[In the following essay, Frisch discusses Garro's affirmation of identity and order in Testimonios sobre Mariana and La casa junto al río.]

The absurdities of life, the void of death, and the order and meaningfulness of existence are major concerns in several of Elena Garro's works. These problems, with all their ramifications, are central both to the protagonists and to the very fabric of Garro's two recent fictional works, Testimonios sobre Mariana and La casa junto al río. Garro deals with the interrelated questions of order and meaningfulness of existence, the nature and function of time in regard to meaning, the importance of confronting death, and the definition of the self. Most important is the recognition that one can affirm a personal identity and a sense of order by confronting the void of death and the absurdities of life. This theme is expressed through Garro's use of myth whereby dead protagonists continue to live in a mythical afterlife and resolve some of their difficulties. Garro's skillful control of structure, style, and theme in these two novels works to project a vital, evolving, unique approach to some central concerns of the twentieth century.

Testimonios sobre Mariana relates the memories of three distinct narrators about the life and disappearance of Mariana and her daughter, Natalia. Mariana is caught in an intricate web of psychological persecution orchestrated by her husband, Augusto, and by his friends. She is also the object of desire of several passionate admirers. The action of the novel occurs primarily in Paris. The three narrators are Vicente, Gabrielle, and André. Vicente, a South American who seems driven to possess Mariana, finally gives up his attempt to have her after being rebuffed and after Mariana aborts their child. Gabrielle is an elderly Marxist friend of Mariana. Gabrielle betrays Mariana on several instances out of fear of losing her job with Augusto or compromising her work for the Revolution. Gabrielle is told toward the end of her monologue that Mariana was seen outside the Vienna Opera. The third narrator, André, expresses his love and concern for Mariana. He believes that Mariana and Natalia are driven to suicide by Augusto and that they return to visit him one night. He concludes that the love he expresses for Mariana during that encounter permits her to break out of the daily repetition of that suicide and that she now waits for him in the afterlife.

Questions of death, the absurd, and the meaning of existence are at the root of this work. The novel is riddled with ambiguity but all for a purpose. Garro creates an absurd, labyrinthine world in which truth is elusive and in which the protagonist, caught in a cycle of suffering, is afraid to act. She employs a number of techniques that suggest a subjective, ambiguous world, such as multiple, conflicting narrators and references that blur the line between the real and the imaginary. Garro then focuses the work around an enigmatic central character who is trapped in a cycle of suffering in the nightmarish world from which she cannot free herself. The resolution of the novel affirms the importance of confronting the void of death and also implies that death need not be the stymieing threat that it seems to be. At the same time, Garro affirms that love can give meaning to life, since it is André's affirmation of love that permits Mariana to find peace in the end.

A study of the three narrative perspectives of Garro's novel suggests some significant differences.¹ Each of the monologues expresses a different poetic consciousness, and each narrator manifests a different world view. Vicente refers to himself as a melancholic absurdist:

Debo reconocer que la melancholía es mi estado natural, a pesar de que los teólogos la consideran un atentado contra la existencia divina. Pero no soy creyente. Los barcos me dan la impresión de no ir a ninguna parte, lo cual si pudiera realízarse sería la solución para mi vida. Aunque cualquier solución sería igualmente absurda.²

[I should recognize that melancholy is my natural state, in spite of the fact that theologists consider it an affront to the divine existence. But I am not a believer. Boats give me the impression of not going anywhere, which, if could be carried out would be the solution for my life. Although any solution would be equally absurd.]

In contrast to Vicente, Gabrielle refers to herself on several occasions as a Marxist dedicated to promoting the Revolution. André is characterized by his ability to live with ambiguity and in a world of flux in which truth is not clearly defined. Each of the narrators also has a special but different love relationship or personal bond with Mariana. Vicente is an obsessive, questing lover, as Mariana's nickname for him, “Parsifal,” implies. In contrast, the elderly Gabrielle's love is the love of a friend, but it is weak and without commitment. She excuses her distance from and betrayal of Mariana with her concern for her job or with her involvement in the Revolution. André's love, which redeems Mariana in the end, is characterized by loyalty, devotion, and innocence.

