Pedro Paramo : An Enormous Impact On Latin American Writers And Readers From All Over The World

By way of illustration, Fuentes’ descriptions of Mexico City are generally basic and lacking in any expressive or idiomatic language. The protagonist, Felipe Montero, does not pay any particular attention to the details of

The flash collection Sudden Fiction Latino: Short-short stories from the United States and Latin America brings together Latino and Latin American authors who might otherwise remain separated by borders, recognition, nationality, age, gender, and even language. Some only write in English, others in Spanish and still others in Portuguese. The collection allows readers, whether they share a cultural consciousness with these authors or not, to travel to and intimately experience many diverse worlds. Worlds, or stories, that seem to be working to define the indefinable--what it means to be Latino or Latin American. And it seems that anytime we try to define a group of people, even when it is within the context of a literary collection, it becomes something political.

     The author of Mexican Lives, Judith Adler Hellman, grapples with the United States’ economic relationship with their neighbors to the south, Mexico. It also considers, through many interviews, the affairs of one nation. It is a work held to high esteem by many critics, who view this work as an essential part in truly understanding and capturing Mexico’s history. In Mexican Lives, Hellman presents us with a cast from all walks of life. This enables a reader to get more than one perspective, which tends to be bias. It also gives a more inclusive view of the nation of Mexico as a whole. Dealing with rebel activity, free trade, assassinations and their transition into the modern age, it justly

The Underdogs by Mariano Azuela is arguably the most important novel of the Mexican Revolution because of how it profoundly captures the atmosphere and intricacies of the occasion. Although the immediate subject of the novel is Demetrio Macias - a peasant supporter of the Mexican Revolution -, one of its extensive themes is the ambivalence surrounding the revolution in reality as seen from a broader perspective. Although often poetically revered as a ‘beautiful’ revolution, scenes throughout the novel paint the lack of overall benevolence even among the protagonist revolutionaries during the tumultuous days of the revolution. This paper will analyze certain brash characteristics of the venerated revolution as represented by Azuela’s

The first issue that many Latino author’s address is the problems in many Latin American countries. In Esperanza Rising Esperanza’s family faces the backlash of the Mexican revolution. Esperanza’s family has land in Mexico which makes them a target for many unhappy citizens in Mexico. Esperanza’s mother has to explain to her that, "the wealthy still own most of the land while some of the poor have not even a garden plot. There are cattle grazing on the big ranches, yet some peasants are forced to eat cats" (Ryan, 25). Eventually Esperanza’s father is murdered by bandit’s and they are forced to leave the dangerous country. Mexico is not the only place with major issues. Young Adult literature often reaches into the historical hardships of other Latin countries, such as the dictators of the Dominican Republican in Julia Alvarez’s novel Before We Were Free. Alvarez talks about the distrust of the police, stating “Back home, [her father] had been tailed by the secret police for months and the family had only narrowly escaped capture their last day on the Island” (Alvarez 233). Young Adult literature reflects this often as a background story, forcing the protagonists into the environment they are in. As well, it frames the families’ mindset and the hardships many have faced before

Characters are made to present certain ideas that the author believes in. In Gabriel García Márquez’s Chronicle of a Death Foretold there are many characters included that range from bold, boisterous characters to minuscule, quiet characters but one thing they all have in common is that they all represent ideas. Characters in the novel convey aspects of Marquez’s Colombian culture.

Ilan Stavans says that Juan Rulfo’s book, The Plain in Flames, is best represented by the phrase realismo crudo. Stavans defines this phrase as “a type of realism interested in the rawness of life”, meaning that he characterizes Rulfo’s writing as an unfiltered view into the lives of the average Mexican (Stavans, xi). By writing in this style, Rulfo is able to provide “an image—instead of just a description—of our landscape” as stated by Octavio Paz (xv). To create this image, Rulfo broke his story writing the process down into three separate steps. As paraphrased by Ilan Stavans, the first step “is to create a character”, the second step “is to place him in an environment where he might move around” and the third step “is to discover how the character expresses himself” (xiii). Rulfo was able to repeatedly crafted stories that were filled with high levels of realismo crudo by using that special three-step process. By creating his protagonist, crafting an environment for said protagonist, and allowing the character to express themselves within this environment, Rulfo crafted a three-tier image of post-revolutionary life in Mexico that has never been seen before.

