SOURCE: “Alienation in Rosario Castellanos' ‘Ciudad Real,’” in Letras Femeninas, Vol. XV, Nos. 1-2, Spring, 1989, pp. 22-7.

In the following essay, Parham discusses alienation in Ciudad Real, arguing that Castellanos illustrates modes of social interaction common in Mexican culture that serve to both protect the individual and manipulate others.

The short stories of Rosario Castellanos' second fictional work, Ciudad Real, all deal in some way with the problem of alienation, especially between Indian and white, though other forms are sometimes equally or even more important, such as alienation between sexes, classes and age groups and between man and nature. Instruments of this alienation include severe codes of courtesy, machismo and other forms of sex-role stereotyping, greed and above all, language barriers.

In “La muerte del tigre,” the role of oral communication in perpetuating alienation is examined. Octavio Paz asserts in this regard that in Mexico “las complicaciones rituales...