The most complex and baffling character in the work is Mariana. She is the central figure of the novel, even though the reader sees her only through the eyes of others. She is a kind of barometer that defines the other characters through their relationship to her. The reader cannot be certain of whether she has run away to the Soviet Union, is begging outside the Vienna Opera, or has been murdered by Augusto. Rumor says that she is the truest type of revolutionary, and also that she is the daughter of a czar. There are a few constant images that find their way through the labyrinth of information and misinformation, however. She is mysteriously beautiful, as is her daughter, a mirrorlike double. She is enmeshed in a cycle of suffering from which she is unable to break out. The Paris setting of most of the novel, the home of Camus and Sartre, is appropriate for this struggle with the absurd. Mariana suffers verbal and psychological abuse from her husband, Augusto, and in her solitude is brought to the brink of desperation and suicide. Her dilemma, in part, is explained by her religious bent that is in conflict with the libertine world in which Augusto moves. Mariana has a need for order, purpose, faith, and meaning. She is a sensitive, poetic character whose life patterns interact and conflict with some of the larger social and philosophical issues of her age. Gabrielle seems to be aware of this. Mariana tells Gabrielle at one point that she had wanted to be a nun, and the Marxist Gabrielle underscores the conflict between Mariana's private world and the modern world:

En el mundo moderno no quedaba lugar para sus gustos, su fantasía, su ocio, sus supersticiones y sus creencias. El mundo se preparaba para los grandes cambios sociales y ella permanecía aferrada al juego de su imaginación. Sus valores, sus defectos, su personalidad misma pertenecían al pasado y estaba condenada a desaparecer.

(128)

[There was no room in the modern world for her pleasures, her fantasy, her relaxation, her superstitions, and her beliefs. The world was preparing for great social changes and she kept clinging to her imagination. Her values, her defects, even her personality belonged to the past and were condemned to disappear.]

Mariana thus finds herself paralyzed and passive in this Camus-like state, that of a rational character desiring order and purpose while confronting an indifferent world.

Garro employs other devices that blur the line between the real and the mythical and between an objective reality and the world of imagination. These devices imply that the world is idealistic and dreamlike, a series of illusory mirrors in which objective reality does not really exist. This view of reality is referred to numerous times throughout the work. The fact that characters within the novel are “writing” a novel about Mariana raises questions about what is fact and what is fiction. Both Vicente and Gabrielle state that Barnaby is writing about Mariana, and Gabrielle also says that she is writing a novel about Mariana:

Fue entonces cuando se me ocurrió escribir una novela sobre su vida, recordé que la naturaleza imita al arte y decidí darle un final feliz, que cambiaría su destino. Me encerré a escribir, mi personaje era complejo, su vida era un inexplicable laberinto, pero yo la conduciría a través de aquellos vericuentos tenebrosos a una salida inesperadamente luminosa. Era lo menos que podía hacer por la pobre Mariana. …

(209)

[It was then that it occurred to me to write a novel about her life, I remembered that nature imitates art and I decided to give her a happy end, which would change her destiny. I shut myself in to write, my character was complex, her life was an inexplicable labyrinth, but I would lead her through those dark passages to an unexpectedly luminous exit. It was the least I could do for poor Mariana. …]

Again, this theme of a novel within a novel underscores the illusory nature of reality. Gabrielle's assertion at one point that Mariana's presence transported her to a story of Las mil y una noches underscores the same theme, as references to those ancient marvelous tales have become a symbol initiated by Borges in “El sur” implying the blurring between the real and the mythical or imaginary world. Similarly, André says that when he sees Mariana, Natalia, and Saturnal at the end, “pensé que estaba soñando, pero la sonrisa de Mariana irradiaba tal felicidad que el sueño dejó de ser pesadillesco.” (339) [I thought that I was dreaming, but Mariana's smile radiated such happiness that the dream stopped being nightmarish.] Similarly, Vicente, the skeptical disbelieving liberal, has a recurring dream at the end of his narrative segment that implies that Mariana is in a type of paradise.

