Major Themes The problematic relationship between father and son Problematic relationships between father and son

are plentiful in The Burning Plain. We see them in No dogs bark, Tell them not to kill me! and The burning plain, among other stories. These strained relationships can be symptomatic of the general breakdown of the family institution after the Mexican Revolution, or they be metaphors for the wider political circumstances faced by the Mexican nation during this period. Often in The Burning Plain, the father can represent the state apparatus which endeavors to create a union with the land (frequently portrayed in Rulfo and other Latin American works as the wife or mother). This union will ideally result in a son representing the nation. As we see in many of the stories in this collection, however, this process is almost always incomplete. The son (the nation) is typically in some way estranged from his father (the state). Eroticism The theme of eroticism is also frequent in The Burning Plain. Among other stories it appears in Macario, Were very poor, and Anacleto Morones. At times this eroticism is unconscious or innocent, as we see in Macario and Were very poor, and at others it is quite the opposite, as in Anacleto Morones. In any case, those who dedicate themselves to erotic pleasure in Rulfos works are often characterized as mentally unbalanced. Macario clearly has a developmental disorder that alienates him from mainstream society, and should Tacha continue on the path of her sisters and become a prostitute, she too will be treated as an immoral woman. As we see in Anacleto Morones Lucas Lucatero is rejected by the Congregation of Amula as a lascivious heretic. It is important to note that in all these cases eroticism is infertile. Death The anticipation of death is omnipresent in Rulfos collection of short stories, and death itself appears in quite a few of them. No dogs bark, Tell them not to kill me, Talpa, Luvina, No dogs bark and The man are just a few. The constant shadow of death leads to a certain fatalism in The Burning Plain, which leads the reader to expect the worst in any given situation. The reader is made aware of this predisposition in a story like The night they left him alone where seemingly certain death awaits the protagonist but claims his companions instead. Disequilibrium in nature Nature frequently appears as unbalanced in the stories in The Burning Plain. In They gave us the land there is an overabundance of land, but an extreme paucity of water makes that land useless. In Were very poor we encounter just the opposite: so much water that it threatens the familys future. Nature rarely presents itself in Rulfos works as a balanced force. Its unpredictability always conspires against the characters, never working in their favor. The harsh natural environment mirrors the behavior of the protagonists, who frequently act in an equally savage manner, as we see in The man. Testimony/Confession Many of Rulfos stories have testimonial or confessional qualities. In Talpa the main character confesses to having killed his brother, while in Remember the narrator asks the reader or listener to confess to knowing Urbano Gmez. In The man both the pursuer and the man confess their shortcomings to the reader, just as the shepherd confesses to the authorities, and in Macario the main

character tells us in an intimate tone what everyday life is like for him. In these and other stories confession and testimony have ties to the Catholic rite of penance, but they also have a narrative function. The intimacy afforded by the confessional tone allows the narrators to tell their stories in an unguarded fashion that lends itself well to the task of objective analysis. It is a conversational, informal discourse that casts the reader in the role of judge or priest. We are charged with evaluating the events as objectively as possible. The Mexican Revolution and its shortcomings The stories in The Burning Plain cannot be fully appreciated without first considering the historical context in which they take place. Nearly all of the stories take place after 1920, following the Mexican Revolution (1910-1920), and they all deal, even if indirectly, with everyday life after this momentous event. Rulfos evaluation of the Revolution is almost always negative, and his concerns range from topics as broad as: Cycles of violence (The man, The burning plain); Illegitimate children (The burning plain); The unrealized goal of land reform (They gave us the land, Tell them not to kill me, The Hill of the Comadres); Failed educational reform (Luvina); Immigration to the North (Paso del Norte); The subsequent Cristero War (Anacleto Morones, The night they left him alone). In just under one hundred pages Rulfo manages to give us a vivid panoramic view of the many struggles faced by rural Mexicans in the postrevolutionary period. The Cristero War Another historical theme which provides some context for these stories is the Cristero War. This war, which occurred between 1926 and 1929 was a conservative reaction to the Mexican Revolution (1910-20) and more specifically the "revolutionary" government of Plutarco Elias Calles. Catholic militias rose up to protest the restricted rights of the Church under this new government and the Constitution of 1917. The Cristero rebels believed they were fighting for Christ. It is for this reason that Felicianos character repeatedly makes references such as Long live Christ, Our Lord! in "The night they left him alone" and Lucas Lucatero recounts having to confess at gunpoint before the Cristeros in "Anacleto Morones." The conflict was ended through diplomacy just as the future of the Cristero cause was beginning to appear more promising. The "Rulfian" narrator Due to the relatively homogeneous style, tone and content of many of Rulfos stories in The Burning Plain, it is possible to conceive of nearly all the third person narrators as nearly interchangeable. This character, (along with nearly all the others) is dispossessed of any physical description. His narration is limited and occurs in third person. This narrators jobthe same in each short story narrated in the third personis to discreetly point out relevant and often more poetic details to the reader (for instance, in No dogs bark he notes that the father and son form just one wavering shadow, una sola sombra, tambaleante). Concentrated brevity is the goal in the narrators discourse, since Rulfo felt that the best short stories should be as short as possible. The burning plain ("El Llano en llamas") Summary This story begins with an epigraph from a popular ballad. These words (Theyve 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. The narrator of The burning plain, Pichn, describes the fate of one such group, that of Pedro Zamora. The narrator is a member of Pedros band of revolutionaries, and after the epigraph the story begins in medias res with a battle cry from the federal soldiers in support of their general, just before a skirmish begins: Viva Petronilo Flores! The soldiers are in a ravine whereas the revolutionaries are up above, and after a few moments La Perra, one of Pedros men, gathers the four Benavides brothers (Los Cuatro) to see what bulls were going to fight. The reconnaissance mission is observed leaving by the rest of Pedros men (including the narrator) from their position against a stone fence. The men try to sleep but keep getting distracted by the noise in the ravine. Finally a shot rings out and Pedros men hear the racket of a gunfight. El Chihuila gets up and goes to see what has happened. Some time later, the soldiers suddenly appear right in front of the men in hiding. They are passing by, unaware they are being watched. Pedros men take aim and when then signal comes they fire on the soldiers, picking them off quite easily, like ninepins. Once silence reigns again, one of Pedros men shouts out: Viva Pedro Zamora!, to which some of the wounded federal troops whisper: Save me, boss! Save me! Holy Child of Atocha, help me! Suddenly the revolutionaries receive fire from behind their position. They run to the other side of the fence, past the men they have killed. They continue to run for some time, and every so often one of them is hit by a bullet. They reach the barranca and roll down as they continue to hear the battle cry. Panting, the men stay crouched behind some stones and look at Pedro Zamora to see what he wants to do. Pedro is silent and counts the men silently with his eyes. Eleven or twelve men are missing, not counting those who had left before the ambush. Los Joseses, La Perras two sons pace back and forth until Pedro tells them not to worry, that they will find their father. The Federal troops keep the revolutionaries pinned there all afternoon. When night arrives El Chihuila returns with one of Los Cuatro, but he cannot tell the band if the soldiers have left. Pedro calls to the narrator, Pichn, and gives him a commission to go to Piedra Lisa with Los Joseses and and see what happened to La Perra. If the man is dead, they will bury him, along with any others. Any wounded will be left for the soldiers to pick up. When the narrator reaches the corral where the horses had been, there are none left. The Federals have taken the horses. Shortly later they find the bodies of Los Cuatro, stacked on top of each other. They find other dead bodies in the vicinity as well, but see no sign of La Perra. They speculate the soldiers must have taken him captive to show him to the government. A few days later Pedros band meets Petronilo Flores at a river crossing. The narrator manages to escape a general slaughter by sinking under his dead horse in the river until it came ashore downstream. After this encounter, Pedro's band lays low for some time. As a result, no one is afraid of Pedros men anymore: Peace had returned to the Great Plain. This does not last long, however. Soon Armancio Alcal arrives at Pichn's hiding place in the Tozin Canyon. Alcal a mountain of rifles slung like a suitcase over his horses haunches and directs Pichn and the group to San Buenaventura, where Pedro Zamora is waiting. The next day the party sets out. Before they reach the ranch they can tell its buildings are on fire. Just before entering San Buenaventura they encountered horses dragging men behind them, some living, some dead. Pedro has more men than ever before, which pleases Pichn and his friends.

