SOURCE: Spell, Jefferson Rea. “Mexican Society of the Twentieth Century as Portrayed by Mariano Azuela.” In Inter-American Intellectual Exchange, pp. 49-61. Austin: Institute of Latin American Studies of the University of Texas, 1943.

[In the following essay, Spell describes Azuela's vision of Mexican society as it is expressed in his novels, noting that his greatest contribution lies in his portrayal of Mexican society as it relates to the revolution.]

Literature is one of the most effective means of intellectual interchange, and fiction is the form most widely read. Of it, there are two types which need to be mentioned here at the outset. There is a type which sets forth background in rosy colors, characters endowed with many virtues, and plots a succession of praiseworthy deeds. This type succeeds in attracting the attention of many unable or unwilling to see beneath the surface. The other extreme represents the country in drab colors and the characters as such personifications of the prevailing vices or weaknesses as to suggest, especially if artistically presented, the predominance of those characters. A foreign reader might be led by the Grapes of Wrath or Tobacco Road to imagine the United States as peopled mainly by Lester Jeeters or the ejected Joads; while I, more familiar with the background, recognize both the existence of such social injustice and the value of these works as literature.

It is as literature that I present Azuela's pictures of Mexican society. Through them he has made that country internationally known. Not only have some of his works passed through many editions, but they have been translated into the leading languages of the world and rated as literature of a high order by eminent critics. They deserve to be better known in the United States. But, in making them known, I want to state explicitly that any criticisms of Mexican society here expressed are not mine, but those of a Mexican writer, honest in his convictions and sincere in his purpose not only to create genuine literature but to contribute to the ultimate betterment of his country.

Twenty years ago when I was making a study of the works of Fernández de Lizardi (1776-1827), his pictures of Mexican society attracted me much as those of Mariano Azuela do today; and certain interesting parallels may be drawn between the periods in which they lived and between the lives of these novelists who hold a distinctive place in Mexican literature. Between the birth of each, the revolutionary period each lived through, and the serial publication of the most outstanding novel of each, almost exactly a century intervened. Both men belonged to the middle class, received a good education, and showed themselves in their writings consistently friendly to the proletariat. There are also certain points of agreement in their general estimate of Mexican society, but between the two men as writers, none. For, in spite of the striking picture he painted of Mexican society at the close of the colonial period, Lizardi was a realist whose prosaic and moralizing tone detracted from the literary value of his work; in strong contrast, Azuela's poetic vein is deep and has given to some of his pages literary significance of a high order. Lizardi pictured the Valley of Mexico as a region naturally luxuriant but transformed by unequally distributed wealth, by yawning gulfs between the various social classes, and by deep-rooted corruption into a scene of widespread misery. He concerned himself little with the immensely wealthy few, who, housed in palaces and served by retinues of servants, knew no want that riches could satisfy; or with the great mass of the natives, the dregs of society, extremely ignorant and indigent, for he saw small hope for the Indians except through the reform of the middle class, to which a large part of the creole population, including himself, belonged. It is at its weaknesses and foibles and at its chief characteristics, pride and poverty, that he especially rails; and it is to this class that his best characters belong.

Azuela's portraits of Mexican society of a century later, which should reveal to what extent Lizardi's hoped-for reforms have been achieved, fall naturally into three groups: a few that precede the Revolution of 1910; a larger number, including his best, that picture Mexico while the Revolution was in progress; and a still more numerous and stylistically different group which portrays the society to which the Revolution gave rise. Only Azuela's long life, for he was born in 1873, made possible such a broad scope of history. His background is practically always the time and place in which he himself was living. Before the Revolution, it is Jalisco, for he was born in Lagos and educated in the medical school in Guadalajara; during the Revolution, it is central Mexico, which he traversed northward to El Paso; and after 1916, it is the capital, which has largely furnished him, a practicing physician, with striking contemporary scenes. In general, he has been exceptionally successful in transferring to his canvases the spirit of the moment, before the outcome of the situation is known.

