Wow! So I loved these stories from Emilio Bazan, yes they are a little grotesque , and obviously depressing but I feel like I can relate to the struggle of the people. After reading the short story, "En Silencio," I instantly thought of the the Edgar Allan Poe short story, "The Cask of Amontillado." In "En Silencio"there is a young couple who have a tavern, and they go trough years of their marriage and eventually it becomes mundane. The husband soon has a "mistress" but suggests that him and his wife move to the Americas (even though she suggested the city). On their final night together he suffocates her, and buries her with a brick wall in the closet, and the next day he is off to America. Similarly Poe depicts a story about a man wanting revenge on a man named Forunato. (Perhaps similar to the revenge of Don Diego on Don Felix en "El estudiante de Salamanca"...) To revenge him he leads him to his own wine cellar, to taste am expensive and rare wine. Low and behold the narrator poisons him and decides to bury him in his own cellar by building a wall around him.
This is an excerpt from the short story...
"As I said these words I busied myself among the pile of bones of which I have before spoken. Throwing them aside, I soon uncovered a quantity of building stone and mortar. With these materials and with the aid of my trowel, I began vigorously to wall up the entrance of the niche." (Edgar Allan Poe The Cask of Amontillado)
I think this plays into the idea of realism becuase it shows the human experience from struggles, like vengence and desire, and more importantly the results that come from these feelings. Also, I think that understanding the psychology behind the husband and the narrator and their motives to kill, is representative of the elements of realism. I cant imagine looking at these stories without including the will and spirit of the people. I think because we are all human, the emotional Bazan has on us by including the soulfulness of the characters is what sets her apart for her time period.
2 comments:
I, too, loved these stories and the "real life" they depict. I also really enjoyed Poe's writing, especially the story you mentioned. Yes, it is totally creepy and disturbing, but there is also some kind of human nature you can see there and "understand" at least in an extreme way. I really love fictional writing, but I really appreciate and enjoy realism writing as well.
Very cool comparison here. I am not sure that anyone has really taken the time to explore the Gothic, creepy ghost-story kinds of aspects of Pardo Bazan's writings. A comparison of this kind would make a great second trabajo escrito/paper!
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