The united band later burns San Pedro and continues on to Petacal. It is harvest-time for the corn, and Pichn takes pleasure in seeing the dry cornfields burn. The smoke smelled of cane and honey because the fire had reached the canefields too. Eventually, the federal troops arrive, but this time they can't kill Pedros men as easily. Pedros men ambush the Federals, who fight harder than the soldiers did before. These new soldiers are brave and professional. They come from the highlands of Teocaltiche. Pichn remarks that it would be much easier to simply raid the ranches rather than try to ambush the Federals. As a result they scatter, doing more damage than ever this way. Some burn ranches and others approach the soldiers, dragging branches behind them to stir up dust and exaggerate their numbers. Many towns are burned during this time and the soldiers are helpless to prevent it. Every time they moved, the town behind them would go up in flames. At El Cuastecomate Pedros men kill soldiers in a playful way, goring them as though they are bullfighting. Rulfo provides a description of one such "bullfight," in which eight soldiers are killed with a razor. Soon, people from other places, including Indians, join the revolutionaries. The Indians are some of the most dedicated to Pedro; sometimes they bring him the best girls from the towns they raided. All this changes after a train derailment on the Sayula hill, however. The band puts cow bones and horns along the tracks and just in case bent the rails as the tracks approached a curve. Then they waited. As dawn a train full of people topples off the tracks and plunges "to the bottom of the barranca," killing all aboard. Pedros men run away, but the federal troops come after them with machine guns. Eventually, even the Indians turn against Pedro's band. The revolutionaries wish for peace, but this is impossible after so much damage has been done. In the end, Pedros men have no choice but to separate, each one going in a different direction. Pichn remarks, from a present-day perspective, that he was with Pedro for five years. He recalls some say Pedro went to Mexico City, following a woman, and that he was killed there. Pichn was released from prison three years ago. He was punished for lots of crimes while there, but not for being one of Pedros men. They didnt know he was with Pedro, but rather jailed him for the bad habit I had of carrying off girls. The narrator says that now he is living with one of them, perhaps the best: the one that was waiting for him when he was released. She said to him that she had been waiting for him for a long time, and Pichn suspected she might be there to kill him. He vaguely remembered her, and felt again the cold water of the storm falling that night we entered Telcampana and plundered the town. He suspects that this womans father was the man they killed as he pulled the girl up onto his horse. He had to hit her a few times to stop her from biting him. Upon exiting the jail the woman told him she had a son of his, and she pointed with her finger at a tall skinny boy with frightened eyes. The boy looked just like Pichn, with something mean in his look. The woman tells him that they call the boy El Pichn too, but hes not a bandit or a killer. Hes a good person. Upon hearing this, the narrators final words are: I hung my head. Analysis The burning plain is the longest story in the collection that bears its name. This is the first story that gives the reader insight into what the historical moment of the Revolution was like, and it does a

particularly effective job of eroding away the mythical veneer that makes it seem to be a movement by and for the inspired, morally just masses. Narrated in first person, El llano en llamas makes the Revolution seem like little more than a celebration of machista brotherhood. Here Rulfo adds little to the description of the nature of the male revolutionary already captured by other previous writers (men like Pedro are violent on and off the battlefield and ignorant of the far-reaching repercussions generated by their actions). Supposedly an emancipatory movement, the Revolution is ironically characterized by violence and betrayal so profound that when the fighting is over it is hard to imagine a way forward. In fact, one must ask if the Revolution ever really accomplished anything, or if it has even ended. This ambivalence is apparent in the final encounter of Pichn with the woman he raped and who bore his son. While he seems to recognize his own mean look in the boys face, the woman insists that he is no thief or murderer but rather a good person. Much like the promises of the post-revolutionary politicians, despite the mothers assurances it is difficult to say with any certainty what the boys future holds. Even the epigraph that starts the story taken from a popular ballad is ambivalent: Theyve gone and killed the bitch but the puppies still remain. One might be tempted to interpret this as an idealistic affirmation of revolutionary zeal: the Revolution is more than just one man, each campesino is a seed capable of multiplying itself indefinitely, and the struggle will run its course until justice is done. However, one can also interpret these lyrics in a more troubling way. The violence done to and by one generation of Mexicans has resulted in another generation of orphaned children who are now in jeopardy of losing their moral compass. What example will guide the puppies left behind by the Revolution? The ballad lyrics imply that the maternal influence is the crucial one, and it can be no coincidence that the boys mother is the only moral character that Pichn has any contact with. It is she who is capable of making him hang his head in shame by reaffirming the value of being a good person. In this manner, her words subvert the violent cult of masculinity that Pedro Zamoras and his men have been promoting always at the expense of women and children as the ideal model for male offspring to follow. Perhaps The burning plain best captures the ambivalence of the Revolution in the character of Pedro Zamora, which is very likely based on a real-life historical figure. Pedro is much more than a small time bandit, he is a revolutionary caudillo. Latin American caudillos (charismatic populist leaders who combined political and military strength in order to act as strongmen or warlords) who were were common in the 19th and into the 20th century. As much as one rejects Pedros violent tactics, he is still considered a great leader by his men. His calm nature and particularly his watchful, piercing eyes are much admired by the narrator. In this manner his men feel protected around him, and protection is exactly what caudillos offered the campesinos who lived in the areas under their influence. The admiration expressed in The burning plain for the figure of the caudillo is rather remarkable, since normally realist narrative treated them as nothing more than oppressors. Rulfo effectively communicates the apparent need men have for a powerful father, while also recognizing the importance of the mediating ethical role played by the figure of the mother in the story. Were very poor ("Es que somos muy pobres") Summary Were 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. The rain represents a problem because it has ruined the rye harvest which was stacked outside to dry in the sun, making the narrator's father very angry. The storm came unexpectedly, in great waves of water, without giving the family time to bring any of the harvest inside. All they could do was sit under their roof watching the water. On top of these misfortunes, we are told that the cow that the father had given to the narrators twelve-year-old sister Tacha for her birthday has been swept away by the river. The narrator then talks about the river, saying it began to rise at around dawn three nights ago. He had been sleeping but the noise of the river woke him up and made him get out of bed, because he thought the roof might be caving in. When he woke in the morning it was still raining and the roar of the river sounded closer and louder than before. Now the narrator could smell the river, like you smell a fire, the rotting smell of backwater. When he went to look at the river it had breached its banks and was climbing along the towns main street toward the home of a woman called La Tambora. Water was gushing out of her front door. The woman was desperately trying to move hens into the street so they could find a place to escape the water. The narrator also notes that the tamarind tree in Aunt Jacintas yard has been taken by the river. This is a sign that this is an extraordinary flood, since the tree has always survived when the river rose in the past. Tacha and the narrator went back later in the afternoon to watch that mountain of water that kept getting thicker and darker and has risen far beyond where the bridge should be. The two stood there for hours without tiring, just contemplating the waters fury. Afterwards they moved back to where one could talk over the sound, and then they learned that the river had taken away La Serpentina, Tachas cow with one red ear and pretty eyes. The narrator asks himself how it occurred to La Serpentina to cross the river when it was so violent. All he can think of is that she must have fallen asleep and drowned when the water reached her. He remembers that she was always content to stay and sleep in the corral rather than leaving to feed. The narrator wonders if the cow woke up when the water touched her. He imagines she must have been frightened and tried to escape, but she probably got confused and got a cramp in the black slippery water. Perhaps she cried for help: Only God knows how she bellowed. The main character then asks a man who saw her swept away if he also saw the cows calf. The man didnt know, however. He only saw the spotted La Serpentina wash by with her legs in the air before she turned over and disappeared. The man had been fishing firewood out of the river so he couldnt be sure what was floating by. As a result, the family doesnt know if the calf died with its mother. The family is particularly upset because now Tacha is without her cow. The father worked hard to acquire the animal to give to her as a future dowry. This way she wouldnt become a bad woman (a prostitute, in the Spanish), like his two older sisters did. The father says they were bad because they were poor and very wild. They were difficult children, went out with the wrong types of men and listened to the whistles directed their way at nighttime. They would go down to the river for water all too often and all of a sudden would both be rolling around naked on the ground with a man each. After putting up with them for as long as he could, the narrators father ran the two girls off. They went to Ayutla where they are now bad women. This is what makes the father upset, because he doesnt want Tacha to turn into a prostitute. Now she is very poor without the cow and will have trouble attracting a good man who will always love her. The narrator explains that before someone would have had the courage to marry her, just to get that fine cow.

