Chapter 7: Regionalism in the novel and short story
Comps writers
-
José
Vasconcelos, La raza cósmica (Pg.
195)
-
Mariano
Azuela, Los de abajo (Pg. 196-199)
-
Eustasio
Rivera, La vorágine (Pg. 208-210)
-
Rómulo
Gallegos, Doña Bárbara (Pg. 210-212)
-
Horacio
Quiroga, cuentos (Pg. 216-220)
-
Ricardo
Güiraldes, Don Segundo Sombra (Pg. 222-228)
-
General notes
Introduction
-
Wider scale popularity of Latin American regionalist
novels of 1920s marks the coming-of-age of the Spanish-American novel, and also
the beginning of a change of attitude on the part of Europeans toward
non-European cultures (193)
-
Huge changes internationally in decade between
1910 and 1920: Mexican Revolution, Russian Revolution of 1917, and First World
War (193)
o
World War – signal of decline of Europe
o
Mexican and Russian Revolutions – indication that
the underdogs were capable of overthrowing governments and taking power
-
Spanish-American novel of the 1920s was
characterized by an Americanism that went much further than the Creolism of an
earlier generation, and also by a total change of heart towards the humbler
members of society (193)
-
Characteristics of attitude of 1920s novelists
(193-194):
o
Belief that literature was an agent of national
integration; through literature, divergent areas/people could be brought
together into national culture
o
Recognition of cultural differences between
America and Europe; therefore they needed a new American literature – no more
imitating Europe!
o
Belief that totally new values and a new type of
civilization could arise in America
o
Belief in a potiential national public – because
of this, needed regionally distinct literature to appeal to them
o
Belief that literature doesn’t need to be
overtly didactic to arouse opinion against injustice; also, the exposure of
injustice is inherent in regional literature
The Mexican Revolution
and Literature
-
Mexican literature is of special interest during
1920s because Mexico was the one country in which the social revolution had
taken place and where the conditions for a new type of culture existed (194)
-
Description
of the revolution – pg. 194-195 (I didn’t think we really needed it…)
-
With the revolution, Mexico took a big step into
20th century (194-195)
o
Radical change in social structure – major fall
of the aristocratic elite
o
New social class arose, full of idealists and
intellectuals
-
Optimistic nationalism of early
post-Revolutionary period (195)
-
It was the Mexican painters rather than the
writers who dominated the 1920’s (195)
-
José Vasconcelos
o
Life: 1882-1959
o
He was an idealistic/optimistic intellectual
post-Revolution
o
He supported Madero during Revolution and worked
for Obregón post-Revolution as Minister of Education (195)
o
Belief that creativity was the highest point of
human endeavor and that humanity was destined to progress to an “aesthetic”
stage of civilization that would far surpass the present era, Latin America
being destined as the first to reach this stage (195)
-
Novels of the Revolution presented the face of a
new Mexico (196)
o
Dealt with lower sectors of society; the mass
emerged as the chief protagonist
o
Use of brief, dissociated scenes instead of
traditional chapter structures in order to recreate feeling of violent upheaval
-
Mariano Azuela, Los de abajo
o
Azuela was the pioneer of the novel of the
Revolution (196)
o
Azuela’s novel LDA was published in 1916 but went largely unnoticed until it was
republished in 1925 (196)
o
Central event of the Revolution (battle in which
Huerta was defeated by Carranza, Pancho Villa, and Obregón) is also the central
event in the life of the protagonist, Demetrio Macías (196)
o
Brief summary,
pg. 197
o
Circular pattern of the novel – Demetrio is
killed at the very spot that he won his first battle (197)
o
Idea of the power of self-interest over forces
of good (example: Luis Cervantes, who joins the Revolution when he thinks they’ll
win, uses it as a way to earn money, and bails when he’s able to secure himself
a good future)
o
Each member of Macías’s band represents some
aspect of Mexican society (197)
§
Pancracio – prosperous peasant class
§
Venancio – ex-barber
§
Camilia – ignorant but loyal and long-suffering
Mexican peasant girl
§
La Pintada – prostitute / soldadera
§
All the corrupt characters (Luis Cervantes, La
Pintada, and Margarito) are all townspeople and not peasants
o
Style and technique of novel reflect the rapidly
changing situation of country during the war and the minimal role of
individuals in terms of the huge movement they formed part of (197)
o
Structured as a series of brief episodes –
effect of rapid motion (197-199)
o
First example of a
Spanish-American novel in which the subject matter imposed a new style and in
which the author successfully fused structure and subject matter (199)
o
Varied use of language/dialect captures the
essence of the different characters (199)
Venezuela and Colombia
-
In areas outside of Mexico, novel still played
an important part as a comment on society even though there was no social
revolution (208)
-
In Venezuela and Colombia, writers attempted to
separate themselves from city society and understand life in backward areas
(208)
-
Idea that the novel had a positive and
