El Llano en Llamas
Encyclopedia
El Llano en llamas is a collection of short stories written in Spanish
by Mexican author Juan Rulfo
and first published in 1953.
published within three years of each other in the 1950s established Rulfo's literary reputation. One review of these stories praises these fifteen tales of rural folk because they "prove Juan Rulfo to be one of the master storytellers of modern Mexico....". The reviewer also noted that Rulfo
In his introduction to the Texas edition, translator George D. Schade describes some of the stories as long sustained interior monologues ("Marario";We're very poor, "Talpa", "Remember"), while in other stories that may have otherwise been essentially monologues dialogues are inserted ("Luvina", "They have Given Us the Land" and ""Anacleto Morones"). A few stories, according to Schade, are scarcely more than anecdotes like "The Night They Left Him Alone".
region where Rulfo was raised. They explore the tragic lives of the area's inhabitants, who suffer from extreme poverty, family discord, and crime. With a few bare phrases the author conveys a feeling for the bleak, harsh surroundings in which his people live.
not only the writer Juan Rulfo, but also these short stories El Llano en llamas and novel Pedro Paramo.
Es que somos muy pobres in Spanish online
. El hombre in Spanish online
Tell Them Not to Kill Me! is about an old man, set to be executed, whose prison guard happens to be the son of a man he killed.
Published as the seventh story in 1951 with a preface by Elias Canetti
and Günter Grass
[4] ¡Diles que no me maten! with Juan Rulfo Voice
tells the story of a man pursued by federal troops who kill his family members when they cannot locate him.
La noche que lo dejaron solo in Spanish online
Acuérdate in Spanish
refers to a father's anger with his son for not having helped him hear the dogs, which were, indeed, barking."The story with a father’s request that his son Ignacio tell him if he can’t hear anything or see any lights in the distance: “You up there, Ignacio! Don’t you hear something or see a light somewhere?” Ignacio responds that he does not, and the father says that they must be getting close" about a man carrying his estranged, adult, wounded son on his back to find a doctor. There is a translation of "¿No oyes ladrar los perros?" in English with the title " No dogs bark" at the University of Texas web-site.
“Old women, daughters of the devil!
I saw them coming all together in a procession.
Dressed in black, sweating like mules under the hot sun.".
."Anacleto Morones" is a story of pride and jealousy. The narrator, Lucas Lucatero, does not confess to the crime directly , but the reapeated references to the pile of stones serves to notify the reader of the place of rest of the body of Lucater's father-in-law Anacleto Morones
La herencia de Matilde Arcángel in Spanish online
Spanish language
Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...
by Mexican author Juan Rulfo
Juan Rulfo
Juan Rulfo was a Mexican author and photographer. One of Latin America's most esteemed authors, Rulfo's reputation rests on two slim books, the novel Pedro Páramo , and El Llano en llamas...
and first published in 1953.
Literary Reputation of the Author
This collection and a novel entitled Pedro PáramoPedro Páramo
Pedro Páramo is a short novel written by Juan Rulfo, originally published in 1955. In just the 23 FCE editions and reprintings, it had sold 1,143,000 copies by November 1997. Other editions in Mexico, Spain, and other nations have sold countless more copies...
published within three years of each other in the 1950s established Rulfo's literary reputation. One review of these stories praises these fifteen tales of rural folk because they "prove Juan Rulfo to be one of the master storytellers of modern Mexico....". The reviewer also noted that Rulfo
- has an eye for the depths of the human soul,
- an ear for the 'still sad music of humanity,'
- and a gift for communicating what takes place internally and externally in man.
Range of writing styles in these stories
- brief anecdotes
- casual incidents that remind one of 'happenings' in pop art
- short stories. (According to one reviewer, many of these stories are written in deceptively elemental language and narrative technique.)
In his introduction to the Texas edition, translator George D. Schade describes some of the stories as long sustained interior monologues ("Marario";We're very poor, "Talpa", "Remember"), while in other stories that may have otherwise been essentially monologues dialogues are inserted ("Luvina", "They have Given Us the Land" and ""Anacleto Morones"). A few stories, according to Schade, are scarcely more than anecdotes like "The Night They Left Him Alone".