The familys last hope is that the calf survived. If it didnt Tacha is all too close to becoming a bad woman. The mother questions Gods decision to punish her daughters, especially since her family has always consisted of good people, ever since her grandmother. She wonders where her daughters went wrong, because she cant find any fault in the way they were raised. She hopes God will look after them. The father says there is nothing they can do now. The danger is that Tacha is growing, particularly her chest, and her breasts are promising to be like her sisters, the kind that [] attract attention. He is sure that his daughters breasts will catch the eye of local men and that she will end up a prostitute. The narrator observes Tacha crying over the cow. At his side in her pink dress he watches as streams of dirty water run down her face as if the river had gotten inside her. He hugs her but she cries harder, and a noise comes out of her mouth like the river as it overrides its banks and she shakes as the water rises. The story ends as the narrator describes how drops from the river splash Tachas face, and her breasts move up and down rhythmically as if suddenly they were beginning to swell, to start now on the road to ruin. Analysis In Were very poor we once against perceive Rulfos subtle critique of post-revolutionary Mexican society. This time it is the economy that comes under fire, however, as the reader immediately notices the profoundly rudimentary agricultural methods of the narrators family. The family has no choice but to set the harvest of rye out in the open to dry under the sun. As a result, when bad weather comes there is no way to shelter it. Additionally, when it needs to be moved, this can only be accomplished by hand. This description emphasizes the extremely underdeveloped nature of Mexican agriculture, especially in comparison with the modern capitalist system that the contemporary government hopes to impose. Given the relatively poor quality of the redistributed land after the Revolution, many of the hopes of the rural poor rested in the possession of capital or consumption goods. In Were very poor resources are so scarce that all the familys hopes rest in the cow La Serpentina and her calf. This spotted cow with a pink ear and pretty eyes receives more physical description than the vast majority of Rulfos characters. The role of the father is prominent once again in Were very poor. Throughout The Burning Plain the father is the person charged with the responsibility of shepherding his family through the various trials of life, and in this case we see he is the first to recognize the full ramifications of the flood. With the rising of the waters not only has the family lost its collective capital in the ruined rye, but also that of their last daughter. The fathers failed economic attempt to capitalize therefore leads to a moral failure as it means his daughter will become a prostitute. The Rulfian theme of unbalanced nature is once again at play in this story. While in They gave us the land, there is an extreme shortage of water on the Big Plain, in this there is far too much water. This lack of equilibrium in nature is a common theme in Rulfo and proves to be the downfall of many of his characters. Such emphasis on the natural environment and its effect on the men and women who are subject to its whims might remind us of the naturalist quality of much of Rulfos writing. Naturalism is a philosophical and literary movement which gained impulse during the 19th century and stressed the importance of realist representation and science, as opposed to the ideal. In Were very poor we see in an objective manner the effect of three of the primary forces at work in naturalist writing: the environment, biological heritage and the instincts. All three of these factors conspire to determine the fate of Tacha: the floods kills her cow, the mother contemplates her family tree to discover where the trait of

being a bad woman comes from, and we see that Tachas sisters clearly succumb to their instinct to fool around with the opposite sex. As we can see from these elements, naturalism tends to show that just like in the description of Tachas breasts at the end of the story nature usually works toward mans destruction. At daybreak ("En la madrugada") Summary 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. The narrator is describing sights and sounds of daybreak in a very peculiar way: an earth-colored spot shrouds the village, which keeps on snoring a little longer, slumbering in the color of daybreak. The description then turns to the protagonist of the story, old Esteban, who advances up Jiquilpan road riding on the back of his cow, followed by his milking herd. The toothless man whistles to his cows, and when he hears the San Gabriel bell that rings at daybreak he gets down off the cow, kneels, and makes the sign of the cross with his arms extended. Esteban then climbs back on the cow, removes his shirt so the breeze will whip away his fear, and continues toward San Gabriel. He counts the cows as they enter the town, and grabs one of them by the ears. He says to her Now theyre going to take away your baby, you silly one. Carry on if you want to, but its the last day youll see your calf. The cow ignores the man and continues on. The narrator then speculates on the uncertain origin of the swallows in San Gabriel that constantly fly back and forth in a zigzag pattern. Old Esteban explains in first person that he arrived at the corral and that they wouldnt open up the gate even though he was banging on it with a stone. He thought his boss, Don Justo, was asleep. The cows were waiting behind him so in order to keep them from following him he crept around the corral and entered it through a low point in the fence. Then he opened the corral from the inside. Just as he was doing this he saw Don Justo come out of the attic carrying his sleeping niece Margarita in his arms. The man crossed the corral without seeing Esteban, at least thats what I thought. The narrator then describes how Esteban then milked the cows, letting them into the corral one by one, and leaving the mother of the calf for last. He speaks to her and tells her that hell let her in to see the calf one last time. He tells her that she is about to give birth again and yet she is still worried about the older calf. He says to the calf that he ought to enjoy his mothers milk while he can because it is actually meant for the unborn calf. Then the narrator says that Esteban kicked the calf when he saw it sucking on its mothers teats. The narration then shifts back to Estebans first person testimony, as he explains that he would have broken the calfs nose if Don Justo hadnt kicked him and started to beat him. He explains that the beating was severe and that he still has a great deal of pain. Esteban then says: What happened next? I didnt know. I didnt work for him any more. Nor anybody else either, because he died that same day. He tells us that some people came to his house where he was recovering from the beating under the care of his wife to tell him that Don Justo was dead. They accused him of killing his boss, but Esteban says he does not remember doing this. He notes that since he is now in jail, perhaps that means something about his guilt. All he remembers is the moment after he hit the calf when Don Justo came towards him. After that he just recalls waking up and being cared for by his wife. Esteban explains that they have accused him of killing the man with a rock. He says that this information is relatively plausible because if theyd said he used a knife he would know if was false because he hasnt carried a knife in years.

The narrative then shifts back to that of the third person narrator. He describes how Justo Brambila left his niece Margarita on her bed in the room beside that of her crippled mother. Dawn is the only time when the mother sleeps, but she wakes up when the sun rises. The mother calls out, asking her daughter where she was last night, but before the yelling started that would end by waking her up, Justo Brambila silently left the room. At six in the morning Don Justo went out to the corral to open the gate for Esteban. The narrator tells us he also thought of going back up to the attic to smooth out the bed where he and Margarita had slept. Don Justo thinks to himself: If the priest would authorize this Id marry her, but Hell say its incest and will excommunicate us both. Better to leave things in secret. Don Justo then saw Esteban kicking the calf in the head and sticking his hands in the animals nose. The calfs back seemed to already be broken, since its legs were flopping around and it could not get up. He ran down to Esteban and began to beat him, but then felt himself blacking out and falling back against the stone pavement. He tried to get up but was unable to, and as darkness enveloped him he stopped feeling any pain. Esteban began to move when the sun was high in the sky. He stumbled back to his house with his eyes closed, dripping blood as he went. When he arrived he lay down on his cot and slept. The narrator explains that at eleven in the morning Margarita entered the corral looking for Don Justo. When she found him dead she had been crying because her mother had accused her of being a prostitute. The narration then shifts back to Estebans confession. He once again affirms that when the others accuse him of killing his boss, it could be true. Esteban says the man might have died of anger however, since he had a bad temper. He muses that now the authorities have him and will judge him for killing his boss. Esteban speculates that perhaps they were both blind and didnt realize they were killing each other. The narration then shifts back to the fog which advances on San Gabriel at night. That night they didnt turn the lights on because Don Justo owned them. The church was lit up with candles for Don Justos wake. The church bells rang until dawn, hereby closing the twenty-four hours that the story covers. Analysis This story shares a number of similarities with The man. In both stories the discourse shifts back and forth between multiple narrative voices and perspectives. While The man shares three different perspectives with the reader, At daybreak presents two: the narrator and old Esteban. In order to approach an understanding of both stories, it is necessary to gather information from both narrators and combine it in order to fill in the gaps. We learn in both cases that complete knowledge of the nature of the events narrated will inevitably escape us. Beyond the narrative style of these two stories, Rulfo seems to outline two different forms of violence. In The man violence is willfully committed, and where it rears its head it inevitably begets itself and sets in motion a cycle of destruction which eventually hurts even the most innocent. In At daybreak violence is something that lies dormant inside us and is often beyond our control. It is determined by our environment and basic instincts. As a result, the protagonist in this story is almost innocent. Estebans senility is one possible explanation for his mistreatment of the calf, and it sparks his bosss anger. When Justo is found dead, Esteban can also no longer remember exactly what happened. For his part, Justo is clearly subservient to his instincts since he maintains an incestuous relationship with his young niece Margarita. We also learn he is perpetually angry. Perhaps this is what drives him to react forcefully to Estebans beating of the calf. If stories like Were very poor or Macario exhibit a tendency toward unconscious eroticism, in At daybreak the reader encounters the theme of unconscious violence. Violence has become so second nature that the protagonists cannot pinpoint what motivates their actions or even claim full responsibility for them.

