[In the essay below, Clinton offers a stylistic analysis of Rulfo's "Talpa."]

One of the most important characteristics of Juan Rulfo's El llano en llamas is the way in which the local Mexican scene is used to express universal human preoccupations. The dusty Mexican flatland becomes a transcendental image of a cruel reality that is completely hostile to man; although the characters are only Mexican country people, their tortured lives mirror human problems which are common to all men. Rulfo achieves this universality through the use of literary techniques that are worked and polished almost to the point of perfection. This type of skilled craftsmanship can be seen in "Talpa," a story in which the reader is given a moving vision of the disastrous effects of sin and guilt on the human personality. In this story, the techniques used to arrive at this vision are a circular structure and the varied repetition of certain words, descriptions, events, and syntactical structures. It should be emphasized that the repetitions are varied, for they do not bore the reader in any way. On the contrary, they make him more aware of the psychological tensions underlying the narration. At the same time, the repetitions universalize the theme by constantly reinforcing and intensifying it.

The plot of "Talpa" is simple. Natalia and her would-be lover hasten the death of her husband, Tanilo, by forcing him to go to Talpa, the site of a statue of the Virgin renowned for its miraculous curative powers. Tanilo, who is also the brother of Natalia's pretender, suffers from a horrible skin disease and would have died sooner or later anyway. Nevertheless, for Natalia and her brother-in-law, the husband is a barrier separating them from the satisfaction of their sexual desires, and the sooner he dies, the better. But instead of making possible the consummation of their relationship, Tanilo's death only causes further alienation of the lovers, for they cannot forget they hastened his death. They become obsessed with guilt and feel they must spend the rest of their lives trying to erase the memory of their sinful deed.

In spite of the relative simplicity of the plot, the structure of "Talpa" is quite complex. This structural complexity is caused principally by the use of Natalia's brother-in-law as the narrator, whose perspective over the events of the story gives us a vision of a mind in a moment of spiritual crisis. Confused and disillusioned by what has happened, the narrator perceives his past actions as if they were happening in present time. He feels it is impossible for him and Natalia to escape responsibility for Tanilo's early death. Because of his obsession with his sin, the events of the arduous journey to Talpa become mixed up in the narrator's mind, and instead of narrating them in chronological order, he superimposes past time upon his present existence.

One may see the superimposition of past and present at the beginning of the story. The first scene is of Natalia crying in the arms of her mother, an event that occurs after the trip to Talpa. Thus, the action begins with an event that would fall at the end of the story were it narrated chronologically. After this initial scene, some of the circumstances surrounding the burial of Tanilo and the return journey to Zenzontla are described. Not until the fifth paragraph does the reader become aware of the reasons for Natalia's crying: "Porque la cosa es que a Tanilo Santos entre Natalia y yo lo matamos. Lo llevamos a Talpa para que se muriera. Y se murió. Sabíamos que no aguantaría tanto camino; pero, así y todo, lo llevamos empujándolo entre los dos, pensando acabar con él para siempre. Eso hicimos."

The inverted structure of this first part of the story, the presentation of the cause, is indicative of one of the principal narrative proposals of the whole story, which is to analyze the effects of the past over present time. Given this purpose, the chronological sequence of events is of little importance. The idea of maintaining tension through traditional dramatic suspension is cast aside, since the reader knows from the beginning how things are going to turn out.

The inverted structure of "Talpa" is significant in itself. The world of the story is one in which there is no possibility of change. Natalia and the narrator live in a closed circumstance which offers no possibility of redemption. They are condemned from the beginning and are caught in a trap from which there is no escape: "Yo sé ahora que Natalia está arrepentida de lo que pasó. Y yo también lo estoy; pero eso no nos salvará del remordimiento ni nos dará ninguna paz nunca." The introductory revelation of the consequences of their actions reinforces this idea of the impossibility of change. The past is an absolute with which the characters will have to live eternally.

After the opening paragraphs, the story consists of a more exhaustive exploration of the events which caused an already known circumstance. The theme is intensified by means of a varied repetition of the events already described in the first five paragraphs. The narrative mode is similar to a musical composition in which a theme given in the overture is repeated in diverse forms throughout the piece.

The two descriptions of the journey to Talpa are a salient example of this technique. The first description is the shortest, being a synthetic view of what happened on the road at night. In this first description we become aware of the consuming sexual frustration of the would-be lovers. While Tanilo is alive, they can never consummate their relationship. The description ends with a return to present time in which the narrator once again speaks of the change caused in Natalia by the "gran remordimiento que lleva encima de su alma."

The second description of the same journey is longer and more detailed. In this sense, it constitutes an expansion and intensification of the first description. In this second view the narrator shifts his emphasis from the characters themselves to the dry and hostile ambiance of the road: "Y arriba de esta tierra estaba el cielo vacío, sin nubes, sólo el polvo; pero el polvo no da ninguna sombra." The view is broadened even more when the narrator describes the arrival at Talpa and the precise circumstances of Tanilo's death.

