The Figurative Perspective in Balún Canán, by Rosario Castellanos

Abstract

The alternation of narrators is one of the most striking resources in Balún Canán, by Rosario Castellanos. The first and third parts are narrated in the first person by a seven-year-old girl; the second, by an omniscient narrator, in the third person. In the second part it is possible to observe a sustained, though not systematic, use of resources that introduce the perspective of the characters, such as the free indirect style and the narrated monologue. These resources could be considered elements of realist narrative. However, the first and third parts, narrated in homodiegesis, also present a phenomenon that is very little attended not only in Castellanos’ novel, but in the theory itself: the perspective of the character within the figural discourse. This phenomenon, which constitutes one of the great contributions of Balún Canán, is the one we intend to analyze, with the support of narratological notions, in this article.