As in The man, there is certainly a cyclical nature to this violence, however. The story begins and ends with a somewhat dream-like description of daybreak. Nature is described as beautiful or even idyllic, but its tranquility is ominous because we know Rulfos fatalist vision will soon take over. This nagging sense of foreboding reinforces the notion thatunlike in The man, where violence is transferred back and forth through causes and effects across a chain of relationships between peoplethe protagonists of At daybreak do not know what the next day will bring and how or where violence will interrupt the peaceful dawn. Indeed, Estebans killing of the calf seems quite unprovoked. Perhaps it is as a response to the unpredictability of violence in San Gabriel that the narrator enigmatically claims old Esteban removed his shirt so the breeze will whip away his fear that fateful morning. Like The man, At daybreak also deals with the theme of official justice. In both stories we find confessions or testimonies of characters who defend themselves from the accusations of the authorities. In The man we know the shepherd is innocent. In At daybreak, the truth is more difficult to determine, although one interpretation of the story is that Justo died when he suddenly blacked out and hit his head on the corrals stone pavement. However, when people show up at Estebans home, they tell him right away that he killed Justo without a doubt. In both the stories we realize that when the institutions of post-revolutionary justice are involved the guilt of the accused is assumed from the beginning. Talpa Summary Talpa is narrated in third person by a nameless character who is described only as the brother of Tanilo and the lover of Tanilos wife, Natalia. The story begins at what is technically its end, with a description of Natalia throwing herself into her mothers arms and sobbing upon their return to Zenzontla. The narrator tells us she has been keeping these emotions inside for the entire journey. He explains that she has not been able to cry because they had been under the stress of burying Tanilo without help in Talpa. This had been done using their bare hands and in great haste in order to hide Tanilo in the grave so he wouldnt keep on scaring people with his smell so full of death. Natalia did not allow herself to cry on the way home despite the way their footsteps seemed like blows on Tanilos grave. Natalia cried in her mothers arms in order to upset the woman, so she would know Natalia was truly suffering from the death of her husband. The narrator explains that he felt her weeping inside him too, as if she was wringing out the cloth of our sins. He goes on to conclude the first section of the story with the startling confession that he and Natalia killed Tanilo Santos. He says they made Tanilo come with them to Talpa, knowing the journey would kill him. The perspective of the story then shifts from a description of the recent past (Natalia and the narrators return to Zenzontla) to the more distant past (the journey to Talpa and the events that preceeded it). The narrator tells us that the idea of traveling to Talpa was Tanilos before anyone else thought of it. Tanilo had been hoping someone would take him for years, ever since he noticed the purple blisters on his arms and legs. The blisters then became wounds that didnt bleed but oozed yellow pus. He said he knew that the only cure available was to travel to Talpa so the Virgin of Talpa could cure him with her gaze. Talpa was far away and the voyage would be difficult under the hot sun and cold March nights, but it would be worth it when the Virgin washed his wounds making everything fresh and new like a recently rained-on field. The narrator explains that he and Natalia encouraged this notion. They would both have to go with him: the narrator because he is Tanilos brother, Natalia because she is his wife. Natalia would have to help him, taking him by the arm, bearing his weight on her shoulders [], while he dragged along on his hope.

The narrator tells us that he and Natalia had feelings for each other, but that as long as Talpa was alive they could never be together because she would have to take care of him. Both the narrator and Natalia feel guilt for their role in expediting Talpa's death. What makes them feel particularly guilty, however, is the way they pushed Tanilo on when he did not want to walk anymore. When he told them he wanted to go back home Natalia and the narrator would yank him up and tell him they couldnt go back since Talpa was now closer than Zenzontla. This was a lie however since Talpa was still many days away. They wanted him to die. The narrator recalls the nights on the road particularly well. At first they would have some light from the fire, but when it died down they would go off into the shadows and make love. Night after night the heat of their bodies would combine with that of the earth until the cold dawn arrived. During these times Natalia would finally feel as if she were resting. Getting to the main road to Talpa took twenty days of travel alone. However, at the main road pilgrims began to join them and they formed a river-like mass, pushing one another along. The current of people was difficult to navigate with Tanilo, and the dust raised by the throngs made travel extra difficult. Only at nighttime was the trio able to rest from the sun that had beat down on them all day. The days also began to get longer and the nights shorter since it was now March and they had left Zenzontla in the middle of February. Tanilos condition began to worsen and he started to say he didnt want to proceed. His feet had begun to bleed and they helped him recuperate. He said he would stay there for a couple of days and then return to Zenzontla. Natalia and the narrator, however, could feel no pity for him. Natalia rubbed his feet with alcohol and encouraged him, saying only the Virgin of Talpa could cure him. The narrator explains that they finally entered Talpa at the end of March singing a hymn praising the Lord. A lot of people were already returning home. Inspired by the religious sights and sounds of Talpa, Tanilo decided to do penance. He tied his feet together so that walking was harder and wanted to wear a crown of thorns. Later he bandaged his eyes and decided to walk on this knees. Due to this selfmortification he took on a dehumanized appearance: that thing that was my brother Tanilo Santos reached Talpa, that thing so covered with plasters and dried streaks of blood that it left in the air a sour smell like a dead animal when he passed by. When they entered the church Natalia had Tanilo kneel beside her in front of the golden figure of the Virgin of Talpa. He started to pray and let a huge tear fall, from way down inside him, snuffing out the candle Natalia had placed in his hands. He continued praying, shouting so that he could hear himself over the other pilgrims. The narrator repeats that all this didnt matter, though, because Tanilo died anyway. A priest recited a prayer to the Virgin from the pulpit and the narrator and Natalia discovered that Tanilo had died with his head resting on his knees. The story then returns to its initial perspective of the more recent past, after the trip to Talpa. The narrator says that Natalias mother hasnt asked him what he did with his brother Tanilo. Natalia cried on her shoulder and told her everything. He and Natalia have begun to be afraid of each other. Tanilos body seems to still be with them. They cannot get the image of the cadaver out of their minds, especially the way his eyes were wide open like he was looking at his own death, or the stench so thick they could taste it in their mouths. The narrator concludes with the confession-like observation that what they remember most is that Tanilo was buried in the Talpa graveyard and that they had to throw earth and stones on him so the wild animals wouldnt come dig him up. Analysis

Religion is a significant theme throughout The Burning Plain, but it takes a particularly central position in Talpa. Not only is the story driven on the surface by Tanilos religious pilgrimage to Talpa, but within this frame we also see other characters accommodate Tanilos desire to be the consummate pilgrim by themselves behaving as if this were a sacred voyage. Though Natalia and the narrator begin the trip with the intention of finishing off the dying Tanilo so they can be together, along the way they do their best to feed his hope of a religious miracle, if only to further motivate him to drive himself toward an early grave. Ironically, Tanilo had been seeking a surprising miracle of renewed life when he undertook the pilgrimage that unsurprisingly resulted in his death. The narrator ruins the readers hope for this kind of miracle in the storys first lines when he explains that Tanilo did not survive. However, in a way the pilgrimage to Talpa did result in a miracle just not the one Tanilo expected. Perhaps the miracle is the effect that the trip has on his wife and brother, who come out of it shamed into abandoning their sinful relationship and stricken by guilt. Additionally, while Tanilo is referred to by the narrator earlier in the story as that thing that was my brother Tanilo Santos, his wife and brother come to contemplate him with empathy in his last moments of life. The descriptions of the great tear that extinguishes his candle and of the way his prayerful, curled-up body obstructs the Virgins view of the festivities are quite moving and are what drive Natalia and the narrator to feel remorse and finally identify with his suffering. In this manner, Tanilo truly does become the Christ-like figure he tries to emulate. Through his death and suffering, new awareness is born in Natalia and the narrator. Though the final description of Tanilos dead body filled with flies might seem too grotesque to be transcendent, visually graphic depictions of Christs suffering on the cross have long been central images in Catholic iconography. The narrators discourse as we see throughout The Burning Plain also comes in the form of a Catholic-like confession of sins: we took him there so hed die, and thats what I cant forget. During the pilgrimage, Tanilo, Natalia and the narrator seem to do their best to perform the ideal religious narrative to which the sick man is aspiring. Most notably, Tanilo asks to wear a crown of thorns toward the end of the story. Also, the narrator explains in the beginning that Natalia would have to bear his weight on her shoulders on the trip there and perhaps on the way back, and later on says that: Natalia and I felt that our bodies were being bent double. It was as if something was holding us and placing a heavy load on top of us. Tanilo fell down and we had to pick him up and sometimes carry him on our backs. These descriptions evoke the via crucis or Stations of the Cross, where Jesus struggled to carry the cross and was helped at one point by Simon of Cyrene. Natalia also is described in a similar way to Mary Magdalene. Mary Magdalene has been identified as an adulteress and a prostitute, and this coincides with the description of Natalias nightly lustful liaisons with her husbands brother. Natalia also washes Tanilos blistered feet with alcohol at one point in Talpa, which is similar to Mary Magdalenes washing of Jesuss feet with oil at the house of Simon the Pharisee. Perhaps not coincidentally, Simon the Pharisee is often viewed as a leper, and leprosy could be one diagnosis of Tanilos disease. Lazarus is another character whose sickness could be compared to that of Tanilo. As for the narrator, his traitorous behavior could be compared with Judas betrayal of Jesus or with the way Cain lead Abel out into the field to kill him. In this way, Talpa can be read as a religious allegory whose incomplete or even contradictory nature becomes increasingly evident as the characters force themselves to imitate ideals that they know are beyond them. Desperation drives them to call on elements of a number of Biblical tales in an effort to transcend their surroundings. Though the allegory is faulty and predominantly motivated by the trios self-interest, the reader nevertheless finds him or herself moved by the painstaking lengths these characters go to in order to make the story of their trip to Talpa approach the status of a parable. Tell them not to kill me! ("Diles que no me maten!")

