SOURCE: "Social Criticism, Existentialism, and Tremendismo in Cela's La familia de Pascual Duarte," in Kentucky Foreign Language Quarterly, Vol. XIII, 1967, pp. 25-33.

In the following essay, Foster provides an analysis of Cela's La familia de Pascual Duarte and its relationship to social criticism, existentialism, and tremendismo.

La familia de Pascual Duarte shocked the sensibilities of the Spanish reading public when it was published in the early '40's. Somehow, despite the cruel experiences of their Civil War, his countrymen were not prepared to receive graciously the repentant confessions of a man whose story relates in turn the killing of his hunting dog, the killing of his mare, the murder of the lover of his wife and sister, the murder of his wife, to culminate in the bloody scene of son murdering mother—all presented in a tone of meek apology and transmitted to us through a novelistic format...