Laura M. Tarpill
Horacio Quiroga was born on December 31, 1878 in a small city named Salto, in Uruguay. Throughout his life, Quiroga endured tragedy after tragedy. He was not even spared heartache during his childhood and, in fact, suffered more loss than most. All of these events helped shape his character and, therefore, his writing. The two were inextricably intertwined.
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"Desde el psicoanálisis tal acontecimiento - y años más tarde el suicidio de su
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padrastro, que el niño Quiroga también presencia - ha sido interpretado como
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el comienzo de una serie de sucesos de autodestrucción y dolor en la vida del
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escritor,cuya obsession más profunda, en lo personal y en su narrative, va a ser
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el tema de la muerte." / "According to psychoanalysis of such an event - and
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years later the suicide of his stepfather, that the child Quiroga also saw - has
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been interpreted as the beginning of a series of events of self destruction and
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pain in the life of the writer, whose most profound obsession, personally and in
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his narrative,is the theme of death" (Martínez 1997, 10).
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Although he was too young to remember, when Horacio Quiroga was an infant his family experienced a devastating event. Quiroga's father, Prudencio Quiroga, accidentally shot and killed himself with a rifle during a family outing (Martínez 1997, 10). While Pastora, Horacio's mother, waited on the shore in a car with Horacio in her arms, her husband went out in a boat with his gun. He was an experienced hunter but somehow his rifle went off accidentally when he returned to shore. Pastora saw it happen and fainted with Horacio still in her arms (Garet 1994, 21).
Quiroga's family was dealt another blow when, around the turn of the century, Quiroga's stepfather killed himself and was followed shortly thereafter, in 1901, by Quiroga's siblings Pastora and Prudencio. Both children died of typhoid (Martínez 1997, 12).
The unfortunate events did not stop for Quiroga as he got older. At this point in his life, Quiroga had experienced more than his share of death, but he had not directly participated in the act. In 1902, Quiroga went to visit his best friend, Federico Ferrando. On this visit, as Quiroga inspected the firearm that his friend had bought, it went off. Quiroga accidentally killed his best friend.
In 1909, Quiroga married one of his students and they spent much of their time in the wild frontier and Quiroga's love, Misiones, Argentina. In 1916, after living with the author in the jungle, she was "unable to tolerate the harsh conditions, Quiroga's wife committed suicide by poisoning herself - she suffered a full week before she died" (booksfactory).
While Quiroga was affected by all of the death that surrounded him, he still was a dedicated student. He attended the Hiram School and then went on to the Polytechnic Institute where over the course of six years he studied Latin, French, literary history and national history, philosophy and American History (Garet 1994, 23). Above all else during this time, Quiroga is an anarchist (Garet 1994, 25). He ended up at the Universidad de Montevideo and attended classes when he felt like it and only took classes that interested him (Garet 1994, 25). His interests run counter to what interested most people, "Prefiere Cartago a Roma, Esparta a Atenas. En la literature simpatiza con los iconoclastas, en filosofia con el materialismo." / "He prefers Carthage to Rome, Sparta to Athens. In literature he sympathizes with the iconoclasts, in philosophy with materialism" (Garet 1994, 25).
Perhaps it was his anarchic beliefs or the fact that he was raised in a family with few religious beliefs that lead to his mischievous behavior while at university. "Si una noche, en la novena de María, vació un frasco de tinta en la pila de agua bendita de la iglesia parroquial, lo hizo solo por espíritu de diablura y diversion." / "One night in the novena de María, he emptied a bottle of ink in the font of blessed water in the parish church, he did it only in the spirit of trouble making and fun" (Garet 1994, 26). Besides the occasional trouble making, Quiroga spent his time cycling. He even started a bicycle club and became its secretary (Garet 1994, 27). He was also interested in mechanics, chemistry, and photography (Garet 1994, 29).
At the age of 21, Quiroga had already been part of a society called 'La Criolla' aimed at preserving indigenous and regional culture. He had also started writing and even traveled to France. By 1903, Quiroga ended up back in Latin America. This time he was in Misiones, a jungle frontier in Argentina that became one of the themes in his stories. (Garet 1994, 45). In 1908, Quiroga met and fell in love with Ana María Cirés whom he thinks will be a perfect match for jungle life (Garet 1994, 49). As stated previously, she ended up committing suicide.
One cannot help but believe that all of these experiences shaped the author's perspective. "Critical studies of Horacio Quiroga's fantastic tales have centered on his style and the theme of man's conflict with his environment in both urban and jungle settings" (Wong-Russell 1996, 1). Quiroga chose to live in the frontier of Misiones after he accidentally shot and killed his friend Federico Ferrando, even bringing his family (Garet 1994, 7). All of Quiroga's experiences contributed to his works. The author Wong-Russell explains,
"Quiroga does not aspire to promote a short story ethic that shares in the escape
from a life that has lost its concept and excitement, but rather one that returns
to life, to the intensity of life in its most primitive conditions. Indeed, he appears
to have spent his writing career moving away from the modernista conventions...;
His characters that experience life experience its fury, which threatens them with
death and madness" (1996, 6).