Summary Tell them not to kill me!, narrated in third person, begins with this very phrase, uttered by Juvencio Nava speaking to his son Justino. Juvencio is begging his son to ask the sergeant who has him tied to a post to spare him, to tell his captor that tying him up and scaring him has been enough punishment. The son responds that he cannot help his father, that the sergeant doesnt want to listen, but the father continues to plead for his sons intervention. The son says that he cannot intervene because if I do theyll know Im your son. If I keep bothering them theyll end up knowing who I am and will decide to shoot me too." The father tells Justino that he should say that his father is not worth killing because he is so old. Finally Justino relents and goes to the corral, turning on the way to ask his father what will happen to his wife and kids if he too is shot. To this the father replies: Providence will take care of them, Justino. You go there now and see what you can do for me. Thats what matters. After this first section of the story which consists predominantly of dialog the narrators perspective shifts to become a little more omniscient and he takes a more active role in the storytelling. The narrator tells us that the father was brought in at dawn and had been tied to the post all morning long. Juvencio could not calm down, especially since now that he knew they were really going to kill him, all he could feel was his great desire to stay alive, like a recently resuscitated man. The narrator then begins to relate to us Juvencios thoughts as he muses on his murder of Don Lupe, the event that led to his condemnation. He recalls that he he killed Don Lupe because he would not share his pasture with Juvencio's animals. Juvencio remembers that at first he didnt do anything, but with the drought later his animals began to die off, so he broke through the fence and drove his animals through the hole so they could eat the grass on the other side. Don Lupe didnt like this and fixed the fence, but Juvencio cut through it again. This became a pattern where at night the fence would be broken and in the morning it would be mended. During the daytime the livestock would stay right next to the fence, waiting for nighttime when Juvencio would cut the hole so they could eat. Juvencio and Don Lupe would constantly argue but could not come to an agreement. Finally Don Lupe said that he would kill any animal that came into his pasture. Juvencio replied that the fact that the animals were breaking through was not his fault and that if Don Lupe killed one of them, he would have to pay for it. Then Don Lupe killed one of Juvencios yearlings. The narrator at this point switches to first person and narrates from Juvencios perspective. The conflict happened thirty-five years ago in March, because by April Juvencio was already on the run, living in the mountains. The money and livestock he had given the judge didnt matter, they kept pursuing him anyway. Finally he and his son began living on another of his plots of land, Palo de Venado, before his son married Ignacia, and had eight children. All this shows that the fateful event took place years ago and should be forgotten. Around that time Juvencio figured that everything should be fixed with around a hundred pesos. Don Lupe had left his wife and two young kids behind, and then his widow died shortly after from grief. The kids were shipped off to live with relatives, so there was nothing to fear from them. Nevertheless, everyone kept pursuing him, and Juvencio believes it was in order to keep robbing him. Every time someone would enter the village he would have to run up into the mountains like an animal, and this happened for thirty-five years. At this point in the story the narration then switches back to third person. The narrator observes that ironically they caught Juvencio now, when he didnt expect it. He had hoped with all his heart that they would never find him. This is what made it so hard to believe that he would die like this after fighting off death for so long.

The narrator tells us about Juvencio's capture. He had seen the men at nightfall walking through his tender corn crop and he had told them to stop. Juvencio had had time to escape but he didnt; he simply walked beside them without protesting. At this point the narration jumps forward in time to a meeting between the Colonel and Juvencio. The Colonel, who is hidden, says that Don Lupe was his father and that he died when he was young. As a result he had no male role model to follow as a boy. He goes on to say that later he learned his father had been killed by being hacked with a machete and then having an ox goad stuck in his belly. The Colonel found it particularly terrible that Juvencio, the murderer, remained free. After being condemned to die, Juvencio pleaded with the Colonel to let him go given his old age, saying that he has paid many times over for his crime, since he has spent forty years hiding like a leper and fearing death. In response to his cries the Colonel told his men to tie the man up and get him drunk so the shots wont hurt. The narration then shifts to a more recent past, as Justino disposes of his father's corpse, which has been hooded to hide a disfigured face. Justino spurs the burro forward in the hopes that they can reach Palo de Venado in time to arrange the wake. He says to Juvencios body that his daughter-in-law and grandchildren will miss the old man, and that when they see his face they wont believe its him. The narrator ends with these last words from Justino: Theyll think the coyote has been eating on you when they see your face so full of holes from all those bullets they shot at you. Analysis As in The burning plain, the father-son relationship is a crucial one in Rulfian narrative. Fathers are usually considered crucial role models for their children and, as the colonel in Tell them not to kill me! says to Juvencio: Its hard to grow up knowing that the thing we have to hang on or take roots from is dead. This loss of the father figure drives the Colonel to affirm if not exaggerate his masculinity by hunting down the man who was tough enough to kill his father. Freudian theory could support the speculation that for the Colonel the killer of his father (Juvencio) has come to replaced Don Lupe as the target of an Oedipal death wish. Since Don Lupes murder precluded the Colonels ability to desire his death and hereby follow the normative Oedipal trajectory, one could say that this hatred was displaced on to Juvencio. By killing Juvencio, the Colonel is able to achieve manhood. Intriguing as this interpretation may be however, it tells us little about the reality of the Mexican context in which this story takes place. In this story of revenge, a son kills his fathers murderer, but this moment of justice simply creates another imbalance where another son (Justino) is left without a father. In this manner, the cycle of violence continues much like in the story The man. This crisis in the father-son relationship can be read as a metaphor for a relatively young nation (Mexico) experiencing the instability if not complete loss of one of its fundamental pillars, the patriarchal state, after the chaotic events of the Revolution. In Tell them not to kill me! we see that the burden of loss constantly displaced, although none who pass it along find any consolation in the act. In this story the reader is again subtly exposed to the problem of land reform in the post-revolutionary period. Although Juvencio appears to own more than one piece of land (the property near Puerta de Piedra and Palo de Venado, where his son lives), apparently this land is not irrigated and when droughts come his animals begin to die. This is much like the characters in They gave us the land who have land in abundance, but none of it has water. Between the lines one can tell that this lack of access to irrigated land is what drives a wedge into the friendship between Juvencio and Don Lupe. Paradoxically, Juvencio

might almost be considered innocent despite murdering his friend, since the only way he can feed his family is by killing his neighbor. Much like The man, Tell them not to kill me! is another variation on the theme of violence in postrevolutionary Jalisco. In this tale the violence experienced by the colonel at an early age results in an implacable obsession and anticipation of revenge. However, by the time he finally encounters his fathers murderer, we see that that the act revenge is inconsequential in comparison with the immeasurable anguish Juvencio has felt while running for decades from the authorities and from death. Indeed, the imminence of death is tangible from the moment the reader sees the storys remarkable title, and for Rulfo this is just one more way to intensify and build suspense. Much like the title in the story No dogs bark, Rulfo uses the line Tell them not to kill me! just enough times to make it a leitmotiv but not so many as to make it repetitive. Luvina Summary 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. The narration occurs in first person except in moments where an omniscient narrator intervenes with some general details about the scene. The story begins with a description of the terrain in which the town is situated. Luvina is a mountain in the south and it is the highest and the rockiest. The narrator goes on to describe in great detail how treacherous the mountainous terrain is. It is steep and slashed on all sides by deep barrancas, so deep you cant make out the bottom. The man speaking goes quiet for a moment and the sound of the river can be heard along with the air gently rustling through the tree branches. The sounds of children playing can also be heard. Because of this the reader knows that the two men are not currently in the town of Luvina. The speaker asks for two more beers from the barman named Camilo. He continues talking to his listener about Luvina, describing the landscape and the lack of luxuries - like the beer they are now drinking. After much of this description, the reader learns that the narrator used to live in Luvina, where the listener will be visiting. He says, I went to that place full of illusions and returned old and worn out. He says that when he first arrived in Luvina the mule driver who took him didnt even want to stop in the town. He left spurring his horses on as if he was leaving some place haunted by the devil. The narrator was left with his wife and three children in the middle of the plaza, and all they could hear was the wind. He then asked his wife: What country are we in, Agripina? She didnt answer and he sent her to find a place to eat and spend the night. Agripina is not able to find either, and ends up sleeping with her child in the church. When the narrator finds her there, she explains that she was denied food. The family sleeps in the church. They awaken to see the women of Luvina carrying their water jugs down to the river for water: As if they were shadows they started walking down the street with their black water jugs. The narrator says that the only people who live in Luvina are these dealth-like old women and the unborn children. Everyone flees the town. The narrator explains that one day he tried to convince the inhabitants that they should go to another place where the land was good, or to at least ask for the governments help. After all, the government was

