Explosion in a Cathedral
by Alejo Carpentier
- 2 Members Following
Follow a topic to see new activity, such as homework help questions and answers, in your personal feed on the homepage.
Navigate
At a glance:
- Author: Alejo Carpentier
- First Published: 1962
- Type of Work: Novel
- Type of Plot: Social realism
- Setting: Caribbean islands and Europe
- Characters: Carlos, Sofía, Esteban, Victor Hugues, Ogé
- Genres: Long fiction, Social realism, Historical fiction, Novel
- Subjects: Dictators, Caribbean, Love or romance, Nineteenth century, Europe or Europeans, Revolutions, Eighteenth century, French Revolution
- Locales: Caribbean, Europe, Central America and West Indies
The Story:
A wealthy Cuban merchant dies in Havana, leaving behind an orphaned son and daughter, Carlos and Sofía, and a nephew, Esteban, also an orphan who grew up with Carlos and Sofía. In the absence of paternal authority, the three adolescents are free to pass the time as they wish. They eat and sleep at odd hours and transform the family mansion into a house of “perpetual games,” a disorderly labyrinth of unpacked shipping crates. Their harmonious existence in the midst of external chaos is brought to an abrupt end, however, when Victor Hugues, a cosmopolitan...
(The entire page is 2219 words.)
Want to read the whole thing?
Subscribe now to read the rest of this article. Plus, get access to:
- 30,000+ literature study guides
- Critical essays on more than 30,000 works of literature from Salem on Literature (exclusive to eNotes)
- An unparalleled literary criticism section. 40,000 full-length or excerpted essays.
- Content from leading academic publishers, all easily citable with our "Cite this page" button.
- 100% satisfaction guarantee READ MORE
