0 Down votes, mark as not useful. Caperucita en La Zona Roja ARGUMENTO. Uploaded by Madras Cortez.
There was a lot going on in this story (I think?) that was just going over my head. This is the kind of book needed to be read in a literature books, with supplementary worksheets and reference guides. As a leisurely read it was incredibly hard to follow and engaging. The style of writing as a stream of consciousness, jumping between characters (and time maybe?) did not allow me to form a context without a knowledge of the political environment the story takes place in. Two of the characters are There was a lot going on in this story (I think?) that was just going over my head. This is the kind of book needed to be read in a literature books, with supplementary worksheets and reference guides. As a leisurely read it was incredibly hard to follow and engaging.
The style of writing as a stream of consciousness, jumping between characters (and time maybe?) did not allow me to form a context without a knowledge of the political environment the story takes place in. Two of the characters are referred to as Little Red Riding Hood and the Wolf, but besides that I did not follow any allegorical structure. It was hard to tell if there were any more connections to be made between the characters or the plot, because of the undefined time jumps. I know a neighborhood was called 'The Forest' but what that means in terms of the work as a whole I couldn't tell you. If you are familiar with this portion of El Salvador history, maybe you'll get more out of it than I did. If you don't, it's not really worth the trouble.
Page/Link: Page URL: HTML link: The Free Library. Retrieved Jan 25 2019 from Manlio Argueta's novels, which chronicle the recent history of El Salvador, have earned him an international reputation and have endeared him to the people of his homeland. His first two novels, El valle de las hamacas (1970) and Caperucita en la zona roja (1978), present the social instability and political repression in the country during the seventies.
The original version of Caperucita en la zona roja was awarded the Casa de las Americas Prize in the category of the novel for 1977. His third and fourth novels, Un dia en la vida (1980) and Cuzcatlan donde bate la mar del sur (1986), present the escalation in the level of repression and rebellion in the late seventies that culminated in the protracted civil war of the eighties. His fifth novel, Milagro de la Paz (1994; see WLT 70:1, p. 165), examines the legacy of civil strife in the lives of a Salvadoran woman and her family. In 1997, at the Quinto Congreso Internacional de Literatura Centroamericana, which was held in San Jose, Costa Rica, Argueta announced the publication of a revised version of Caperucita en la zona roja. The original version of this text, published by Casa de las Americas in 1978, has gone through eight editions in El Salvador. Caperucita en la zona roja revolves around the relationship between two young lovers, Alfonso and Hormiga.
The novel evokes characters and themes from the classic fairy tale within the conflictive environment of El Salvador and its capital, San Salvador. The red zone or 'red-light district' of the title refers to political activity and the urban violence Salvadorans confronted in the late seventies. Argueta combines elements of testimonio-style texts with the modern narrative techniques of juxtaposed episodes with different time frames and points of view. Instead of constructing a plot, this fragmented style serves to mirror the chaos and uncertainty of the physical and psychological space in which the novel's characters operate. Argueta has said that his book does not need be read from beginning to end, but can be picked up and read from any page. In the revised version the author has removed some of the ambiguities in this extremely underdetermined text. As in Argueta's other novels, one of the major features of this text is its reproduction of the colloquial speech of its Salvadoran characters.
In addition, Argueta's love of language and poetic expression are found in the intertextual play with poems from many Latin American poets, including Pablo Neruda and Roque Dalton. Argueta has said that Dalton's murder in 1975 inspired him to resume Caperucita, which he had started and abandoned in 1972. The author spent most of the seventies and all of the eighties living in exile in Costa Rica, where he completed the novel. Argueta has commented that Caperucita en la zona roja is his most popular novel both among critics of his works and for Salvadoraris as well.
The former appreciate the text's complex structure and experimentation with language, the latter its intimate testimonial nature and use of colloquial Salvadoran speech. The publication of this revised version of Caperucita is evidence of the novel's literary significance and continued relevance for the Salvadoran people: sadly, years after the civil war, El Salvador continues to be a violent place. Edward Waters Hood Northern Arizona University.