Harriet J. Bauman
The objectives of this unit are the following:
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1. To help students understand the short story as a literary genre.
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2. To help students recognize the elements of a short story.
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3. To situate the Latin American short story in the genre of short stories.
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4. To situate the Latin American short story in the history of Latin America.
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5. To situate the Latin American short story in the cultural traditions of Latin America.
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6. To help students recognize the European and native influences on the Latin American short story.
In order to attain the above objectives, the teacher and students must become actively involved in the short stories taught in this unit. These stories by Borges, Cortázar, Carpentier, and Garc’a Márquez are distinctively modern and avant-garde.
The Latin American avant-garde’s roots are European in nature.
Whereas romanticism, realism, naturalism, and symbolism traveled slowly to the New World, and in some cases took decades to reach it, the European avant-garde movement of the first thirty years of this century almost immediately found an echo in the growing urban centers of Latin America. (p. 495 Monegal)
All the writers considered here along with many of their contemporaries, traveled to and throughout Europe. The movements such as those mentioned above, and those such as Futurism, Dadaism, Cubism, Expressionism, and Surrealism helped to build a modern literary and artistic movement toward a new culture. This culture would free “. . . arts and letters from the dead weight of academic tradition, a freedom that would allow them to participate imaginatively in the second great technological revolution then beginning.” (p. 495 Monegal)
World War II stopped the European avant-garde movement but not that of Latin America. Jorge Luis Borges, on a long visit in Spain (1916-1921) developed ultraism, a kind of futurism concerned with “the magical effects of imagery and metaphor.” (p. 496 Monegal) When Borges returned to Argentina, he helped other authors develop an Argentinian form of ultraism which looked for the poetry of ordinary things.
Borges had a great influence on his contemporaries as well as the writers of the next generation. His work spans poetry, essays, and short stories. He preferred the short story because everything is connected and has meaning. His art focuses on his concentration on certain unanswerable philosophical questions like man’s ignorance of his world, man’s unconscious will, life and death, etc.
“The South” is partially about what it is to be Argentinian, or Latin American. It is also autobiographical, in that the main character is half German and half Argentinian. Borges is of mixed origin. The main character is in a mental hospital at the beginning of the story. Borges spent some time in one as well. This is where the autobiography ends and the story begins.
The main character in “The South” is Juan Dahlmann, a very patriotic man. He is in a sanitorium. It isn’t clear why he is there, but he feels that he is in hell. He has some surgery, and when he recovers he is allowed to go south, to his ranch to convalesce. On his way, he savors all the experiences such as eating at a train stop, and watching the scenery outside his window.
Dahlmann is told that he must get off the train at an earlier stop, he is concerned at first but then enjoys the change. He stops to eat in a general store. He has a confrontation with some peasants, and is challenged to a fight. He accepts the challenge and goes out to his fate.
After reading this story, students could be asked to reconstruct the plot. They would define certain vocabulary words such as: daguerreotype, strophe, nationalism, hackney coach, ausculate, septicemia, symmetry, anachronism, vertigo, illusion, reality, dissipate, superfluous, impetus, intolerable, transfigure, elemental, intimate, means of conveyance, solitude, sumptuous joy, temper, lout, poncho,
chiripá
, colt boots,
gaucho
,
pampas
, turbid, suppress, peón, extravagance, mockery, ecstatic, cipher, summary, torpid, poniard, wield.
The students might be asked to reread the story looking for all references to colors, buildings, means of transportation, the country versus the city, day versus night, Argentina and its way of life, etc. The students could be assigned to different groups to do the assignment. They would share the information with the rest of the class. These notes would be used for further discussion of the story.
In other groups the students might be asked to do research on Borges, Argentina’s geography, Argentina’s people, daily life in the north and in the south of Argentina, gauchos and their lifestyle. They could do this research before reading the story. This information would again be shared with the rest of the class. The students’ notes would become part of the cultural section of their notebooks.
