Rulfo's Aesthetic Nihilism

THE fictional world of the contemporary Mexican author Juan Rulfo is one of reduction and denial. Character is stripped of external appearance and splintered into existential shards; plot is inconsequential or nonexistent; action decelerates into stasis. Narrative continuity is fragmented into bits of dialogue and truncated memories. Structural disintegration reflects the physical and moral dissolution of the universe. Man is reduced to a voice and sometimes to a mere echo. The most profound expression of Rulfos nihilism is his first and only novel to date, Pedro Paramo,l which depicts a nightmare of suffering founded upon the violent existence of a Mexican cacique. The somber vision of the novel is prefigured in the author's collection of short stories, El llano en Uam.as.2 Three stories in particular presage the hellworld of Comala: Macario, E1 hombre, and Luvina. The pathetic idiot boy AfIacario creates wlthin his conscience a psychic purgatory that adumbrates the world of lost souls in Pedro Paraeno. Narrative devices in E1 hombre, including the rupture of chronological sequence through flashbacks and premonitions, rapid alternations in point of ariew, and the juxtaposition of strips of interior monologue from various consciousnesses, prefigure the intricate structural techniques of the novel.3 The town of Luvina with its muted, stagnant life anticipates the ghost town of Comala. In both short stories and novel the frequent use of first-person narrative underscores the solipsistic nature of Rulfo's universe. Characters are unable to sustain meaningful relationships

Aesthetics · Art · Epistemology · Literature · Narrative · Nihilism · Comparative Literary Analysis and Criticism · Latin American Literature Analysis · Latin American Literature Studies · Philosophy

• Juan Rulfo and Machado de Assis

  David P Wiseman, James R Krause•Hispania•2016

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