beholden to them because it is their country. In response, the people of Luvina laughed at his naive speech. The narrator explains that they were right. The only time the government visits Luvina is when one of its sons has done something wrong in a part of the country that matters: Then he sends to Luvina for him and they kill him. The narrator explains that the only reason the people of Luvina don't leave is because they do not want to abandon their dead. The narrator explains that this is why he left Luvina and does not intend to return. His listener, however, is going there in a few hours. He remembers how fifteen years ago told him the same thing when they assigned him to teach there: youre going to San Juan Luvina. He remarks that once upon a time he was idealistic and hoped to change the town and make a difference, but it didnt work out in Luvina. I made the experiment and it failed. The name San Juan Luvina originally sounded heavenly to him, but now he knows it is purgatory; A dying place where even the dogs have died off, so theres not a creature to bark at the silence. He remarks that when the young teacher arrives there he will understand. The narrator then proposes that the two ask the bartender for some mescal instead of more beers. He is about to begin talking again, but goes silent as his gaze becomes fixed on the table where the carcasses of flying ants have collected in a ring around the lamp. The night closes in outside and the childrens shouts are now further away. The narrator finally falls asleep on the table. Analysis In terms of building an atmosphere of suspenseful malevolence, Luvina might well be Rulfos most chilling tale. This is quite an accomplishment given no one dies in the story, and Rulfos cultivation of dread is often predicated upon the presence or presentiment of death. It is also notable that this story is practically devoid of action. It is simply one mans account of his first visit and subsequent stay in Luvina, told to a listener who is about to depart for the town and does not speak. The only tangible action in the story is the narrators description of his familys first night in the town (his wife finds refuge in an abandoned church and the family cannot sleep because of the wind and the bat-like shuffling sound made by the towns women before dawn). Other than this, the vast majority of this story is comprised of vivid description of the town and the natural elements that endeavor to rid the town of any vestiges of life. As a result, the wind is really the only active character that inhabits the town. Everyone else simply waits for death. The descriptions of the wind are particularly frightening: it takes hold of things in Luvina as if it was going to bite them, sweeping along Luvinas streets, bearing behind it a black blanket, it scratches like it had nails: scraping the walls, tearing off strips of earth, digging with its sharp shovel under the doors, until you feel it boiling inside of you as if it was going to remove the hinges of your very bones. The wind is not the only inhospitable aspect of Luvinas environment, however. Its backdrop is equally menacing: the moon is the image of despair, the hills are silent as if they were dead and Luvina sits atop the highest hill with its white houses like a crown of the dead. The horizon is also always clouded over by a dark stain that never goes away, the terrain is steep and slashed on all sides by deep barrancas, so deep you cant make out the bottom, and as one walks on the ground its as if the earth itself had grown thorns there. All these descriptions make Luvina the most threatening and cruel terrain in The burning plain. The barren Great Plain in They gave us the land might seem like stiff competition, but it lacks the active menace of the wind in Luvina that willfully seeks out life in order to slowly wear it down and eventually extinguish it. The interiorization of the narrative action in Luvina (in the memory of the narrator) will be familiar to readers who have read Rulfos later and best known work, Pedro Pramo. This technique is intensified in Pedro Pramo, where much of the narration follows the thoughts of the characters, often in a stream of consciousness format. This is not the only similarity between the novel and Luvina, however. On the contrary, Luvina and Pedro Pramo are so similar that the characters in the short story could easily fit

into the novel and vice-versa. In Luvina the towns inhabitants have an ethereal, ghostly quality about them, and the same is true of the residents of Comala in Pedro Pramo. In fact, in the novel the characters actually are ghosts, although the reader does not realize this until late in the story. While Luvina is described in the story as purgatory, and Comala is most certainly yet another place where lost souls cannot find rest. One wonders if perhaps the idea for Rulfos master work might draw heavily on Luvina. While Luvina might seem otherwordly, like the other stories in The burning plain it is nevertheless tied into the Mexicos historical reality during the post-revolutionary period. In this story the critical social issue at hand is the education of a country in desperate need of social justice and modernization. As the narrator explains, however, not only is the government deaf to the needs of the citizens of Luvina (it only pays them a visit when in pursuit of one of their delinquent sons), but the citizens themselves are so closely tied to provincial traditions that they cannot bear the thought of abandoning the town. This would mean leaving dead ancestors behind, perhaps a metaphor for their strong attachment to the past: If we leave, wholl bring along our dead ones? These two forces combine to crush the idealism of even the most spirited educators, as was the narrators case so long ago. As the he describes his urging of the townspeople to appeal to the government for assistance, we are reminded thatfor the first time in The burning plainthe protagonist is a employee and promoter of the revolutionary government. However, his time in Luvina changes his mind about both the hope for the modernization of rural Mexico and its political trajectory since he eventually confesses that the citizens were right all along and the leaders arent aware of the existence of towns like this. In the end it is clear that the likelihood of successfully integrating Luvina into the nation the task laid out for both the towns old (the narrator) and new (the listener) teachers is slim. In fact, one wonders by the storys end if the new teacher was not scared off by the narrator long before the storys end, or if the narrator has been talking to himself all along. Remember ("Acurdate") Summary The narrator tells us that Urbano Gmez 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 blueeyed and many said she wasnt his. This one got hiccups often and one time interrupted Mass at the moment of the Elevation: it seemed like she was laughing and crying at the same time. She wound up marrying Lucio Chico the tavern owner. They called Urbanos mother Eggplant because she would always get pregnant whenever she fooled around. She had money, but it all went into elaborate burials since all her children died shortly after being born. The wakes were always expensive so she lost her fortune this way. Only two of her children, Urbano and Natalia, survived. Eggplant died in her last childbirth, but in life she was a scrapper. The narrator tells us she would always get into arguments with the saleswomen in the market. Eventually when she became poor she had to rummage through the trash to find scraps to feed her children with. The narrator explains that Urbano Gmez was more or less our age maybe a few months older and was a bit of a swindler or trickster. He sold the narrator Pink flowers, even though they were easy to find on the hillsides. He also sold fruit he had stolen or bought for less from other places, along with whatever other junk he had on him. We also learn Urbano was also Nachito Riveras brother-in-law. Nachito got feeble-minded after marrying his wife Ins who then had to take care of him. Nachito would spend all day playing songs on

an out of tune mandolin. The narrator and his interlocutor would always go with Urbano to visit his sister and drink the fruit juice we always owed her for and never paid for. Later on in life Urbano lost his friends because everyone avoided him so they would not have to pay him back. The narrator wonders if this is why he turned bad, or maybe he was just that way right from birth. Urbano was expelled from school before his fifth year because he got caught playing man and wife with his cousin Stuck Up. They humiliated him by pulling him out the doors by his ears between rows of boys and girls: He marched along there with his face held high, shaking his fist at all of us, like he was saying, Youll pay for this. Later came Stuck Up who burst into tears, a shrill weeping you could hear all afternoon like it was a coyotes howl. The narrator remarks that only if your memorys real bad you wont remember that. It is rumored that Urbanos uncle Fidencio gave him a beating so bad that he almost left the boy paralyzed. This caused Urbano to leave the village. He eventually came back as a policeman, however. He would just sit in the towns main square with his gun between his legs, staring at all of us filled with hate. He never said anything and pretended not to know anyone. The narrator then remarks that soon afterwards Urbano killed his brother-in-law Nachito. At nighttime Nachito had decided to serenade him with his out of tune mandolin. The church bells were still ringing for the souls in purgatory when the people in the church heard the screams and saw Nachito on his back defending himself with the mandolin and Urbano hitting him again and again with the butt of his mauser, not hearing what the people shouted at him, rabid, like a sick dog. Finally someone took the gun away and hit him in the back with it. Urbano collapsed over the garden bench and lay there for the rest of the night. He left in the morning, but not before asking for the priests blessing at the church, which he was denied. The narrator tells us that Urbano was arrested on the road. He didnt resist and even put the noose around his neck and picked out the tree for them to hang him. The narrator ends the story with another reference to you, the reader or interlocutor: You must remember him, because we were classmates at school, and you knew him just like I did. Analysis Remember is a particularly short story told in third person by a narrator who employs a confidential tone. Like many of Rulfos stories, this tale has the intimate feel of a monologue or a recited religious litany. The narrator recalls details about Urbano Gmez and his family as if he were speaking to an invisible interlocutor or perhaps directly to the reader. A significant trend in Rulfos narrative is the manner in which he manages to include or even implicate the reader in the story. In Remember, the narrator repeatedly draws the reader into a dialog with him, even if only through the use of rhetorical comments such as You mustve known her, or Urbano Gmez was more or less our age maybe a few months older. Still more frequent is the narrators use of the word remember early on in quite a few sentences. When remember appears at the beginning of a sentence, it is never as a question. In fact, there are no rhetorical questions asked of the reader or interlocutor. This is significant because the narrator is not asking us to remember, he is telling us or even commanding us to remember. If the narrator were to ask us to remember and not tell us to do so, we would find it easier to disengage from the story and shift the burden of memory onto someone else, onto a contemporary of the narrator, perhaps. However, the way the narrator commands us to dedicate to memory (or revive it in our memory) the story of Urbano Gmez demands the readers more active participation. The storys final line seems