This emphasis on illusion, myth, and dream is especially pertinent to the resolution of the novel where Garro employs the marvelous to underscore Mariana's affirmation. Though within the three narratives there are various explanations for Mariana's disappearance, it seems that the third, André's, is the most plausible. It explains why Vicente may have continuing dreams of her, why Gabrielle may have received a phone call from her recently, and why some claim to still see her even though she is dead. Andre's narrative is located at the end of the novel where mysteries are usually resolved; this also helps to reinforce its role as the accurate explanation of Mariana's disappearance. The fact that André has actually seen Mariana's grave further supports this explanation.

Garro's modern world is ambiguous, illusory, and pluralistic in nature and reality. The novel is Mariana's story. While alive, she gropes and suffers but does not find and accept the love that will allow her to escape from the cycle of torture in which Augusto and his libertine friends have held her. For Mariana, there is no escape except suicide. Yet death is not an uncompromising void as it is in other authors' encounters with the absurd. Garro's presentation of life after death links her with the popular mythic vision of the Mexican people that says the souls of the dead often continue to inhabit the earth. On a symbolic level, Mariana's suicide represents a rebellion against her torment—a confrontation with and a coming to terms with death. Her encounter with the void offers Mariana a second chance. She seeks out André and obtains an affirmation of his love that saves her from continually repeating her suicide.

In Testimonios sobre Mariana Garro traces the evolution of her protagonist's soul. The fact that the heroic break with the absurd cycle of suffering occurs after death implies that the suicide is to be taken symbolically as a confrontation with death and that one should not permit the void of death to paralyze and psychologically immobilize. Only through an accommodation with death and the absurd can one make the most of life. Thus, the suicide represents, to some extent at least, an affirmation of the human spirit.

La casa junto al río raises some of the same issues that arose in Testimonios sobre Mariana, but it makes a somewhat stronger affirmation. La casa junto al río is the story of Consuelo Veronda's search for information about her family—her aunt and uncle in particular. At an early age, Consuelo's parents fled with her from Spain to Mexico because of a danger that they perceived. All of her relatives died or lost contact with Consuelo, so she returns to the village to search for them. In spite of the cool reception she receives, she is determined to find out what happened to her aunt and uncle, why two villagers claim to be her relatives when they are not, why a third villager, Gil, insists that her aunt and uncle never existed, and why virtually everyone treats her so harshly. Consuelo eventually discovers that her aunt and uncle were killed and that the villagers who claim to be her relatives are dividing up the estate to which she is entitled. But she is killed shortly thereafter. In death she is reunited in the family house by the river in a paradisiacal state with her aunt and uncle.

As in Testimonios sobre Mariana, death in this novel is not an empty, paralyzing void. For Consuelo, death actually brings her to paradise where she is able to find unity and peace. In this way, Garro underscores the importance of confronting death and the mystery of life and emphasizes how doing so can overcome the anguishing, paralyzing emptiness and solitude that accompanies an ignorance and fear of them.

This novel comes very close to moving on an allegorical level in that one can almost define a surface plot and extract an allegorical meaning as well. I do not mean to oversimplify what is in effect a very complex, short novel, but there is a sense in which Consuelo takes on the role of an “Everywoman” who must confront the absurd and struggle with overwhelming solitude, isolation, and the constant fear of death in the search for identity, knowledge, and meaning. The work approaches this level because of the rich and abundant use of symbols and mythical references and because of the fantastic turn of events in which death and tragedy become a paradise. Some of the names and character types contribute to this effect, also. For instance, Eulogio's name implies eulogy, which is appropriate since he is the son of Ramona who kills Consuelo. Similarly, the watchmaker clearly is connected with death when Consuelo thinks to herself: “El oficio del hombre le pareció maléfico. Se diría que ese hombre poseía el secreto de la hora de la muerte de todos los vecinos y también la suya.”³ [The occupation of this man seemed malevolent. One would say that that man possessed the secret of the hour of death of all the inhabitants and also her own.] And Consuelo's name itself reflects the consolation and comfort that she seeks and eventually finds in her search for a familiar link and for information about her aunt and uncle. However, several of the characters, including Consuelo, do not fit the one-dimensional mold of most allegory.