Even in his very early sketches, published under a pseudonym, Azuela showed himself dissatisfied with existing social conditions; and his first four novels give an insight into certain aspects of life in a provincial capital, in a small town, and on a great rural estate, typical of many which still flourished under the Díaz régime. María Luísa (1907) is the portrait of a beautiful girl who becomes the mistress of a young medical student; neglected, she seeks forgetfulness in drink; abandoned, she becomes a prostitute; dead, the victim of drink and disease, she startles her former lover, an interne, as he comes upon her body in the morgue. More than the story, the interlarded essays portray various aspects of life in Guadalajara—the drinking and gambling among the medical students, and the air of piety which prevailed among those preparing for the Church. Here, too, Azuela presents, with their piquant dialogue, certain social types: the quarrelsome boarding-house keeper; the falsely pious Doña Juana; a mother and daughter, somewhat light of virtue; and their well-to-do and highly respected protector, Don Pedro.

It is the iniquity of certain inhabitants of his home town, Lagos, that stands out in Azuela's next canvas, Los Fracasados (1908), which presents provincial life with all its foibles, jealousies, hatreds, and bickerings. The background, the scenery about the town and more restricted locales, such as the sitting-room of the Rodríguez home, is realistically developed. Many of the characters mirrored here are unforgettable: Don Agapito Rodríguez, the pompous and officious landed proprietor; his ignorant, vain, and provincial wife; the lovable and cultured Consuelo, supposed by Agapito to be his natural daughter, but in reality the offspring of a priest; a visionary young lawyer, Reséndez, who sees at every turn political corruption, the prostitution of the courts, the abuse of authority, and injustice to the defenseless—among whom he eventually finds himself; Dr. Caracas, the wit of the town; and officeholders, who engage in lengthy literary discussions while humble people wait vainly for an interview. Especially do Don Agapito and his family, in the rôle of the newly well-to-do—selfish, cruel at heart, superstitiously devout but lacking in true charity—typify the materialistic bourgeoise family which figures among the élite of the town. The picture is significant in that it portrays some of the intolerable conditions that gave rise a few years later to the brutality of the underlings when they rose spontaneously against their masters. The coloring of the whole is in keeping with the pessimism with which Azuela was undoubtedly early imbued. One touch brings this out. This town, so religiously fanatical, erected a statue to Juárez, which led the Indians to believe that he was a great defender of the Church. One day, Reséndez reflected bitterly, they were shouting for Juárez and the next committing atrocities in the name of religion.

In Sin Amor (1912), Azuela gives no hint that the Revolution has as yet affected Mexican social life, but pictures the gradual disintegration of character of a sensitive and well-educated girl, who has been driven by her ambitious mother, the owner of a small shop, into marrying a rich but coarse and dissolute man. Ultimately she becomes as sordid, as materialistic, and as hypocritical as her husband and his mother. In contrast, as minor characters, a poor couple who married for love and found happiness is sketched—suggestive of Azuela's evident belief that there are values in life that far outweigh the possession of money.

In these two portraits of middle-class folk to whom a fair degree of education was open, their philosophy of life is clearly revealed. One senses the great gulf between those that have and those that have not; the resentment of the latter toward the former; and the scorn of the wealthy for the poor. Both the men and the women are uncharitable and mercenary; the latter are hypocritical, sharp of tongue, backbiting; and the men, habitués of the public bars and houses of prostitution, are debauched. Some of the minor characters embody in a high degree the vices more or less characteristic of the whole social group: the mother who instilled mercenary ideas into her daughter; the falsely pious Don Salustiano, money lender and miser; and a Mexican bluestocking, Escolástica, who desired to reform society but was fond of drink and unfaithful to her husband.

The background of the other picture of this group, Mala Yerba (1909), is a rural estate on the eve of the Revolution. The characters typify the upper and lower social levels—the landed proprietors and their peasants. Representative of the first is Julián Andrade, a descendant of bandits who acquired large tracts of land and settled down like feudal lords, a law unto themselves. Heavy-drinking, ignorant, and domineering, they were culturally not above their underlings. To the peasant group belongs Marcela, a coquette, without a sex moral code but—unlike the majority of her race who were cringing cowards before their masters—spirited and determined. In her, as she aimed her dagger at Julián, there rose all the repressed hatred of the ensalved race from which she sprang—a hatred that was even then smouldering, ready to burst into flames in the entire peasant population of the country. Nor does Azuela fail to present intimate details of the social life of the region—the corrupt practices of the local courts, the weekly rationing of the peasants on the hacienda, the mourning and funeral customs, the drinking and joking at the country taverns, and such diversions as the rodeo and the horse race.