integrating role, bringing forgotten regions before the attention of the
reading public (208)
-
Eustasio Rivera, La vorágine (1924)
o
This was the prototype of the new regionalist
novel of the 1920’s (208)
o
Eustasio Rivera
§
Life: 1889-1928
§
Young lawyer
o
Story of a young poet, Arturo Cova, and his
mistress, Alicia, from Bogotá, and from the restrictions of middle-class life
which are a bar to their marriage (208)
o
Brief
summary – pg. 208-209
o
Major theme of the destruction of the Romantic
personality (208)
o
Depiction of nature as cruel and death-dealing,
in contrast with the nature that is idealized in Romanticism (209)
o
Depiction of horror of what nature is and what
man can be reduced to without the super-ego (210)
o
Possible message that nature is more powerful
than civilization in Latin America (210)
-
Rómulo Gallegos, Doña Bárbara (1929)
o
Gallegos (210)
§
Venezuela, life: 1884-1969
§
Slightly more optimistic perspective
§
One of the most distinguished regionalist
novelists of Latin America
o
This novel was based on a real-life character
and set in the plains of Venezuela (211)
o
Symbolic characters incarnate the struggle
between civilization and barbarism (211)
o
Summary –
pg. 211-212
o
Message that taming the frontier cannot be achieved
without some violence, but violence can also be overcome by education (212)
o
International success of the work was
attributable more to the exotic nature of the material than to the theme (212)
The Plate Region
-
In the Plate region (Argentina and Uruguay), the
regionalist novel could draw on a long-standing tradition of gaucho literature
as well as on more recent post-Modernist writing (216)
-
Horacio Quiroga
o
Writer of some of the best regional short
stories of Latin America (216)
o
From Uruguay, life: 1878-1937 (217)
o
Influenced by modernism and also Edgar Allan Poe
(217)
o
Interest in the human personality in extreme or
abnormal situations (217)
o
“An essential factor
in good regionalist literature is that the natural environment should be more
than a setting for a human drama. The great regional novels… are those in which
the human drama and the environment are inseparable” (217)
o
Idea that man cannot control nature; he can only
study the environment and hope to survive through courage and resourcefulness (217)
o
The great majority of Quiroga’s stories follow a
similar pattern. The protagonist is never an intellectual, but rather a pioneer/farmer/laborer
in the rough rural region of Uruguay going about his daily work. Some accident happens
and suddenly he becomes a lonely man fighting for life. (218)
o
“A la
deriva” and “Un hombre muerto” (218)
§
Follows above pattern; fatal accident occurs in
first few lines and the protagonist dies at end
§
Death isn’t completely “accidental” in either
story
§
Summaries of
both stories – pg. 218
o
Quiroga is not directly concerned with society
in his stories, but criticism of social organization is often implicit (219)
o
Idea that all man-made institutions are
fallible, fragile, and ultimately unimportant when set against the mightiness
of nature (219)
o
Conflict between human reason and will which
seeks to plan, structure, and control the environment, and nature which defies
such control (219)
o
“Anaconda” (219)
§
Story in which the snakes rise up to fight a war
to the death with a group of men in charge of a laboratory which manufactures
snake serum. Snakes instinctively defend the natural order.
§
Exploration of animals – their instinctual
knowledge and acts are totally opposed ot the willed and motivated actions of
human beings
o
Idea of nature not as a passive element but as
an actively destructive force, a threat to human identity (220)
-
Ricardo Güiraldes, Don Segundo Sombra (1926)
o
Güiraldes
§ Argentina; life: 1886-1927 (222)
§
From family of wealthy landowners; lived part of
life in Europe and part on the family estancia on the pampa
o
This work was considered the greatest regional
novel of the century (222)
o
In this work, Güiraldes turns away from European
Romanticism to the gaucho. Idea that Europe had taken the wrong direction, and
desire to record the American experience (224)
o
Work is a Bildungsroman – “formation novel,” in
which the central character undergoes a series of key experiences and thus
achieves maturity (225)
§
Güiraldes describes a process that is universal,
but relates this to a regional experience
o
Summary –
pg. 225
o
Journeys which form the basic pattern of the
novel are analogues of human life (225)
o
Idea of a male world, in which women, towns, and
officials of any kind pose a threat (225)
o
Human misery is described as essential (225)
o
Nature is a blind force, obeying the law of survival
of the fittest. Nature without man is chaotic, even vile (226)
o
Neither lone nature nor lone man is capable of
achieving perfection. Man reaches maturity by learning to control nature (226)
Conclusion / summary
-
Best of the regional
novels dealt with men and situations which were of universal interest although
they were at the same time totally integrated into a particular region (230)
-
Because the lives of
the country-dwellers were often lived in great misery, the regional novel flows
into the social protest novel and the two are not always separable (230)
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