Geographical Background
The short stories in The Burning Plain are set in the harsh countryside of the JaliscoJalisco
Jalisco officially Estado Libre y Soberano de Jalisco is one of the 31 states which, with the Federal District, comprise the 32 Federal Entities of Mexico. It is located in Western Mexico and divided in 125 municipalities and its capital city is Guadalajara.It is one of the more important states...
region where Rulfo was raised. They explore the tragic lives of the area's inhabitants, who suffer from extreme poverty, family discord, and crime. With a few bare phrases the author conveys a feeling for the bleak, harsh surroundings in which his people live.
Mentioned in the Nobel Lecture, 2008
The French writer J.M.G. Le Clézio, who was the 2008 Nobel literature laureate, mentioned in his Nobel LectureDans la forêt des paradoxes
"Dans la forêt des paradoxes" is an essay written by French author and Nobel laureate J. M. G. Le Clézio in French and translated into English by Alison Anderson as In the forest of paradoxes.-Purpose:...
not only the writer Juan Rulfo, but also these short stories El Llano en llamas and novel Pedro Paramo.
Stories
| # | Original Spanish | English translation | Pages |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Macario | Macario | |
| 2 | Nos han dado la tierra | They gave us the land | |
| 3 | La cuesta de las comadres | The Hill of the Comadres | |
| 4 | Es que somos muy pobres | We're very poor | |
| 5 | El hombre | The man | |
| 6 | En la madrugada | At daybreak | |
| 7 | Talpa | Talpa | |
| 8 | El llano en llamas | The burning Plain | |
| 9 | ¡Diles que no me maten! | Tell them not to kill me! | |
| 10 | Luvina | Luvina | |
| 11 | La noche que lo dejaron solo | The night they left him alone | |
| 12 | Acuérdate | Remember | |
| 13 | ¿No oyes ladrar los perros? | Can you hear the dogs barking? | |
| 14 | Paso del Norte | Paso del Norte | |
| 15 | Anacleto Morones | Anacleto Morones | |
| 16 | La herencia de Matilde Arcángel | – | |
| 17 | El día del derrumbe | ||
Macario
Written like a monologue, where an orphaned town idiot named Macario describes in his flowing narrative a few of the special aspects of his everyday life. In "Macario", the past and present mingle chaotically, and frequently the most startling associations of ideas are juxtaposed, strung together by conjunctions which help to paralyze the action and stop the flow of time in the present. Rulfo succeeds in this excellent story in capturing the sickly atmosphere surrounding the idiot boy, who is gnawed by hunger and filled with the terror of hell, and protected, and at the same time exploited, by his Godmother and the servant girl Felipa.Nos han dado la tierra (They gave us the land)
"The story begins with the narrator hearing the sound of dogs barking after walking for hours without coming across a trace of anything living on the plain".They gave us the land depicts the results of the government's land reform program for four poor countrymen who have been given a parcel of land. They march across a barren plain to reach their property, which is located too far from any source of water to be of any use to them.La cuesta de las comadres (The Hill of the Comadres)
"The narrator begins by talking about the Torricos, the controlling family of the Hill of the Comadres who, despite being good friends of his, are the enemies of the other residents of the hill and of those who live in nearby Zapotlán".Es que somos muy pobres (We’re very poor)
According to Gradesaver Study Guides "“We’re very poor” begins with a sentence that sums up the tone of the story quite well: “Everything is going from bad to worse here.” The narrator is speaking about the hardships that his family has recently had to endure, and he subsequently tells us that his Aunt Jacinta died last week, and then during the burial “it began raining like never before”.Es que somos muy pobres in Spanish online
El hombre (The man)
"The first of this very challenging story’s two parts is narrated in third person and alternates between descriptions of two different people: a fugitive “man” and his “pursuer,” often referred to as “the one who was following him". El hombre in Spanish online
En la madrugada (At daybreak)
"The third person narrator begins with a separated eerie description of the town of San Gabriel. The town “emerges from the fog laden with dew,” and the narrator describes a number of elements that serve to obscure it from view: clouds, rising steam and black smoke from the kitchens"Talpa
According to Gradesaver Study Guides “Talpa” is narrated in third person by a nameless character who is described only as the brother of Tanilo and the lover of Tanilo’s wife, Natalia. The story begins at what is technically its end, with a description of Natalia throwing herself into her mother’s arms and sobbing upon their return to Zenzontla.El llano en llamas (The burning plain)
"This story begins with an epigraph from a popular ballad. These words (“They’ve gone and killed the bitch / but the puppies still remain…”) refer to the way that the spark that began the Revolution created successive movements which were often quite independent of its original impulses and were difficult to bring to heel."¡Diles que no me maten! (Tell Them Not to Kill Me!)
