Studies about Two Arreola’s Works

Abstract

The purpose of this text is to analyze the popular narrative, hierarchy, production of codes and collision between the generic and the literary in two of Juan Jose Arreola’s short stories entitled: “Corrido” and “Parable of the Barter”. It is taken into consideration that corridos, which derive from oral tradition, have become part of the epic, lyric and drama genres of Mexican popular culture. The analysis of this short story encompasses the study of the characters, the narration of concrete facts which lead to the conflict and result in violence, and the source of the conflict. This study also deliberates upon people’s history, customs, and way of speaking, that is to say: speech structure, gramatical elements, linguistic, philologic and expressive outreach of the story. The text is also centered in analyzing the different parts of the composition of a corrido, such as: the request to tell what has occurred, precision of the information, descriptions, moral sentences and farewell. Additionally, the point of view of the witness narrator is taken into account, since this narrator makes the plot more appealing, as well as the topic (passion tragedies) and the social role of popular corridos. The methodology used hereby is based on four methods of analysis: sociological criticism, stylistics, exegesis and parody according to Bakhtin.