American Studies ETDs

Publication Date

5-5-1976

Abstract

This dissertation surveys what several social thinkers have said about machismo and the manner in which the concept figures in Mariano Azuela's fiction. The word is a modern term, non-existent in Castillian dictionaries, which derives from the word macho. It is applied to certain individuals to describe characteristics of destructive and narcissistic behavior usually accompanied by an exaggerated and false show of force, boldness and masculinity. Despite the great concern for machismo, generated in the XX century in studies by scholars and essayists such as Ramos, Paz, Aramoni, Oscar Lewis, Bejar Navarro, Segura Millán, Reyes Nevares, Bermúdez, Carrión and others, in Mexico, in the field of literature it has simply been taken for granted as an integral part of the culture. As a result, so little importance has been given to the machista attitude that even the critics have failed to discuss it at any length in the Mexican novel. The antecedents of modern machismo are traced back to innate properties of both the autochthonous and Hispanic cultures, the Spaniards, the process of conquest, events of the Colonial period and of Independence, all of which culminated in an era of violence, paving the way for the Mexican Revolution of 1910. The present study explores the historical factors which shaped the mestizo, as well as his peculiar mentality and his special set of values as they relate to machismo. It further treats of the emergence of machismo in the XIX century Mexican novel starting with Lizardi, Altamirano, Payno, Rabasa, and López Portillo y Rojas. The central focus, however, falls upon the novels of Azuela, showing, how he depicts in detail the phenomena of machismo in three selected novels: Mala yerba (1909), Los de abajo (1915), and Esa sangre (1956), The message that Azuela clearly conveys about machismo has heretofore eluded the critics; this study purports tor the first time to shed appropriate light on this important aspect of his work. It becomes evident that Mariano Azuela is the first novelist fully to illustrate machismo and to qualify that attitude as a negative and destructive behavior deeply embedded in mexican culture. In the study of his trilogy, a cyclical trajectory is apparent reflecting the evolution of his ideas about machismo throughout his literary life. The common denominator found in all three works is the destructive force of mexican machismo.

Language

Spanish

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

American Studies

Level of Degree

Doctoral

Department Name

American Studies

First Committee Member (Chair)

Dinko Cvitanovic

Second Committee Member

Marshall Rutherford Nason

Third Committee Member

George Arthur Huaco

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