ABSTRACT
Dulce Chacón’s representation of rurality, Cielos de barro, won el Premio Azorín de Novela in 2000. The novel taps into a time-honored portrayal of the bucolic, or more specifically Extremadura, a chronically underdeveloped province controlled by latifundistas, as a locus of misery and stasis. Camilio José Cela’s 1942 novel, La familia de Pascual Duarte, set in “un pueblo perdido por la provinicia de Badajoz” (Cela 21), recreated the awfulness of postwar life through Pascual Duarte, “un hombre maldito” (42), according to his sister and mother. Cela’s portrayal of Pascual’s degradation undermines their opinion, lending credence instead to the idea that Pascual Duarte’s was a life fated by historical inequities to be “un osario de esperanzas muertas” (67). Miguel Delibes brought into relief the injustices suffered by Extremaduran peasants during the 1960s in his 1981 novel, Los santos innocentes. Their endurance of constant humiliations, just one of which is the servant Paco el bajo being forced by Señor Ivan to act as a helper when he has not yet recovered from his injury. However, the germination of social change is embodied, in the novel, by Paco el bajo’s son, Quirce, who refuses to take money from Señor Ivan for work, and does not demonstrate a servile attitude towards him.