These novels constitute a prelude to the Revolution; those of the next decade portray the Revolution itself. The first of these, Andrés Pérez, Maderista (1911), pictures the brewing stage and the stir and confusion of the first armed struggles, and also serves to analyze the underlying motives—revenge, idealism, and personal gain—that actuated some of those who became maderistas. Figuring here are Andrés Pérez, reporter on a Díaz paper, who at first regards the Madero revolt as quite inconsequential; his friend, the honest and altruistic hacendado Antonio Reyes, supporter of Madero; the mayordomo Vicente, who had lost the family estate through chicanery of Díaz officials; and the turncoat Hernández, a federal army officer, a most contemptible figure, as his sole object it to ally himself with the winning faction.

Like him, the Llanos, in Los Caciques (1917)—Azuela's next picture of typical small-town capitalists, clerks, and shopkeepers—allied themselves with the maderistas solely to be in a position to nullify all projected reforms. This family—three brothers, the covetous Ignacio and Bernabé, capitalists; Jeremías, a worldly priest; with their sister Teresa, director of the local organized charity—dominated every phase of the life of the town. All four were a hardfisted lot, but Ignacio was as heartless as he was unscrupulous. He foreclosed on the property of the hard-working Juan Viñas, who had borrowed money to finish a model apartment in order to improve living conditions among the poor, although one of Ignacio's clerks, the humanitarian Rodríguez who was in love with Viñas' daughter, had repeatedly tried to warn him. Rodríguez' turn came too, for when he publicly stated that the caciques throughout the country had become maderistas merely to nullify reforms, Ignacio discharged him. The assassination of Madero shortly afterward enabled the Llanos, with the aid of police from the capital, to rid the town of all objectionables, among them Rodríguez. But when Villa's soldiers brought the opportunity for vengeance, Juan Viñas' children, with their own hands, set fire to the imposing building the Llanos had lately erected. The figures in this picture which throws light on the attitude of the shopkeeping and other middle-class elements in a small Mexican town are excellently drawn, but colored darkly with pessimism.

It is the absence of idealism or principles in politicians and government employees that Azuela satirizes in Las Moscas and Domitilo quiere ser Diputado, two pictures (1918) that have the Revolution for their background. The first portrays a motly throng of Villistas fleeing before the approach of Carranza's army. Here are General Malacara, a more zealous worshiper of Venus and Bacchus than of Mars, and government employees who have served with equal insincerity Díaz, Madero, Huerta, and Villa. Among them is the parasitical Reyes Téllez family, Marta and her son and daughter, who, realizing that Villa's sun has set, decide to ingratiate themselves with Carranza. The second picture presents the wily politician Don Serapio Alvaradejo. In his youth he had been a eulogist of Díaz and an ardent Catholic, but later, by changing his tactics to suit the circumstances, he succeeded in remaining in favor with Madero and held the office of mayor under Carranza. For a time his life was made miserable by a Carranza general, Xicontencatl Robespierre Cebollina, who was demanding a large sum of money from the citizens, and also by the unhappy recollection of his telegram of congratulation to Huerta at the time of that officer's coup d'état—a fact known to one of his enemies in the town. Relieved of one of these worries when the general, under the influence of drink, admitted publicly that he, too, had served Huerta, and that, as an official under Díaz, he had hanged more maderistas than Huerta, Blanquet, and Urrutia together, Don Serapio could more cheerfully set about extracting the needed funds from others. Both sketches deserve a high place in Azuela's works, for he succeeds in making his characters, through their own words and actions, reveal their utter lack of ideals, principles, or loyalty to either party or leader. Very effective in Las Moscas is the scene at the railway station crowded with Villa's soldiers and followers—all in mad flight before the advancing carrancistas; and especially when the husky Pancho Villa, in all his strength, appears at the rear door of a Pullman car just at the moment of a glorious sunset, which symbolizes the setting of his power and glory.