"In “Tell Them Not to Kill Me!” Juvencio Nava pleads with his son Justino to intervene on his behalf in order to stop his execution by firing squad. Juvencio is about to be executed by a colonel for the murder of a man, Don Lupe, forty years earlier. The conflict arose when Don Lupe would not allow Juvencio to let his livestock graze on his land, and Juvencio did it anyway."Tell Them Not to Kill Me! is about an old man, set to be executed, whose prison guard happens to be the son of a man he killed.
Published as the seventh story in 1951 with a preface by Elias Canetti
Elias Canetti
Elias Canetti was a Bulgarian-born modernist novelist, playwright, memoirist, and non-fiction writer. He wrote in German and won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1981, "for writings marked by a broad outlook, a wealth of ideas and artistic power".-Life:...
and Günter Grass
Günter Grass
Günter Wilhelm Grass is a Nobel Prize-winning German author, poet, playwright, sculptor and artist.He was born in the Free City of Danzig...
[4] ¡Diles que no me maten! with Juan Rulfo Voice
Luvina
"Like other stories in The Burning Plain, “Luvina” is written in the form of a confession or story told by one man to another. In this case the speaker is the teacher who previously taught in the town of Luvina, speaking to the new teacher who is about to travel there. The reader does not discover this until midway through the story, however."La noche que lo dejaron solo (The night they left him alone)
According to Gradesaver Study Guides "This story takes place between 1926 and 1929 during what was known as the Cristero War. It is told in third person by an omniscient narrator who describes the flight of a Cristero soldier, Feliciano Ruelas, from a successful ambush of federal troops."tells the story of a man pursued by federal troops who kill his family members when they cannot locate him.
La noche que lo dejaron solo in Spanish online
Acuérdate (Remember)
"The narrator tells us that Urbano Gómez died a while ago, perhaps fifteen years, but that he was a memorable person. He was often called “Grandfather” and his other son, Fidencio, had two “frisky” daughters, one of which had the mean nickname of “Stuck Up.” The other daughter was tall and blue-eyed and many said she wasn’t his."Acuérdate in Spanish
¿No oyes ladrar los perros? (Don't you hear the dogs barking?)
Inappropriately titled as translated by Georg D. Schade ( in "the Burning Plain and Other Stories) ,since the SpanishSpanish language
Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...
refers to a father's anger with his son for not having helped him hear the dogs, which were, indeed, barking."The story with a father’s request that his son Ignacio tell him if he can’t hear anything or see any lights in the distance: “You up there, Ignacio! Don’t you hear something or see a light somewhere?” Ignacio responds that he does not, and the father says that they must be getting close" about a man carrying his estranged, adult, wounded son on his back to find a doctor. There is a translation of "¿No oyes ladrar los perros?" in English with the title " No dogs bark" at the University of Texas web-site.
Paso del Norte
The father asks the son where he is headed and learns his destination is “up North.” The son’s pig-buying business has failed and his family is starving, in contrast with his father. The son says the father can’t understand his family’s suffering because he sells “skyrockets and firecrackers and gun powder” which are popular whenever there are holiday celebrations. The business in pigs is more seasonal and therefore less successful."Anacleto Morones (Anacleto Morones)
This is one of the longer stories in "The Burning Plain".It is told in first person by the character of Lucas Lucatero. Lucatero begins the story by cursing the women who have come to visit him saying:“Old women, daughters of the devil!
I saw them coming all together in a procession.
Dressed in black, sweating like mules under the hot sun.".
."Anacleto Morones" is a story of pride and jealousy. The narrator, Lucas Lucatero, does not confess to the crime directly , but the reapeated references to the pile of stones serves to notify the reader of the place of rest of the body of Lucater's father-in-law Anacleto Morones
La herencia de Matilde Arcángel (not yet translated into English)
The title could be translated as "The inheritance of Matilde the Archangel" .This is one of two short stories that the author added to the second edition of the Spanish language collection in 1970.The final version of the collection has seventeen short stories.La herencia de Matilde Arcángel in Spanish online