almost accusatory in nature: You must remember him, because we were classmates at school, and you knew him just like I did. These words seem to elicit a particular response from the reader, specifically a confession. Additionally, as we know by now, many of the stories in this collection already come in the form of a confession. It almost seems as though after so many characters have spilled their darkest secrets out on the page, the narrator is now asking the reader to do the same: Confess that you know Urbano Gmez or someone like him, and that you have tried to forget about them. Confess that stories like his are not as far from your own experience as you might like to think. This confession need not be articulated out loud. The narrator seems to suggest it would be sufficient to simply engage our memory and remember. Rulfo was undoubtedly a politically and socially committed writer. His stories are filled with vivid descriptions of the shortcomings of overarching political institutions like the judicial system, the legislative branch, or the system of public education. In this story, however, there is no apparent institution or governmental department at which one can point a finger. It has been easy up until now for the reader to shake his or her fist at the sky and curse the abstract powers that be. For this reason Remember is special because it is the individual, rather than the institution, that finally must bear the burden of responsibility for the tragic end of Urbano Gmez. It is we who abandoned him along the way: wed go with Urbano to see his sister, and to drink the fruit juice we always owed her and never paid her for []. Later on he didnt have any friends left because all of us, when wed see him, would avoid him so he wouldnt collect from us. Individuals like us also subjected him to merciless ridicule as he exited the school after being expelled, and the narrator tells us so: Only if your memorys real bad you wont remember that. In the end Urbano certainly fully recognizes his own guilt in the murder of Nachito (he himself tied the rope around his neck and even picked out the tree of his choice for them to hang him from), it is only fair that we should reciprocate and acknowledge or confess our role in forsaking him along the way. No dogs bark ("No oyes ladrar los perros") Summary The story with a fathers request that his son Ignacio tell him if he cant hear anything or see any lights in the distance: You up there, Ignacio! Dont you hear something or see a light somewhere? Ignacio responds that he does not, and the father says that they must be getting close. The reader slowly realizes that Ignacio is being carried in a sitting position on his fathers shoulders. This is a technique typical of Rulfo, who likes to keep certain information from his readers in order to disorient them and make them work to make sense of a story. We do not yet know the relationship between the two adult men (both are referred to as men) or why Ignacio is being carried. The father notes that they should soon be getting to the town of Tonaya, which someone told them was just beyond the hill they crossed hours ago. The father says he is tired and Ignacio responds, Put me down. The old man is able to lean against a property wall for a few moments but does not lower his son. The narrator notes that the son speaks very little, and less and less with time. He also seems to sleep at times or tremble as if he were very cold. We hereby know that something is wrong with Ignacio but we do not know what. The sons feet dig into his fathers sides as if they were spurs and his hands shake his head as if it were a rattle. The father wonders aloud where "Tonaya" is; Ignacio responds that the doesnt feel well and wants to be set down. The father responds that hell get his son to the town and there the doctor will see him.

At this point, the relationship between father and son becomes more nuanced. The father notes that he is not doing this for Ignacio, but rather for Ignacios dead mother, who would never have forgiven him for leaving her son where he found him. He says that his wife is what gives him courage, not his son, who has caused him nothing but trouble, humiliation, and shame. We discover that Ignacio has been a wandering thief and has even murdered people, including the fathers old friend, Tranquilino, who baptized the boy. The father again asks Ignacio if he can see or hear anything, to which he responds in the negative. The father observes that Ignacio should be able to hear the dogs barking even thought the lights in the town have been turned off. The son asks for water but the father says he cant let him down because he wont be able to lift him up again. This leads the father to speak about Ignacio's mother, who died when her son was a baby. The memory of Ignacios mother seems to make Ignacio cry, even though he never did anything for her. He says his sons body was always full of evil rather than love. At the end of the story we finally glimpse the events that brought Ignacio to this point. The father notes that now they have wounded Ignacios body. He notes that all Ignacios friends have been killed, only they didnt have anyone to look after them as Ignacio does. Finally, the two men arrive at Tonaya, with its roofs shining in the moonlight. When the father gets to the first house he leans against the wall. With difficulty he slips Ignacios dangling body off his back and separates his sons hands from around his neck. Now that Ignacio is no longer blocking his hearing, the sound of dogs barking. In a circular fashion, the story ends as it began, with the father words on the inefficacy of Ignacio as a lookout. And you didnt hear them, Ignacio? he says. You didnt even help me listen. Analysis In this story we witness a common theme in Mexican literature, as well as in that of Latin America as a whole: the problematic nature of the father-son relationship. Ignacios relationship with his father is interesting in and of itself for the way in which the father, despite being clearly at odds with his son, nevertheless undertakes the incredible task of carrying him to Tonaya. It can be also be read, however, as an allegory of the problematic relationship of the post-revolutionary period with the idealistic Revolution that preceded it. The Mexican Revolution (1910-20) was driven by idealism and hope for a great future, particularly one where the poor would receive the land they desired and the economic stability that had previously belonged to corrupt politicians. Many of these hopes were never realized however, since instead of land reform, a new generation of corruption began where previous revolutionaries sold their allegiance to the highest bidder. Although the allegory is far from obvious, we can see the outlines of this problem in the relationship of Ignacio and his father. The father clearly had great hopes for his family (a common metaphor for the nation) but these quickly faded with the loss of his wife and the fragmentation of his family. The next generation his son Ignacio due in part to the impossibility of this ideal family and his own shortcomings, has become corrupted, much like many during the post-revolutionary period. The role of the bad friends who contribute to Ignacios downfall is important here, since friends are allegiances that are outside the family and the nation. These friends could be metaphors for the role of the foreign influences (such as the United States) that tried to benefit economically from the chaos that followed the Revolution.

Rulfo does not neatly wrap this story up in allegory, however, since the fathers feelings for his son are clearly ambivalent. He feels the strong desire to reject his son, but nevertheless must yield to the urge to save him from mortal danger. Perhaps this could be a sign of the persistence of revolutionary idealism in the face of what is clearly a lost cause. The political shortcomings of the Revolution and their subsequent repercussions are not treated directly by the story, but are certainly hidden below its surface and emanate out through the dramatic events narrated. Evidence of these failures is implicit in No dogs bark in the question of why the father is carrying the son to Tonaya, and not to his own town. The unstated reason is that there is no doctor where the father and son live. With this simple detail, Rulfo manages to work in a persistent problem that the Revolution proposed to vanquish, the basic issues of social security: health care, shelter, employment, education. He does not denounce or draw attention to it, but the lack of a doctor remains as an underlying cause of the two mens predicament. As a result, in the most subtle way and without taking away from the aesthetic value of the work these stories continue to serve as nagging reminders of how so many promises were broken or forgotten. One could argue No dogs bark has some of the theatrical qualities of tragedy in the fatalistic manner in which the characters are driven towards their inevitable destruction. This quality is supported by the way the story largely consists of dialog between the father and son. It is also notable that No dogs bark also exhibits a tendency towards romanticism. The night, the moon and the individual heroism of the father in carrying his son contribute to this romantic impulse, and these elements serve in turn to heighten the force of the storys tragic ending. Anacleto Morones Summary One of the longer stories in The Burning Plain, Anacleto Morones 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: 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. They were carrying their large black scapularies on which the sweat from their faces fell in big drops. Knowing what they were up to and who they were looking for, the narrator immediately hides out in his backyard, running with his pants in his hands. The women found him naked, idly squatting on a stone, however, and were immediately scandalized. Lucatero does this intentionally, so they would see me and not come close, but this does not discourage the women. They then explain that they have come from the town of Amula to see him, but we didnt figure you would be way back here doing this. The narrator curses them again, comparing them to saddle sores on a donkey. He then asks them what they want as he buttons his pants and they avert their eyes. The women explain that they have come on a mission, and have been searching for him in various towns. The narrator tells us he already knows all the women by name, but he decides to act as if he doesnt. He then invites them onto his porch, brings out some chairs and offers them some food and drink. The women decline the food and return to the subject of their visit. One woman asks him if he recognizes her and Lucatero says he thinks she might be Pancha Fregoso, who let herself be carried off by Homobono Ramos. The woman says she is Pancha but that no one carried her off, the two of us got lost looking for berries. Im a church member and I would never have let him. She then chastizes him for having an evil mind. The narrator then offers them a glass of water, and the women finally agree to accept it. There were ten women seated on his porch in a row and all dressed in black, the daugthers of Ponciano, Emiliano,

Crescenciano, Toribio the Tavernkeeper and Anastasio the barber. The women explain that they have had a hard time tracking him down, and as they begin to go into the reason for their visit the narrator gets up to collect some eggs from the yard despite the womens protest. The narrator sees a pile of stones outlining a grave. Lucatero scatters the rocks in every direction. He goes back inside and gives the women the eggs. He knows that these women of the Congregation of Amula have been looking for him since January, when Anacleto Morones disappeared: They were the only ones who could have any interest in Anacleto Morones. And now here they were. The narrator decides to stall until night, when would have to leave: They wouldnt dare spend the night in my house. Sure enough, night falls and the women refuse to stay for fear of what the townspeople would think if they spent the night there alone with him. They don't leave yet, however. Lucatero speaks to one of the women, Nieves Garca, continuing to stall her. Nieves and he used to be lovers, and Lucatero abandoned her while she was pregnant; he conveniently forgets this history for a while before flirting with her, describing how he used to kiss the back of her knees. Nieves responds that God will not pardon Lucatero because she had to abort their baby. The narrator feigns ignorance and goes outside to make more myrtle water. When he returns Nieves has left. The conversation soon turns to the subject of Anacleto, "the Holy Child." They speak of a man, Eldemiro, who was punished by God for accusing Anacleto of being a quack. They note that the judge who sent the Holy Child to jail also met the same fate. Suddenly one of the women asks Lucatero if he will come with them to Amula. This is why they have come. They explain that they want him to participate in their novena, a prayer group for Anacleto. They need someone who had known him before he became famous for his miracles so they can put together a case to have him made a saint. This is repulsive to Lucatero, and he says he cannot go because no one will take care of his house. They respond that two of them will stay to take care of it along with his wife, the Holy Child's daughter. Lucatero says that he does not have a wife anymore, telling them that he ran her off, which shocks the women. They hope that she has at least been placed in a convent but the narrator says she was too fond of being loose and bawdy to be in a convent. The women then say that all this can be fixed if he just confesses when he gets to Amula. They ask him when he last confessed and he says that it was fifteen years ago, when the Cristeros were going to shoot me. They shoved a gun in my back and made me kneel in front of a priest, and I confessed to things there that I hadnt even done yet. To this the women again say that if he wasnt the son-in-law of the Holy Child they wouldnt ask this of him because youve always been a real devil, Lucas Lucatero. The narrator then remarks that he was just Anacleto Morones helper. He was the living devil himself. This scandalizes the women once again, and they say he was a saint. Lucatero explains, however, that Anacleto used to sell phony saints relics in the fairs. Lucatero says that Anacleto once pretended to endure ant bites with the help of a piece of the true cross, with the aim of then selling the relic, though in fact he simply bit his tongue to keep from crying out. The women deny that the narrator is telling the truth. They say Lucatero was ungrateful because he was nothing more than a swineherd before he met Anacleto. The women say that Anacleto is in heaven now, but Lucatero says he heard the man was in jail. To this the women say that he has since escaped, leaving no trace, so he must be in heaven. The women then kneel down and kiss their scapularies with images of Anacleto. During this time the narrator goes to the kitchen to eat some tacos: When I came out only five women were left. Pancha tells him that they were so disgusted they had to go. He then offers those that remain some more myrtle water. Filomena, whos