Another of Azuela's pictures that will survive is Las tribulaciones de una familia decente (1918), which portrays life in the capital in the period following the downfall of Huerta. In rapid succession, we see the desperate condition of those formerly wealthy when driven without ready money from their haciendas to the supposed safety of the capital; its invasion by the savage hordes of Zapata, Villa, and Carranza; the rise of Villa to power; and the corruption and excesses of the Carranza régime. Here is the Vázquez Prado family: the proud mother who had favored Huerta but now is ready to shift to any political chieftain through whom she might profit most; the honest, sane, and sincere husband, Procopio, who had brought to the union no means, but now secures a minor position in a commercial establishment in order to gain a livelihood for all; the pampered neurotic sons, unwilling to adjust themselves to the changed conditions; and the two daughters, one like the father, the other married to a young lawyer who, by ingratiating himself with Carranza, lived in luxury while his wife's family were in dire need. Here Azuela delivers one of his best messages—in praise of labor; for in people like Procopio he saw the only salvation of those reduced like the Vázquez Prados to utter want.

Of all Azuela's portraits of Mexican society, the one of greatest artistry is Los de Abajo (1915), to which its background, the most dramatic years of the Revolution, greatly contributes. Here we see the small farmer Demetrio, incited by hatred of a cacique, Don Mónico, to become the leader of a small band of ignorant and more or less criminal men united by but one common bond, hatred of the Federals, whom they pursue relentlessly. After robbing and pillaging the towns and joining with other Revolutionists in the sacking of Zacatecas, victorious, lawless, and drinking, they retrace their steps, burn the house of Don Mónico, and terrify each region they pass through, until Demetrio is trapped and cut to pieces in the very pass he had first ambushed the Federals. Among others in his band were Margarito, a former jailbird, astute but wantonly cruel; Anastacio, who had killed an officer; Venancio, who had made way with his sweetheart; Cervantes, a medical student in sympathy with the ideals of the Revolution, who cared for the wounded for a time but finally deserted the band after trying in vain to make them see that the evil they fought was not personal or local—that their enemy was not the cacique Don Mónico but the institution that bred such caciques; La Pintada, a shameless woman who tried to win Demetrio; and a kindhearted young girl, Camila, lured from her home to please Demetrio, but eventually stabbed by the ferocious and jealous La Pintada. Less criminal, Demetrio and Anastacio often wished themselves back on their small farms, but the others saw the Revolution as an opportunity in which more could be gained in a few months through robbing and pillaging than in a lifetime of peace. But when there was nothing left to rob, and newcomers, even ex-Federals—their former enemies—secured the important places in the band, they could not understand why others reaped the fruits of the Revolution. Demetrio, who cared nothing for wealth or other than physical gratification, who obeyed not reason but an inner urge to encourage his men and push on, was the only one steadfast.

So intense is the emotive power of the picture that, even while it arouses pity for the downtrodden peasants, it horrifies with the crimes that they in their ignorance and bestiality commit. Against the background of the brutality of the Revolution, the unidealized characters stand out stark, vivid, and impressive. Every aspect of the work reveals masterly presentation, in a few superb strokes, of skillfully selected details. Demetrio himself was “tall and vigorous; his face, a bright reddish color, without a single hair of beard; and he wore a shirt and trousers of coarse cotton cloth, a wide-brimmed hat, and rough sandals.”¹ In his jacal “a tallow candle lighted the one little room. In one corner lay a yoke, a plow, a goad, and other farming implements. Hanging by cords from the ceiling was a mould for adobe bricks, which served as a bed, and on some coarse cotton material and discolored rags a child was sleeping.”² Or we get a glimpse of the Revolution at a dull moment:

Closing up the rear-guard, Demetrio and Camila came marching along; she trembling, her lips white and dry; he, in a bad humor, on account of the monotony. Not a sign of Orozco or his men, and consequently no battle. Only a few Federal soldiers scattered about, and a poor devil of a priest with a few hundred deluded followers, under the ancient banner of “Religion and Rights.” The priest continued swaying, as he hung from a mesquite tree; and off from him there trickled rivulets of the dead, each one of whom bore on his chest a diminutive shield of woolen material and the words: “Stop! The Sacred Heart of Jesus is with me!”³

Certain of the stylistic qualities that distinguish Los de Abajo as a work of art—the fresh and striking imagery and the suggestive and indirect manner of presentation, which make heavy demands on the reader's imagination and factual knowledge—are often carried to exaggeration in Azuela's subsequent works, all of which portray some aspect of the society produced by the Revolution. A frequent feature is the central figure debauched by alcohol, and the presence of subnormal or degenerate individuals.

