Social Violence in some Carmen Lyras’s Short Stories (Siluetas de la maternal, 1929 y Bananos y hombres, 1931)

Abstract

In several of the stories of Siluetas de la maternal (Carmen Lyra, 1929) and Bananos y hombres (1931), in what corresponds to a markedly naturalist approach, we find the marginal, the socially evicted, the men, women and children marked by despair, by defeat, by sadness and dispossession. It is the world of the socially expelled, those who go through life without promises, and who are marked by the impossibility of overcoming the obstacles they face. Like baldomerolillanos characters, the persistence of existential dispossession marks the evolution of these characters. It is the harshness of a life lacking that drags and subdues them. It is the defeat of the excluded, immersed in the violence that marks them and defines them as social pariahs. It is intended to give an account of what it means, from the narrative production of this author, the world of the dispossessed, the prevailing adverse conditions they must face and the impossibility of a better social condition. For this, the reading, analysis and review of Lyra's texts is a vital methodological element, in order to make visible this type of existential problem.