Rosario Castellanos and the Indigenismo in the tales of Ciudad Real

Abstract

Ciudad real (Real city) is the most important short stories book of Rosario Castellanos, with which she received the Villaurrutia Prize in 1961. In it the author explores in the character of indigenous people, approaches the exploitation that they endure from the caxlanes (Spaniards) and presents the North American penetration through Protestantism, promoted in the shape of disinterested aid. This text does a narratology and stylistic analysis, including rigorous research, of Ciudad Real to observe its literary characteristics, the social condition of the indigenous peoples of Chiapas and its common characteristics with the indigenous tale. This tendency started in Mexico with Alfonso Reyes’s 1910 story La silueta del indio Jesús (The silhouette of Jesus, the indian) and ended with Herminio Martinez’s story José María Coyote in 1985.