas before he
gets there. The family goes back to Comitán and César goes to try to get the
governor’s attention but to no avail. Zoraida is told by Nana that the
sorcerers of the field are going to eat Mario, her male child, and Zoraida
freaks out. She kicks Nana out of the house after beating her. She gets a
beggar to tell her fortune but it is only bad. So, trying to make things better,
she sends the girl and Mario to communion classes because the priest will not
attend to her unless they become church members. However, the two Argüello kids
are told a ghost story and it makes Mario too scared to take communion. So, the
girl steals the key that guards the communion host. Knowing what his sister has
done, Mario becomes even more afraid and he wastes away. Modern medicine cannot
help him because he will not eat or sleep. Mario dies eventually, Zoraida
freaks out, and the girl feels horrible. Don Jaime Rovelo, another landowner
whose son has become a progressive, remarks that neither he nor César has any
son to carry on their lines. The girl, in the end, feels horrible about what
she has done and wishes she could apologize to Mario.
Themes/ideas
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Writing style
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Child’s perspective – infantilizes problem
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Racism / discrimination (against Indians)
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Oppression (of Indians and of women)
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Indigenist novel
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