Such is La Malhora, in the novel that bears that title (1923), an addict at fifteen of pulque and marihuana. Deserted by a lover who had killed her father and brutally wounded her, she was restored to health by a conscientious doctor and lived an exemplary life for five years in a very devout home before the sight of her rival aroused all her old madness and led her back to her former life of debauchery. Even then she knew no peace until she killed both rival and lover, thus fulfilling the prophecy of the doctor who had cared for her that the hatred that burned in her soul would be quenched only by blood. On the whole, La Malhora is a stark portrayal of the life of the scum of the capital.

The sordid and melodramatic also characterize El Desquite (1925). The central figure is Lupe López, who, on her mother's advice, had cast aside a poor student she loved to marry a rich profligate, socially below her. To dominate her husband and hasten his death, she became his drinking companion. When accused of causing her husband's death, she was successfully defended by her former lover, and then married him, only to discover that happiness was forever lost, for Martín, no longer young, was cold and calculating, and she herself was a confirmed dipsomaniac.

Drink is the theme also of La Luciérnaga (1932), a picture of Dionisio Bermejillo, a small-town man with a little money who seeks to establish himself in business in the capital. He falls into the hands of one trickster after another, but finally buys a bus, only to have it wrecked; he then turns to drink. His fortune bolstered again by the hoardings of a superstitious and miserly brother, he invested finally in a pulque shop, where he became a confirmed drunkard and marihuana addict, associated with the criminal class, and entirely neglected his family. One daughter, following the trend of the times, turned to prostitution; but his self-sacrificing wife, conscientious and upright, fought bravely against adverse circumstances until, desperate, she returned with her other children to Cieneguilla, the small town from which they had come, and there led a respected life. But news that Dionisio was gravely wounded took her back to the capital to attempt to restore him to life and hope.

These three portraits are more or less obscure. In La Malhora there is singleness of purpose—the inevitable reversion of La Malhora to the class from which she came and the consummation of her revenge—but it is the strong contrast in characters and setting that gives force to the whole: the denizens of the underworld and their rendezvous set off against the respectable folk and their environment. While El Desquite can boast some excellent descriptive touches, it is not a unified work, for it abounds in irrelevances. In La Luciérnaga the milieu of Cieneguilla and of certain parts of Mexico City are impressionistically sketched. But the three works, like Los de Abajo, are prevaded deeply by Azuela's blended tone of pessimism, hopelessness, and fatalism.

In the next five pictures, he pillories the dishonest politician or labor leader, who untrue to the ideals he professes, uses his power solely for self-aggrandizement and thus frustrates the ideals of the Revolution. The first of these, entitled El Camarada Pantojo (1937), traces the career of an ignorant and vulgar workman, Pantojo by name, who rose to power partly through his activity in labor-union and anti-Catholic circles, but directly through a fugitive whom Chata, Pantojo's ambitious wife, assisted to safety. In return, he made Pantojo a power in the police department; then an officer to run down “Cristeros”; and, later, a deputy in the national congress, where he was purely a figure-head. Their wealth brought Chata no happiness, for Pantojo found a new love; and when he was about to take the girl with him, upon assuming the governorship of Zacatecas, Chata shot her. The purpose of the picture is clearly to satirize the Obregón-Calles administration, whose rottenness made possible the rise to power of an incapable individual through most corrupt means.

Again in San Gabriel de Valdivias (1938), laid also in the Calles administration, it is the abuse of authority for selfish ends that is the theme. The background is a small agricultural village in the midst of an estate which had formerly belonged to a wealthy family, the Valdivias. Now most of the land has been partitioned among the peasants, and the power formerly exercised by the family has been usurped by an agrarian leader, Quintana, who apparently furthered the best interests of the peasants by having a dam constructed for irrigation purposes and a road to unite the town with the outside world. But soon his true nature revealed itself. After he robbed them of their crops and violated a girl in the village, various factions rose against him and finally killed him. Then an army officer who quelled the uprisings took his place, and before long the wiser peasants realized that their situation was unchanged, for they had a new, but no better, dictator.

Azeula next paints, in Regina Landa, a portrait of an educated and upright white-collar worker—a counterpart of Reséndez, Antonio Reyes, and the Rodríguez of Los Caciques—who, when forced to earn her living, secured a position in a government office in the capital. About her were servile employees; above her, incapable, ignorant, and dishonest department heads. Without bending to them, she rose to a desirable position, only to discover that her chief's pretensions to culture were a sham and that he had wearied of her chastity and was ready to be rid of her. Intent on being of some real use to society, she set up a bakery.