Latin American literature is perhaps best known for its use of magical realism, a literary mode where the fantastical is seamlessly blended with the ordinary, creating a sort of enhanced reality. Though magical realism is practiced by authors from other cultures, the works of authors Salman Rushdie and Toni Morrison, for example, are notable examples of non-Latin works in which magical realism has been used to both great effect and great celebration, it is in the works of Latin American authors where the style has flourished and made its mark on the literary world. Yet even in Latin American works we can find many different kinds of magical realism, all used to achieve a different end. In the works of the Cuban poet and novelist

Although Azuela leaves out some true historical events, the appendix comments on how Azuela’s unique and descriptive style of writing still leaves a meaningful connection between the novel and the reader. For example, in one passage, Azuela describes the Villista airplanes in action, referring to them as something the peasants in Mexico can relate to. He first compares them to a canoe, then to an automobile, and then to bombs to the act of feeding chickens. However, it is important to note that Villa and his legendary Division del Norte are never seen in the novel, but the

Mariano Azuela's The Underdogs tells the story of a dauntless Indian farmer who almost unintentionally rises to a generalship in Pancho Villa's rebel army during the Mexican Revolution of 1910. Though the events that occur throughout the book are not actual events that took place during the revolution, Azuela is able to paint a very realistic picture of the revolution and leaves a bitter taste in the mouth of the reader as one witnesses the failure of the rebels. This novel is a great teaching tool that reveals truths of the revolution that would not have been given justice through the traditional historical scholarship. Through fictional characters, Azuela's The Underdogs

The underdogs is the most important novel written by Mariano Azuela which is deeply linked to the historical context of how the Mexican Revolution was established, especially in the northern states of Mexico. The Mexican Revolution it was intended to ensure a fairer way of life of the agricultural classes. However, it was harsh, brutal, and bloody complex conflict for the whole country, in which federalism and rebels have been fighting tirelessly for a cause they both believed to be flawless. Azuela follows the performance of a band of revolutionaries who radically transformed politics and Mexican society. Represents the uprising and difficulty of the revolution throughout his novel. Furthermore, describes the rise and fall of Demetrio Macias and his band of rebels who participated and uncovered the hard details effects at the height of the armed phase of the Mexican revolution in the early twentieth century.

Pedro Paramo is a novel that cannot be fully understood without consideration of its rich cultural background. It is this Mexican background, which informs so much of the novel, providing the main conflict. The narrator of the tale remarks “some villages have the smell of misfortune” while describing the locale of Pedro Parámo, the small Mexican town of Comala where the story plays out on many levels (83). On the surface level, this story is merely about a tyranical man who ruins his hometown of Comala. But in reality he does much more than that, his presence detroys the town completely, driving everyone out and converting the town to a type of purgatory. This deeper harm that he causes, by damning the rest of his townsmen is the evil

In Juan Rulfo’s Pedro Páramo, various forms of oppressive behavior are manifested in the town of Comala – these range from the simple, readily apparent abuse of power to keep a population in line, as Pedro Páramo, having complete control over Comala, regularly does, to the very sinister use of religion as a means of reinforcing the patriarchal ideal held by contemporary Mexican society. In describing the oppression of society-at-large, Rulfo shows the sinister relationship that exists between power and the corruption of one’s moral standards through Pedro Páramo and Father Rentería.

Imagine walking into a deserted town, exhausted from the scorching rays of the sun. It becomes more and more difficult to muster up the last ounce of energy to take another step, and eventually you drop to the ground. In this example setting is enhanced in a way that a tone of hopelessness for the character is developed. First, the setting is developed in a manner that places a hardship on the character. Furthermore, the town is devoid of life ensuring that any help to the character is out of the question and the sun itself is creating the hardship for the character. Similarly, Juan Rulfo uses the setting of his novel, Pedro Páramo, in order to influence the tone, which ultimately leads to his purpose of writing the novel. Comala, the

The paper is aimed to conduct an explanation introduction in four definitions, New Criticism, Structuralism, New Historical and African-American criticism. The paper will be divided into three parts, definitions, the comparison of their difference and the conclusion.