Rural versus Urban Space in Florencio Sánchez’s Gaucho Dramas

• In Event: Identity on (the) Edge: Spatial and Social Frontiers in Latin American Narrative

Abstract

This presentation looks at how Sánchez uses language, imagery and space to rework Sarmiento’s civilization vs. barbarism dichotomy and problematize the urban/rural divide at a moment when Latin America is modernizing and entering the height of its industrialization era. The writing and staging of M’hijo el dotor in 1903 marked the beginning of a new period of national theatre in Argentina and Uruguay with its move away from individualism and caudillismo to an understanding of the contemporary issues that faced the rural population. In this drama, Sánchez displays a generational conflict in a gaucho family at the turn of the century between a father trying to hold on to his honor code, and his son who has new ideas about the freedom of individual thought and is not concerned with social conventions. La gringa (1904) intensifies the tensions in the Argentine countryside with a conflict between two ethnicities: the criollo gaucho, representing the old ways, and his new industrious, Italian (gringo) neighbor. In these first two works of Sánchez’s rural trilogy, the conflict is resolved through a romantic-sentimental dénouement. The third work, Barranca abajo (1905) ends in tragedy, with the gaucho Don Zoilo taking his own life after being dishonored and robbed of his land through illegal maneuverings by protected, greedy landowners. I explore the central role of nature and place in these three dramas to reveal Sánchez’s warnings about the dangers of a simple urban/rural dichotomy and his belief in the need for a symbiotic relationship.

Author

• Miguel A Fernández, Middlebury College