Students could be asked to write a character sketch of Dahlmann, of a
peón,
of the owner of the general store, or of the old gaucho. They could rewrite the plot from one of the other characters’ point of view.
Essays on several topics germane to Borges’ philosophy could be a culminating activity. The topics might include dreams, reality versus imagination, time, the Pampas, gaucho life, the national myth of Argentina, a literary critique or literary criticism, the process of making the familiar unfamiliar.
Alejo Carpentier was bicultural (Cuban and French). He traveled to Europe and studied music in France. In Cuba he studied architecture. He became a newspaperman and got involved in politics. He spent time in Spain during the Spanish Civil War. All of these experiences had an influence on his writing.
Carpentier, a Latin American intellectual, found a nationalist cause for which to fight while he was in France. He determined “to integrate the different national cultures into a truly continental unity; to recapture the fabulous past and update it; to preserve whatever was still meaningful and valuable in the collapsing cultures of the West.” (p. 518 Monegal)
Carpentier’s literary style is a mixture of many influences like Afro-Cuban folklore, music, architecture and structure, and language. He used devices such as playing with time and personal identity, questioning what is dream and reality, numbers, metaphors, symbolism, and defamiliarizing the familiar.
The story selected to be studied is “Journey Back to the Source”. The plot is “to present a man’s life in reverse order, from the unbirth which is death to the undeath which is birth.” (p. 518 Monegal) The most interesting part of this story is not the plot but the juxtaposition of language and time. The language of the story is going forward while time is going backward. Language is the means by which we go toward death in this story.
The students will be asked to define certain vocabulary words: monologue, mosaic, masonry, crenellation, cornice, garland, dentil, astragal, peplum, entablature, balustrade, faCcade, propensity, capital, acanthus, scapulary, beetle-browed, cravat, pier glass, to mention a few.
Many of the activities mentioned above for “The South” can be adapted for this story. The research will, this time, be based on life in the Antilles, especially on plantations for major crops, and on Carpentier.
The students may be asked to reread the story tracing time, details of the house’s architecture, metaphors, etc. Some students might want to reconstruct the house either by drawing it on paper or by making a three-dimensional model.
The students might be asked to illustrate the most vivid description in the story, or the part they liked the best. Some students might want to construct a time line of events in the story. Another activity might be for students to write a description of what happens when Dahlmann goes outside at the end of the story. Any of these activities might serve as a culminating activity for “The South.”
Julio Cortázar was Argentinian with a French background. He was born in Brussels, Belgium and spent the first three years of his life there. He was a disciple of Borges and experimented with some of Borges’ techniques and theories like the fantastic, the double, the labyrinth, and others. He expected the reader to participate in his works.
In “The Southern Thruway” Cortázar takes a common everyday occurrence, tilts it slightly, and things happen differently. He defamiliarizes the familiar.
It is the end of vacation and everyone is heading back to Paris. Near Fontainebleau, a traffic jam occurs. No one moves. Soon hours pass, then days, until we’re not sure how long this event lasts. As time goes on, people in the neighboring cars gather to share food, water, medicine, and gossip. Soon they have fabricated communities with certain people selected to do certain jobs.
Everything outside of the traffic jam seems unreal. Farmers and villagers help with supplies, for a price. A type of “black market” arises. Sometimes the farmers and villagers refuse to help. The car radios are a connection to the “real world”, but their news has no meaning for the people trapped in the traffic jam. The other connection to “reality” is cars of opportunists offering supplies and information for a fee.
It seems that this bizarre occurrence will never end. No real help comes to untangle the mess. One day, without warning, the cars begin to move back to reality. All the ties which were formed among the sufferers are broken. “. . . And you moved at fifty-five miles an hour toward the lights that kept growing, not knowing why all this hurry, why this mad race in the night among unknown cars, where no one knew anything about the others, where everyone looked straight ahead, only ahead.” (p. 29 “The Southern Thruway”,
All Fires the Fire
)
Any of the activities already mentioned could be adapted for this story. In addition, the students might write a newspaper article about the enormous traffic jam, or an editorial about the traffic jam and the indifference to it by those not involved in it. The students might also write an essay on modern man and modern society as Cortázar sees them.
