Tragic rurality in Juan Rulfo: considerations between fiction and reality

Abstract

This analysis of literature by the Mexican writer Carlos Juan Nepomuceno Pérez Rulfo Vizcaíno (1917–1986) is intended to further explore the meanings of his tragic plots set among and making reference to social inequality and rurality in Mexico during the first half of the twentieth century. We focus on The Plain in Flames (1953) and Pedro Páramo (1955), two notoriously complex and enigmatic texts relating to the social reality in Mexico in the early 1900s and the social imagination permeated by mysticism and the fantastic. Rulfian literature consequently acted as an interwoven discourse oscillating between the real and the imaginary, lending meaning to historical experiences. In this sense, tragedy is one of the fundamental elements in Rulfo’s literary work, which essentially presents elements of a rurality permeated by scarcity, exploitation, and poverty. His writings represent an original contribution to decolonial thinking by offering a literary manifestation that advocates for and dialogues with its reality in a purposefully pragmatic way. The rural tragedy contained in this work is not only an accusation, but also an inevitable clash with reality.