The central theme of death is underscored in the early paragraphs and reemphasized throughout the novel. The seasonal backdrop, “los últimos días del otoño” [the last days of autumn], is appropriate because autumn is the season of death (24). Consuelo's need to come to terms with death and the dead is expressed several times early on. It should be emphasized that the narrative point of view is what Gérard Genette calls fixed internal focalization where the story is told by a narrator who is not a character in the story, but adopts the point of view of one.⁴ Thus, everything the reader hears and knows is filtered and limited by Consuelo's consciousness and reflects her thoughts and perceptions. Through the narrative, it becomes clear that Consuelo's trip to Spain is an attempt to come to terms with death and the dead:

Su pasado era una sucesión de casas extrañas, rostros desconocidos y palabras no pronunciadas. No tenía absolutamente nada que decir a los vivos. Todos los seres de este mundo le producían terror y para esconderse de ellos, buscaba a los otros, a los muertos. Dejó de pensar en los muertos de México, para concentrarse en los muertos de España, ellos le darían la deseada compañía y la anhelada repuesta.

(9)

[Her past was a succession of strange houses, unknown faces and unpronounced words. She had nothing to say to the living. Everyone of this world terrified her and to hide from them, she sought the others, the dead. She stopped thinking about the dead in Mexico, in order to concentrate on the dead in Spain, they would give her the desired company and the desired reply.]

The details of the narrative also emphasize that this journey to the house along the river is an effort to come to terms with death. Early in the novel, Consuelo is about to cross over the river to the house, but stops when she mysteriously hears her name called. At the end of the novel, that same voice, the voice of the fear of the unknown void on the other side, causes her to hesitate. Similarly, her trip to the old prison that was used during the civil war, with the way station “Siberia” cells for those who were to be killed, is preparation for meeting death. The role of Severina, the jailer, also reinforces this theme. As the narrative implies, Severina not only has information on Consuelo's relatives, but she is also a jailer who has witnessed many deaths.

The role of the watchmaker is similar. As the quotation cited earlier implies, he is the timekeeper of everyone's life. He is constantly watching and following Consuelo, and she succeeds in evading his pursuit only when she leaves the village. The constant suspicion, fear, and terror that accompany Consuelo throughout the novel call further attention to the fact that this is an encounter with death. The solitude and loneliness that torment her have a dual source. She suffers both the isolation and sense of loss and aloneness that the living feel when a relative dies. This sensation of loss is really, in part, an expression of the anguish and solitude that accompany one's own confrontation with the void of death. Furthermore, at the end of the novel, after everyone has warned her of the dangers of staying in the village and after she herself has resolved to leave, Consuelo insists upon visiting the house along the river one last time, where she is killed.

This encounter with death is simultaneously portrayed as a confrontation with the absurd. Garro achieves this effect through two techniques. She depicts Consuelo as trapped and she represents the world through which she moves as absurd in its politically polarized, criminal, selfish, greedy, and hardened qualities. Consuelo's sense of entrapment comes in part from not being able to leave. She thinks to herself: “Había cometido un error al buscar el pasado, y ahora carecía de dinero para abandonar el pueblo.” (27-28) [She had committed an error in seeking the past, and now she lacked the money to leave the town.] At one point she refers to the hostel as a labyrinth that she is trying to get out of. (23) This feeling of being trapped or caught in a labyrinth is not unrelated to the rather absurd way in which we are all trapped by death.

The village itself also contributes to the sense that Consuelo, in returning there, is confronting the absurd. After telling Consuelo that she should not have returned, a woman states: “Estaba todo tan revuelto y lo revolvieron más.” (93) [It was all mixed up and they made it worse.] There is an almost dreamlike quality to Consuelo's experience in the village where people seem to surge upon her quickly and disappear and seem to know about her thoughts and actions. This reinforces the absurd and hallucinatory quality of her experience. The continuing polarizations that stemmed from the civil war add to this absurd effect:

Toda la lluvia del mundo no lavaba la sangre acumulada. “¡Cuánto rencor!” se decía Consuelo y recordó que en México había habido una revolución y los odios y rencores personales estaban borrados.