Students might draw a detailed plan of the traffic jam using color codes or symbols to indicate the different cars, people, and scenes depicting the story. They might also make a three-dimensional model using toy cars and dolls.
Group activities help get the students involved. There could be a debate on a large topic such as what reality is according to Cortázar, or the place of man in modern society. In small groups students could write and perform a skit using a television or radio report format in which they tell about the events that occur, or interview the people involved in the traffic jam.
Gabriel Garc’a Márquez was born and educated in Colombia. He studied law and then became a journalist. He spent time in Venezuela, Paris, Cuba, and New York.
Garc’a Márquez was a disciple of Carpentier, Faulkner, and Hemingway. He learned how to describe action, and the economy of words from Hemingway.
“Big Mama’s Funeral” is an excellent example of Garc’a Márquez’ style. Big Mama owned the Kingdom of Macondo, its land, crops, houses, festivals, emotions, people, wealth, everything it is possible to own, and more. When she died the entire populace was affected.
No one was indifferent to this death. During this century, Big Mama had been Macondo’s center of gravity, as had her brothers, her parents, and the parents of her parents in the past, in a dominance which covered two centuries. (p. 155 “Big Mama’s Funeral”)
Before she died, Big Mama made her peace with God and disposed of her property. Toward the end of her recital she died. She could not be buried until some political questions were answered, particularly if the President of the Republic could go to her funeral. Finally the debates ended, and the funeral took place.
The funeral rites were finished and now began the hardest task-getting life put back in order. Cleaning up will be a major production because not only do they have to clean up the garbage that was left by the crowds during the funeral, but the debris from Big Mama’s dictatorship.
Now that the nation, which was shaken to its vitals, has recovered its balance; now that the bagpipers of San Jacinto, the smugglers of Guajira, the rice planters of Sinú, the prostitutes of Caucamayal, the wizards of Sierpe, and the banana workers of Aracataca have folded up their tents to recover from the exhausting vigil and have regained their serenity, and the President of the Republic and his Ministers and all those who represented the public and supernatural powers on the most magnificent funeral occasion recorded in the annals of history have regained control of their estates; now that the Holy Pontiff has risen up to Heaven in body and soul; and now that it is impossible to walk around in Macondo because of the empty bottles, the cigarette butts, the gnawed bones, the cans and rags and excrement that the crowd which came to the burial left behind; now is the time to lean a stool against the front door and relate . . . the details of this national commotion . . . The only thing left then was for someone to lean a stool against the doorway to tell this story, lesson and example for future generations, so that not one of the world’s disbelievers would be left who did not know the story of Big Mama, because tomorrow, Wednesday, the garbage men will come and will sweep up the garbage from her funeral, forever and ever. (pp. 153, 169-170 “Big Mama’s Funeral”)
Garc’a Márquez is probably presenting a political allegory of Latin American civilization in “Big Mama’s Funeral.” The story is humorous and a biting satire of governmental dictatorships.
“Big Mama’s Funeral” opens many possibilities for class discussions and activities. Many of the activities mentioned above can be adapted to this story.
Students could research the following topics in small groups: Carnival, Lent; dictators such as Somoza, Allende, Perón, Castro; Latin American governments. The groups could present their topics in forms of skits for the rest of the class.
The students could write skits based on different scenes in the story and videotape them for showing to the whole class. Some of these skits could be done in Spanish so that the students could practice their language skills.
After reading all four of the stories, and participating in all of the activities mentioned above, the students could write their own short story based on Latin American themes. These stories could be written in Spanish or English. They could be bound together and reproduced for all the students to have. Some of the better stories could be printed in the school magazine.
In conclusion, this very active ten-week unit will encourage students to read with more insight and understanding. They will also have learned about Latin America. The vitality and originality of the stories they have read and experienced through the planned activities will have given the students a way of approaching and understanding our neighbors to the south.
