SOURCE: "The 'Everyman' Theme in Carpentier's El Camino del Santiago," in Symposium, Vol. XVIII, No. 3, Fall, 1964, pp. 229-40.

In the following essay, Foster examines Carpentier's thematic adaptation of the medieval Everyman allegory in "Highroad of St. James," demonstrating its moral significance in the context of contemporary literary methods.

Given Alejo Carpentier's known preference¹ for the destruction of the unities of logical time and space, one is not surprised that a writer who is stylistically of the most advanced vanguard should find thematically useful the medieval religious concept of the Everyman theme.² Allegorical in intent, the Everyman is a representation of the common destiny of all mankind on the occasion of his pilgrimage through this life. It shall be the attempt of this study to examine Carpentier's "El Camino de Santiago"³ as a reinterpretation and a revitalization of that theme within the confines of the most contemporary of literatures...