nickname was the Dead One for her quiet nature, rushed over to one of my flowerpots and, putting her finger down her throat, brought up all the myrtle water she had swallowed, mixed in with pieces of sausage and fruit seeds. She then said that she didnt want anything from him and leaving her egg on her chair, left: Now only four were left. Pancha said she felt like vomiting too, but that they had to get him to go to Amula. She reminds him that he was almost Anacletos son: You inherited the fruit of his saintliness. He put his eyes on you to perpetuate him. He gave you his daughter. To this the narrator responds by saying yes, but he gave her to me already perpetuated. The women again are shocked, but he insists that the girl was already four months pregnant when they were married and was proud of showing off her bulging stomach. She ran off with someone else just because he offered to take care of the child. The narrator then truly stuns the women by telling them that inside Anacleto Morones daughter was Anacleto Morones grandchild. She wasnt the only one either, because he left this part of the country without virgins, always seeing to it that a maiden watched over his sleep. The women then defend the man by saying he did this to stay pure, but the narrator responds that they say this because he didnt choose to be with them. Melquades, one of the remaining four then said that Anacleto did call on her, and that he only held her through the night. The narrator tells her that this was because she is old, and that Anacleto liked them young and tender, liked to hear their bones breaking, to hear them snap as if they were peanut shells. The one named The Orphan then called Lucatero a cursed atheist. She said she was an orphan and that Anacleto comforted her. She explains that she found her parents again in his embrace when the night they spent together: the only happy night I spent was with the Holy Child Anacleto in his consoling arms. And now you say bad things about him. After another batch of insults thrown Lucateros way, only two women remain. Anastasios daughter Micaela then asks if he would really deny that Anacleto performed miracles. She claims that he cured her husband of syphilis. The narrator expresses surprise at this since he had heard that she was single. Micaela, then tells him that being a seorita and a being single are different things. She says she got little benefit out of living as a seorita: Im a woman. And a woman is born to give what is given her. Lucatero remarks that these are Anacletos words. Micaela explains that he got her to sleep with him in order to cure her liver trouble, but that being fifty years old and a virgin is a sin. The narrator again recognizes Anacletos voice in her words. He asks the two women why they dont want to make him a saint instead, and Micaela replies that he has never cured anyone of syphilis. She describes how her husband suffered before Anacleto burned him with a hot reed and rubbed saliva on his sores to cure him. Lucatero tells her that he must have had the measles since he too was cured as a child using this technique. They again criticize his lack of faith, but Lucatero responds: I have the consolation that Anacleto Morones was worse than me. Upon hearing this Micaela decides to leave. Lucatero then asks Pancha if she will stay and sleep with him now that the other women have left. She replies that she only wants to convince him to come with them. Lucatero says that they ought to try to convince each other: After all, what have you got to lose? Youre too old for anybody to pay attention to you or do you that favor. Finally she says she will stay but only until dawn and only if he promises to go to Amula with her so she can tell them she spent the night begging him to accompany her. He then jokingly says: Okay. But first cuto off those hairs over your lips. Ill bring you the scissors. She replies that they cant trim her moustache since someone will notice. When it gets dark Pancha helps Lucatero put the rocks he had scattered back into the corner where they originally were. The narrator tells us that she had no idea that Anacleto Morones was buried there. Or that he died the same day he escaped from jail and came here demanding I return his property to him. Anacleto had asked him to sell everything so he could have money to travel up North. He promised to

write Lucatero so that he could then join him and they could go into business together again. Lucatero had told him to take his daughter since thats all he had left of Anacletos. Anacleto responded that they could join him later once he got in touch: There well settle accounts. He asked Lucatero how much money he had saved, and the narrator told him there was a little left, but Im not going to give it to you. Ive gone through hell with your shameless daughter. Consider yourself well paid by my keeping her. Anacleto then got angry and shouted that he had to get out of town. Lucatero buried him with stones from the river and said to the grave: You wont get out of here even though you use all your tricks. The narrator notes the irony that Pancha is now helping him rearrange the stones without knowing Anacleto is buried underneath, and says the reason he puts stones on the grave is so Anacleto wont be able to escape: Pile on more rocks, Pancha, here in this corner; I dont like to see my yard all rocky. The next morning at dawn Pancha says to him: Youre a flop Lucas Lucatero. You arent the least bit affectionate. Do you know who was really loving? When the narrator asks who, she replies: The Holy Child Anacleto. He knew how to make love. Analysis Anacleto Morones has a humorous tone that is quite different from the other stories in this collection. The comic elements in this tale are certainly dark, but they nevertheless provide a strong contrast with the stark and harrowing tales that accompany it. While the Amula women have the understandable excuse of being little more than a product of their social and historical context much of which is shaped by the actions of machista men like Anacleto and Lucatero the narrators mockery of their rigid and provincial religiously-oriented behavior is certainly capable of provoking laughter. The humorous elements of Anacleto Morones are derived from a certain brand of the comic, however. Moments such as the narrators naked greeting of the supposedly pious congregation, Filomenas decision to forcefully purge all the myrtle water she has drunk at Lucateros house in one of his flowerpots, and Lucateros flirtatious request that Pancha trim her moustache are all funny in grotesque, bodily ways. The story also has a strongly macabre irony since the Holy Child whom the women are so desperately seeking is actually buried a few meters away in the narrators backyard. This type of macabre humor has deep roots in Mexico in particular and in Latin America in general. In fact, these roots stretch all the way across the Atlantic to Spain, where during the sixteenth and seventeenth century Golden Age authors wrote highly popular stories in the picaresque genre. The picaresque is a satirical narrative sub-genre that usually deals with the adventures of a lower-class hero who survives though clever manipulation of his surroundings and wit. Much like Anacleto Morones, the picaresque hero is typically humorously involved in base and grotesque acts and as he rises through the social hierarchy he descends morally. Lucatero is clearly more wealthy at the end of the story than when he first met Anacleto, but along the way he and his mentor have also corrupted the virtue of quite a few of Amulas women. However, the picaresque appears in Rulfos story with a typically Latin-American slant since Anacleto and Lucatero masquerade as divinely inspired miracle-workers who are only distinct from indigenous curanderos or witch doctors in their close identification with the Catholic Church. Indeed, it appears that these picaroons are likely a product of the devout Catholicism sparked by the Cristero War. Lucatero himself admits that the Cristeros made a strong impression on him when they forced him to confess at gunpoint fifteen years earlier. All he and Anacleto have done is to appeal to this heightened religious fervor at every opportunity. Though the women in this story certainly inspire a certain amount of laughter, they also at times inspire compassion. Pancha is clearly a woman who, underneath the black clothing of a spinster, simply wants to

feel loved and live a little. Sadly enough, Lucatero is right when he offers her the opportunity for intimacy and says: youre too old for anybody to pay attention to you or do you that favor. Micaela also demonstrates a strong understanding of her tragic situation when she says: what good did I get out of living as a seorita? Im a woman. And a woman is born to give what is given her. Micaelas observation that being fifty years old and a virgin is a sin also gives us the impression that, as repugnant as the storys two roguish picaroons are, they certainly provide some release for the sexual frustrations of women like these. Oppressed by the more respectable but still machista men of their town, these women know where to go to find satisfaction. While men like Lucatero and Anacleto have caused a great deal of heartache, they do serve the purpose of making these women feel alive. As a result, just as the rascals use the women, we should make no mistake that the women use them reciprocally. After all, Pancha puts Lucatero in his place at the end of the story when his performance in bed doesnt live up to her expectations: Youre a flop, Lucas Lucatero. You arent the least bit affectionate. Lucatero is just a shadow of the Holy Child Anacleto in bed: He knew how to make love. In this way, it is important to remember that humor is used to accent and highlight the social situation of the women, and not to trivialize it.