(37)

(All the rain in the world would not wash away the accumulated blood. “How much hatred!” Consuelo said to herself and she remembered that in Mexico there had been a revolution and the hatred and personal rancor were erased.]

In addition, there are characters who are not mentally stable. Consuelo refers to Gil as “aquel demente: and aquel maniático” [that demented one: and that maniac] and says of him and his actions at the end when he has a grenade, “Era absurdo.” [It was absurd.] Virtually everyone in the village treats Consuelo brusquely and distantly and eyes her suspiciously. In effect, the village is a place where everyone is afraid to befriend her and where everyone is terrorized by the crimes committed by Pablo, Ramona, and Gil against her relatives and their estate. Self-interest and greed gain the upper hand as Señor Fernando states: “Señorita Veronda, los tiempos han cambiado. Ya no existe el respeto, ni el afecto, sólo privan intereses más brutales.” (84) [Señorita Veronda, times have changed. Neither respect nor affection exist any longer, only the most brutal interests matter.] Severina echoes the same sentiment when she asserts: “Sí, rica, sí, el dinero lava la sangre, no hay ideales, no hay nada, sólo hay dinero empapado de sangre.” (92) [Yes, dear, yes, money washes away blood, there are no ideals, there is nothing, only money soaked in blood.] Thus, Consuelo's search for information about her aunt and uncle is also a confrontation with the absurd side of life and human nature.

Garro, however, implies that the absurd is not the only side of life and suggests that there may be a sense of meaning and order to the nature of things. Consuelo's confrontation with death and with the absurd results from her search for meaning. This quest takes on several different forms in the novel. Consuelo tries to understand her immediate circumstances in this Spanish village and thus comprehend the town's reaction to her and the interplay of politics in the village; she is seeking meaning and coherence in her accumulated life experiences and thus trying to connect her experiences in Mexico with her family's past in Spain; and she is searching for meaning in a larger religious and existential sense. Consuelo, like Mariana, uses the pattern of her life to confront and work through these various levels of meaning. But for her and for the reader the private search takes on larger philosophical, mythical, and symbolic significance. She is a searching, inquisitive, persistent, somewhat naive, and lonely detective investigating the disappearance of her aunt and uncle. Her effort to solve the mystery of their death and to affirm her bond with them as family is also a search into the nature of man and the order of the universe. Her journey to the house along the river is a search or quest in which she hopes to succeed; this is evident early in the novel from the description of the bridge leading to the house as a triumphal arch for her to traverse:

A la izquierda estaba el puente romano, apenas visible entre las sombras y la niebla. Su silueta familiar la recibió con una alegría mezclada de tristeza. Contempló su curva ascendente de piedra antiquísima, cubierta de enredaderas y de hierbas. La naturaleza lo había decorado con guirnaldas, y hasta ella llegó el perfume de las madreselvas. El puente romano invitaba a atravesarlo, era un arco de triunfo, y empezó a subirlo.

(13)

[At the left was the roman bridge, hardly visible among the shadows and fog. Its familiar silhouette received her with a happiness mixed with sadness. She contemplated its ascending curve of ancient stone, covered with vines and grass. Nature had decorated it with garlands, and the odor of the honeysuckle wafted over to her. The roman bridge invited her to cross it, it was an arch of triumph, and she began to go up it.]

The connection between the personal search and its philosophical and spiritual implications are underscored toward the end of the novel by the way that the fates of the house and the chapel are juxtaposed and blend with each other:

Se asió a las rejas para contemplar la casa quieta. La capilla era un almacén en que guardaban granos. Se preguntó por el destino que habían sufrido los ángeles, las vírgenes, y recordó los reclinatorios de madera negra y terciopelo rojo. No podía entrar, también la Capilla estaba cerrada. A ella la habían expulsado de todo lo que amaba: familia, casa, pueblo. Sólo le interesaban las sombras luminosas y trágicas de sus tíos, que a esa hora del oscurecer cobraban rasgos transparentes. Asida a las rejas contempló la casa inacesible y lejana, tan lejana como el Paraíso.