Of the same ilk is the subject of Avanzada (1940) the idealist Adolfo, who introduced modern agricultural methods on the family estate in Jalisco. But when he refused either to yield to the demands of the agrarians of the Cárdenas era or to placate their leaders with bribes, most of the estate was partitioned among the peasants, and his parents were killed by the shock. Without resentment, Adolfo continued to cultivate the land that remained to him, only to find that the peasants, too indifferent to make a crop, were stealing from him. Driven from his property by their inroads, he became a worker in the sugar fields of Vera Cruz, where he had the opportunity of studying the base character and unscrupulous methods of the union leaders who had supplanted the old hacendado. They were the new caciques, of whom one of the spectators remarked:

They travel in the Pullman, for there is no plane to bring them here. Never did our old hacendados eat and dress, or live in such a princely manner, as they. They are the new rulers of the masses, who have merely changed masters.⁴

The one exception among them that Azuela portrays in this work is a cultured man of the formerly wealthy class, now completely disillusioned, who regards class hatred as ineradicable. And so it proved, for eventually, as the result of the enmity of a certain labor faction to him, Adolfo was killed.

The same reactionary tone that characterizes Avanzada dominates La nueva burguesía (1941), a far stretched canvass of a certain level of Mexican society in 1939, when the political campaign was being waged between the conservative Almazán and Ávila Camacho, who was supposed to support the socialistic program of Cárdenas. Here, in support of Camacho, is the lower class of the twentieth century—

the hungry, ragged throng that had been hauled in from the states of Mexico, Hidalgo, Tlaxcala, and Morelos, since the capital itself did not provide a sufficient crowd. They were the same beasts of burden that served the Spanish encomendero after the Conquest, the same that today take orders from the labor leader, the army officer, or the political boss.⁵

In the background is the threatening economic situation created by the rising costs of living and the growing dissatisfaction with the labor leaders. But one of the characters utters a prophecy:

In the labor unions there are generally leaders who fail to comprehend the historic mission which destiny has conferred upon them. They become parasites and feed upon the masses; but the latter are never deceived, and, with time, they will demand an account of their leaders and mete out to them the punishment that their falseness deserves.⁶

In the foreground of the picture is the sordid district of Nonoalco, inhabited by the laboring classes. Among the men who live there are López, a brakeman; Pedroza, a fireman; Campillo, a locomotive engineer; Roque, a section boss; Chabelón, a motorman; Benavides, a linotypist; and Bartolo, a shoemaker. There are many women, too; among them, Emmita and the girls of the Escamilla and Amézquita families, of humble provincial origin, who have come to the city to get work. Patrons of the beauty shops, regular attendants at the movies, and habitués of cabarets, they have become a worldly, blasé, and sophisticated lot. We see, in passing, their love affairs, their schemes to further their ambitions, their diversions, their political and economic views, and their domestic tragedies. Some features of an incident—the trip of Campillo and Rosa Amézquita to Guadalajara, which brought nostalgic reminiscences of her childhood—relieve the sordidness of the whole. The contrast of the mild climate of Guadalajara with the cold of the capital, the simplicity and sincerity of the provincial folk with those in Nonoalco, made Rosa realize the emptiness of the life she was leading. Disillusioned, she entered a church to pray, something she had not done in years; and when Campillo went back, she did not accompany him.

In these twenty novels of Azuela which cover the life of Mexico through four decades, Mexican society of the twentieth century stands revealed in sombre colors. Many changes have taken place since Lizardi's day: the hacendado on the estates and the cacique in the small town and village, have been, in many instances, replaced by agrarian and labor leaders; but the character of the rule has not materially changed. The victorious Revolutionary leaders and their cohorts have become the wealthy class. The middle class has expanded and become, materially, more prosperous; more women have become self-supporting; but, with increased earning capacity, both sexes have acquired new vices—in Azuela's eyes worse than the old ones. From the lower level has risen a new bourgeoisie, lacking in ideals and contenting itself with extracting from life only the pleasures of the moment. But the great mass of the Indian population, the social dregs, extremely ignorant and indigent, has been, as yet, but slightly reduced or improved.

