El Catolicismo Y La Revolucion: La Muerte En Cuatro Novelas Mexicanas

Author

V. Emilio M. Castañeda

Publication Date

12-10-1979

Abstract

In Mexican Literature 1947 is a key date for the novel because of the publication of Al filo del agua, by Agustín Yáñez. With it, the cycle of novels known as “Novelas de la Revolución” ends and a new cycle, “Novelas contemporáneas”, begins. In the In the present study, however, the author considers La vida inútil de Pito Pérez, by José Rubén Romero, published in 1938 as a contemporary novel. Romero’s book and that of Yáñez are examined in this work along with Juan Rulfo’s Pedro Páramo, 1955, and La muerte de Artemio Cruz, 1962, by Carlos Fuentes.

The purpose of this study is to examine the effects produced by a life oriented toward death because of a religious environment in which people are immersed. The study does not pretend to inquire into the historical accuracy of these novels nor to question the relevance of Catholic teachings as official Church doctrine. The purpose, rather, is to shift through the actions and reactions of these novels’ characters as they respond to the Catholic posture toward death presented in the novels. Is it possible that in the views of these writers the scene in the Mexican provinces has not changed much since the Colonial times? Are the provincial people still oriented by a Catholicism that today we associate with the Middle Ages? These are questions this study will examine.

A preliminary chapter in this stud gives an overview of the situation in which life is oriented toward death in Mexican The belief that human existence is a vale of tears is considered in relation not only to the novels but to the Mexican way of life as a whole.

The novels here considered were published between 1938 and 1962, a span of time which should have allowed Mexico to grow from the aftermath of the 1910 Revolution in order to take its place in the twentieth century. To the writers being studied, however, the provinces which constitute the bulk of the Mexican population, are still living culturally and mentally, in the sixteenth century. The influence of the 1910 Revolution was so temporary, so much in the surface, that its effect is only empty words.

In La vida inútil de Pito Pérez, we see an individual rebel against conditions which deprive him of the best in life. His problem is that of modern man: isolation because of lack of communication. He lives alone with his misery.

In Al filo del agua and Pedro Páramo, the problem is collective. Two villages struggle with the forces of death; one village already being dead and the other about to die.

La muerte de Artemio Cruz is, again, about the problems of individuals, but seen as a totality of the unhappy experience of Mexico.

In all these novels the cyclical pattern of Mexican life suggests a society that is forever moribund.

Document Type

Dissertation

Language

Spanish

Degree Name

Comparative Literature and Cultural Studies

Level of Degree

Doctoral

Department Name

Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures

First Committee Member (Chair)

Tamara Holzapfel

Second Committee Member

Rudolfo Anaya

Third Committee Member

Sabine R. Ulibarrí

Recommended Citation

Castañeda, V. Emilio M.. "El Catolicismo Y La Revolucion: La Muerte En Cuatro Novelas Mexicanas." (1979). https://digitalrepository.unm.edu/fll_etds/179