The Good Conscience (Masterplots II: American Fiction Series, Revised Edition)
At a glance:
- Author: Carlos Fuentes
- First Published: 1959
- Type of Plot: Social criticism
- Time of Work: The 1930’s to the 1940’s
- Setting: Guanajuato, Mexico
- Principal Characters: Jaime Ceballos, Asunción Ceballos de Balcárcel, Jorge Balcárcel, Rodolfo Ceballos, Adelina López de Ceballos, Juan Manuel Lorenzo, Ezequiel Zuno, Father Obregón
- Genres: Long fiction, Social realism
- Subjects: Maturation or coming of age, Family or family life, Class conflict, Religion, 1920’s, 1930’s, Mexico or Mexicans, Priests
- Locales: Mexico
The Novel
In this work, Fuentes presents an extended character study of Jaime Ceballos, an adolescent attempting to rebel against the hypocritical society in which his family lives. In the long run, he accepts his fate as a bourgeois and conforms to the wishes of his family.
The setting of the novel is Guanajuato, Mexico, a provincial city in which every citizen is “a practiced, talented, certified hypocrite.” Jaime’s family lives in the social mainstream of this city of “pure compromise,” where appearance and conformity govern the actions of all good people....
[The entire page is 2064 words long]
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