The worst of the evils from which Azuela sees Mexico suffering is the corruption in its government; in it he finds small encouragement for the honest and conscientious man or woman. He shows officials still, as Lizardi did a century earlier, dishonest and haughty; for villainy committed by the higher-up, there is still no recourse; and there is no end to the knavery of the agrarian and labor leaders who have taken the place of hacendado and priest in fleecing the lower classes. The absence of ideals and principles in all classes, of respect for honest labor on the part of the upper, and the influence of drink and narcotics are factors which contribute to the prevalent low standards of life. These conditions Azuela paints with a tone of utter hopelessness, but with an earnestness of conviction that leaves no doubt of his sincerity.

Both thematically and as art these pictures have a distinct value, which lies neither in the realistically or impressionistically portrayed background (which is consistently that of the moment), nor in any great character study (although he does present a very full gallery of excellent types), but in his ability to analyze at the moment the passions which give rise to the conflicts he portrays, to penetrate to the depths of the souls of the contenders, and to give to his portrayal a dramatic and lyric quality. His technical approach, far from being realistic, is that of a poet. He is both personal and imaginative; he centers on points of high interest, leaving much to the imagination; and, as a result, his later work especially is difficult to understand or interpret.

His greatest contribution is unquestionably his portrayal of Mexican society in relation to the Revolution. He painted the ominous clouds that foreshadowed the hurricane; he caught its terrors and its grandeur as it worked vast human and material destruction; and when its fury was spent, he showed that its gigantic force had bettered but little those who most needed help. From the ruins, “La nueva burguesía” has indeed arisen, but class hatred and unscrupulous leaders still remain.

There must, however, be taken into consideration the fact that fiction is neither history nor sociology and cannot be expected to give an entirely fair, unbiased picture of the social life of any country at any period. For the good is often not the most interesting; and a novelist selects his background, characters, and plots with reference to his purpose in writing. Lizardi stated openly that one of his was to reform; Azuela, the greater artist, refrains from any such statement, but points out pessimistically many flaws in the social fabric. As a result, neither does the atmosphere of the best type of society prevail nor a preponderance of exemplary characters figure in the works of either of these novelists.

Notes

1. “Alto, robusto, de faz bermeja, sin pelo de barba, vestía camisa y calzón de manta, ancho sombrero de soyate y guaraches.”—Los de Abajo (Mexico, 1930), 8.

2. “El cuartito se alumbraba por una mecha de sebo. En un rincón descansaban un yugo, un arado, un otate y otros aperos de labranza. Del techo pendían cuerdas sosteniendo un viejo molde de adobes, que servía de cama, y sobre mantas y desteñidas hilachas dormía un niño.”—Ibid.

3. “Cerrando la retaguardia, y al paso, venían Demetrio y Camila; ella trémula aún, con los labios blancos y secos; él, malhumorado por lo insulso de la hazaña. Ni tales orozquistas, ni tal combate. Unos cuantos federales dispersos, un pobre diablo de cura con un centenar de ilusos, todos reunidos hajo la vetusta bandera de ‘Religión y Fueros.’ El cura se quedaba allí bamboleándose, pendiente de un mezquite, y en el campo, un reguero de muertos que ostentaban en el pecho un escudito de bayeta roja un letrero: ‘¡Detente! ¡El Sagrado Corazón de Jesús está conmigo!’”—Ibid., 160.

4. “Viajan en pullman … porque no pueden venir aquí en aeroplano. Comen y visten como no comían ni vestían nuestros antiguos hacendados y se dan vida principesca. Son ahora los dueños de las manadas, que no más de amo cambiaron.”—Avanzada (México, 1940), 162.

5. “[Hormigueaba] la multitud haraposa y famélica, acarreada de los estados de México, Hidalgo, Tlaxcala y Morelos, a falta de concurrentes de la capital. Eran las mismas bestias de carga al servicio del encomendero español después de la Conquista, las mismas que hoy obedecen al líder, al sargento o al presidente municipal.”—La nueva burguesía, 108.

6. “En los sindicatos suele haber líderes que no comprenden la misión histórica que el destino les ha deparado. Se convierten en parásitos, traicionan al conglomerado, pero éste nunca se equivoca y, a su hora, sabrá pedirles cuentas de su conducta y aplicar el condigno castigo a los prevaricadores.”—Ibid., 106.