El Coronel No Tiene Quien Le Escribe

El Coronel No Tiene Quién Le Escribe

El coronel was written by Márquez during a period of great literary change or indeed upheaval. Up to the 1940’s there was La novela de la tierra (regionalist novel), which tenaciously adhered to the popular tradition of the third-person, omniscient, chronological, documentary-style narrative; generally symbolising or unifying an idealistic Latin Americanidentity to that of conquerors; heroes, disciplinarians of nature; purveyors of narrow congenital themes such as justice, wisdom, love, good and evil, which gave individuals character without true personality.

On the other hand, Márquez, and others like him began experimenting with prose during the 50’s and 60’s, discarding the ‘old’ style of writing prevalent during the first half of thecentury. This in part, would coincide adjacently with the social and political movements occurring in Latin America during the 1940’s to the late `60s and early `70’s known in the literary world as the ‘Boom’ period. Márquez himself was a passionate regionalist at heart, basing the themes of his early fiction around his hometown of Aracataca in Columbia (Williams, Raymond L. 2007: 220). Yet, thedefining feature of Márquez and other ‘Boom’ writers was the juxtaposition of humour, darkness; the element of fantasy and ‘magical realism’. The new insurgence of hope and cultural innovation, further influenced by the socialist Cuban Revolution of 1959, brought with it new ideas and inspirations, including modernist influences of Hemingway and Faulkner. In being able to branch out from theconfines of the dogmatic novela de la tierra, Márquez’ work would become more universally accessible; broader in scope and vision.

- “Ya falta poco para que venga la pensión – dijo el coronel
- “Estás diciendo lo mismo desde hace quince años.”
- ... “tengo la impresión de que esa plata no llegará – dijo la mujer.
- “Llegará.”
- “Y si no llega.”
-[...] “Eres caprichoso, terco ydesconsiderado”, repitió ella. “... toda una vida comiendo tierra para que ahora resulte que merezco menos consideración que un gallo.”
(García Márquez. 2001: 40- 41)

The novella El coronel no tiene quién le escribe, written by Gabriel García Márquez, ostensibly conjures the feeling of a bleak, austere world devoid of fortune or solace from the unrelenting drudgery of dearth, decay and decrepitude; ofhope, redemption, aspirations and justice. The colonel, a once proud man who fought for the revolution in the Thousand Day War, has become “un hombre solo sin otra ocupación que esperar el correo todos los viernes” (García Márquez. 2001: 13). Fifty-six years following the war, the colonel has done nothing but wait for a letter that would confirm his right to his veteran’s pension, a “pensión deveterano después de exponer el pellejo en la guerra civil” (García Márquez. 2001: 42). The colonel is the last remaining veteran of a failed revolution. He remains naively optimistic that the sacrifice made by him and his fallen compañeros will eventually be honoured, when all those around him have given up all hope of receiving any justice. The contemptuous wife, a figure of antithesis in thenovella, berates the colonel’s opaque optimism:


In the opening of El Coronel we are immediately introduced to the plight of the 75 year old colonel, and his ailing wife, scraping the remnants of a coffee jar for almost a teaspoon’s worth of coffee granules mixed with rust. There is already talk of ‘survival’ and ‘hope’. It seems in this world of uncertainty the only thing that the colonelcan guarantee on is the cycle of the seasons, which brings its own foreboding:
“... En un actitud de confiada e incocente expectativa, el coronel experimentó la sensación de que nacían hongos y lirios venenosos en sus tripas. Era octubre. Una mañana difícil de sortear, aun para un hombre como él que había sobrevivido a tantas mañanas como ésa... Octubre era una de las pocas cosas que...