The thematic intensification culminates when the narrator describes again the scene of Natalia crying in her mother's arms. As is already known, the effects of remorse have been devastating for the lovers. The narrator has already insinuated that they are going to have to pay a price for their sin, and at the end of the story we learn what this punishment will be: Natalia and the narrator are condemned to spend their lives in directionless wandering, trying, always unsuccessfully, to escape Tanilo's memory: "Y yo comienzo a sentir como si no hubiéramos llegado a ninguna parte; que estamos aquí de paso, para descansar, y que luego seguiremos caminando. No sé para dónde; pero tendremos que seguir porque aquí estamos muy cerca del remordimiento y del recuerdo de Tanilo." The final sentence of the story echoes this idea because it expresses indirectly the lovers' hope that the burial in Talpa would be the end of Tanilo: "... echamos tierra y piedras encima para que no lo fueran a desenterrar los animales del cerro."

The total structure of "Talpa" assists in realizing the theme of eternal wandering. The story begins and ends in the same place and temporal context. This circular structure suggests the implacability of the situation of the characters ("como si no hubiéramos llegado a ninguna parte"). No matter how much they travel, they are always going to end up where they began—with a sense of remorse for Tanilo's death. Seen in this light, the two narrations of the journey to Talpa reflect the theme of eternal wandering. The retrospective narrator, who has already experienced the spiritual effects of his actions, conceives of life in terms of an unending journey. From his perspective, the journey to Talpa was nothing more than the beginning of a pattern of existence that will continue for the rest of his life. The lovers will have to make another journey ("estamos aquí de paso") that will be as useless as the first. Seen against this background, the circular structure of the story and the two views of the journey to Talpa constitute a plastic image of the narrator's interior reality.

Besides this structure, Rulfo also uses the poetic possibilities of language to achieve thematic intensification. The style, like the structure, is based on varied repetition. Certain sentences, words, syntactical forms, and descriptions are reiterated, thus emphasizing the obsessive nature of the narrator's guilt feelings. For example, there are five graphic descriptions of the bloody wounds of Tanilo. Many times, the narrator repeats himself in the same paragraph. He cannot forget the terrible events of the journey to Talpa (the italics are mine): "Lo que queríamos era que se muriera. No está por demás decir que eso era lo que queríamos desde antes de salir de Zentzontla y en cada una de las noches que pasamos en el camino a Talpa. Es algo que no podemos entender ahora; pero entonces era lo que queríamos. Me acuerdo muy bien." In this particular instance the incantory effect of the repetition is increased when the next paragraph begins with the final sentence of the one cited ("Me acuerdo muy bien.").

Another form of repetition is the use of similar syntactical forms in the same paragraph. A telling example of this device is the use of unbalanced sentences in which the word "eso," which functions as the complement, is placed where the subject would normally be. For instance, seven paragraphs end with such forms as "Eso hicimos," "Eso pensaba él," or "Eso hacíamos Natalia y yo. . . ." In these and other similar sentence one detects a note of finality and of spiritual inquietude. The narrator himself is incredulous when he thinks about what happened.

Still another stylistic constant is the changing from long and elaborate sentences to short and simple ones: "Algún día llegará la noche. En eso pensábamos. Llegará la noche y nos pondremos a descansar. Ahora se trata de cruzar el día, de atravesarlo como sea para correr del calor y del sol. Después nos detendremos. Después. Lo que tenemos que hacer por lo pronto es esfuerzo tras esfuerzo para ir de prisa de tantos como nosotros y delante de otros muchos. De eso se trata. Ya descansaremos bien a bien cuando estemos muertos." The repetition of certain words ("llegará," "después," "esfuerzo," "otros muchos") and the shifts from long sentences to short laconic ones give a rhythmical quality to the language that approximates the narrator's mental agitation.

As for the formal development of the above paragraph, one may observe that the direction of thought is more "circular" than "straight." The beginning and the end of the paragraph deal with the same idea of rest from the rigors of the journey. The word "noche," used in the first sentence, is developed until it becomes an image of death by the last sentence ("cuando estemos muertos"). The circularity of the paragraph's development is even more evident when one takes into account the syntactical paralellism between the second and the next to last sentence ("En eso pensábamos."; "De eso se trata."). In the two sentences, the word order is preposition, object, and verb. Thus the formal organization of [the] paragraph serves to intensify an idea by gradually intensifying and developing it until final clarification is made on a more transcendental level of meaning. Is should also be noted that the formal organization of the paragraph is quite akin to the process at work in the story's total structure.

As we have seen throughout this study, the overall effect of the techniques of "Talpa" is to intensify the emotional impact of the story. The narrator is his own judge and jury, and the structure and the use of language show his chronic tendency toward self-castigation. The two aspects are complementary in that they function in a similar manner to bring about the thematic intensification. In this sense, the complex form of "Talpa" is not an imposed artifice that can be separated from the essential meaning of the story. Rather, the form grows naturally from thematic necessity, thereby making it possible for the reader to appreciate the world of "Talpa" not as something alien to his own experience, but as an authentic reflection of universal human reality.