(101)

[She clung to the grate to contemplate the tranquil house. The chapel was a storehouse in which grain was stored. She wondered what had happened to the angels, the virgins, and remembered the reclinatories of black wood and red velvet. She could not enter; also the Chapel was closed. They had shut her out of everything that she loved: family, house, town. Only the luminous and tragic shades of her aunt and uncle interested her, which at that hour of nightfall took on transparent traces. Holding on to the grate she contemplated the inaccessible and distant house, as distant as Paradise.]

The reference to the “Chapel” being closed implies that the sacred has become profane in the mixed-up world of this village. And the association between access to the house and “Paradise” suggests that Consuelo's quest for entrance into the house and its mysteries is related to issues such as the existence or nonexistence of a Divine Being.

Similar associations between Consuelo's search for information about her relatives and a quest for meaning are made at other points in the novel. For instance, her desire for information about her aunt and uncle is equated in some respects with a search for knowledge and truth, as people are constantly giving her false information and lying to her. And the fact that the amoral, psychopathic villager Gil claims that her aunt and uncle never existed tends to link Consuelo's insistence upon their existence and her pursuit of information about them with an intellectual inquiry into and struggle with God's existence. At any rate, her quest takes on larger symbolic and philosophical implications.

Consuelo brings to her search a set of beliefs and values that counter those that govern the village, and those beliefs seem to be affirmed in the fantastic ending. She consults with a priest about the nature of her search, an action that makes Manolo distrustful of her. Similarly, shortly before she dies she states that she would like to confess. Yet organized religion and the Church do not seem to offer her an answer. The priest in Covadonga, in whom she confides, gives her a little information, but not much; he tells her not to be afraid because fear shows lack of confidence in God, and he also suggests that she abandon the only thing that gives her life meaning at this point—the search—when he states: “Pon tierra de por medio.” (57) [Get away from here.] She does not confess at the end as she would like because of the look that the priest gives her. The conclusion of the novel where Consuelo is killed by Ramona and is subsequently reunited with her relatives again associates the house with paradise. Consuelo's entrance into the house is portrayed as an entrance into a spiritual paradise of sorts, implying that she is victorious and not defeated by death, and it appears to affirm a larger sense of order and meaning. Through this novel, Garro implies that one can overcome solitude, achieve a sense of solidarity, and find order and meaning in life, but that in order to do so, one must confront and come to terms with the void of death and the absurdities of life.

In Testimonios sobre Mariana and La casa junto al río Elena Garro depicts her protagonists struggling with central issues related to the search for meaning. In these novels, Garro readily admits the absurd aspects of life and the terrorizing emptiness of death. She suggests that one need not be paralyzed by them, but that in confronting them, one can overcome anguishing solitude and cycles of suffering. Through the use of mythical, marvelous, life-after-death scenes, Garro indicates that by doing so, one can take hold of one's life and give it a sense of order and meaning.

Notes

1. My terminology for describing narrative voice comes from Gérard Genette's lucid description of the function of the narrator in Narrative Discourse: An Essay in Method, trans. Jane E. Lewin (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1983).

2. P. 8. This and all following references included in the text refer to Testimonios sobre Mariana (Mexico: Grijalbo, 1981).

3. La casa junto al río (Mexico: Grijalbo, 1983), 31. This and all following references in the text are to this edition.

4. Genette, Narrative Discourse, 116-211, especially 189-94.

Works Cited

Garro, Elena. La casa junto al río. Mexico: Editorial Grijalbo, 1982.

———. Testimonios sobre Mariana. Mexico: Editorial Grijalbo, 1981.

Genette, Gérard. Narrative Discourse: An Essay in Method. Translated by Jane E. Lewin. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1983.