BOLIVARIAN REPUBLIC OF VENEZUELA

MINISTRY OF POPULAR POWER FOR EDUCATION

SANTA ANGELA SCHOOL EDUCATIONAL COMPLEX

MARACAIBO-ZULIA

VENEZUELAN NARRATIVE

Authors:

Davila Esteban

Ferrer Uneiro

Gutierrez Eladio

Rodriguez Daniel

Maracaibo, March 2019

Introduction

In Venezuela, one of the most outstanding and versatile arts in terms of

expressing your thoughts is Venezuelan writing.

During the previous centuries, Venezuela has had men and women who have
marked the predilection in the arts such as narrative and among them is the
optics of each of the points that we have to deal with in this work, such as
Narrative. Costumbrista headed by the illustrious Nicanor Bolet Peraza that
expresses an idea of culture that marks the identity and idiosyncrasy of a
nation, likewise we have the Romantic Narrative of Eduardo Blanco that
expresses romanticism in its literary lines where there are imperfections that
are considered imperfect by his human identity, then we have the Creole
Narrative of José Rafael Pocaterra, a man who expresses his resources in
realism and naturalism, customs and landscapes of a region and the
Naturalist Narrative of Rufino Blanco Fombona where he expresses the
realism of his works influenced by a natural context that surrounds it, and only
then in the Venezuelan narrative does it have human resources of excellent
quality that we will see in this expression.

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INDEX

Introduction …………………2

1.- Venezuelan Narrative …………………4

1.1.- Costumbrista Narrative …………………5

1.1.1.- Biography of Nicanor Bolet Peraza …………………6

1.2- Romantic Narrative …………………7

1.2.1.- Biography of Eduardo Blanco …………………8

1.3.- Creole Narrative …………………9

1.3.1.- Biography of José Rafael Pocaterra …………………11

1.4.- Naturalistic Narrative …………………12

1.4.1.- Biography of Rufino Blanco Fombona …………………14

2.- Biography of Teresa De La Parra …………………15

3.- Summary of Iphigenia …………………17

Conclusion …………………19

Bibliography …………………21

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CONCEPT OF NARRATIVE

It comes from the Latin narrare (to tell) and is associated with an Indo-
European root. Narrative is understood as the oral or written description of an
event, real or fictitious, with the aim of persuading and entertaining the
viewer, who may be a reader or a listener.

1. VENEZUELAN NARRATIVE

ORIGIN

It appeared after verse since until the 18th century the legal, doctrinal
and philosophical documents were written in Latin, the cultured language.
The first Venezuelan writers were the Indian chroniclers (José Oviedo y
Baños) who resided in Caracas with a classic and realistic style. the history of
the conquest and population of the province of Venezuela during the
independence revolution, Simón Bolívar also used his pen to defend and
disseminate republican principles and sometimes to express his emotions
and personal experiences within Venezuela.

The literary creations that would set the tone belonged to the prose
genres and the neoclassical poetry of Andrés Bello, the brilliant writing of
rupture and parody of Simón Rodríguez stands out, at the beginning of the
republican era neoclassicism and romanticism with poets appear like Fermín
Del Toro and Rafael María Baralt.

It was since 1880 when a literary movement of acceptance and

inspiration emerged in Venezuela, in the narrative genre naturalism was
discovered, the refined language became evident (Manuel Díaz Rodríguez)
highlighting modernism (Teresa de la parra and Rómulo Gallegos) With The
work belonging to Rómulo Gallegos culminates an entire stage of Venezuelan
Narrative where (Doña Bárbara) stands out.

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 The Venezuelan narrative is subjected to the influence of nativism,
costumbrismo and realism.

CONCEPT

It refers to the literary work carried out in this country from the period of
conquest and colonization to the present.

CHARACTERISTICS

• They can be real or imaginary.

• They are structured in dialogues, monologues and paragraphs.

• They can be told in 1st person, 2nd person or 3rd person.

• Dialogue can be dramatic or personal

• High pedagogical content.

1.1. CUSTOM NARRATIVE

CUSTOMS

It is derived from the customs and traditions of a specific place.

ORIGIN

It arose from romanticism but had a greater development in the literature and
painting of the 19th century, it is the first influence to reach Venezuela.

CONCEPT

It is a literary trend or genre that is characterized by the portrait and

interpretation of the typical customs or characteristics of a country, a town, a
city, a residence, etc. This speaks of the reality that exists in them.

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 For example, the peasant and his way of life, his beliefs, his beliefs, his
work, his religion, etc.

CHARACTERISTICS

• Expresses love for the immediate, the local environment and the customs of
the time

• Uses satire and humor, criticizes social customs and vices of society with
humor.

• They lacked artistic concerns.

• They tell of old customs that are beginning to disappear: the unbridled
carnival, the profane representations of the entrances to Jerusalem, the
scene of the popular inn and the elegant café, conventional lies, vanity,
ambitions, social vices and some typical characters .

• Presentation of facts without interpreting or analyzing them.

• It represents the transition through a search for society's own identity.

• It represents the folklore, the characteristic, the habits of a given society.

1.1.1. BIOGRAPHY OF NICANOR BOLET PERAZA

Born in Caracas, Venezuela on June 4, 1838. Venezuelan writer and

politician. Although he was born in Caracas, his childhood and youth took
place in Barcelona, Anzoátegui state. Together with his father Nicanor Bolet
Poleo and his brother Ramón, they edited the literary magazine "El Oasis"
between 1856 and 1858, which is the first printed opinion publication in
Anzoatiguense territory.

He took an active part in national politics. He supported, at first, the

regime of Antonio Guzmán Blanco, which he would later criticize, harshly
criticizing the government, which is why he had to leave his homeland in
1880. He married Perfecta Monagas (daughter of the former president of the
nation José Gregorio Monagas) and was the father of four children.

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 He moved with his family to New York and there he founded and wrote
two magazines: "La Revista Ilustrada" and "Las Tres Américas" in 1893.
Among its articles on customs, the following stand out: Caraqueños Paintings
and Gredalenses Letters, in which Venezuela is equated with a gredal. He
also wrote a chronicle about the forgotten Maderero Theater, in Caracas at
the beginning of the 19th century, in which the Holy Week performances
became a comic spectacle.

He participated in the founding of the Hispano-American Literary

Society, based in New York, within which he held the presidency for different
periods. In 1888, President Juan Pablo Rojas Paúl appointed him
plenipotentiary minister and extraordinary envoy in Washington.

An essential figure of Latin American costumbrismo, his costumbrista

articles were collected in a volume published twenty-five years after his
death: Articles of customs and literature (1931). He also published some
stories, among which the fantastic story "Metencardiasis" (1896) stands out,
and plays such as A lack of bread, good cakes (1873), a one-act comedy of
manners, and Home Struggles (1875). His other works are The Work
Revolution (1901), Gredalense Letters and Travel Impressions (1906). He
died on March 24, 1906, New York, United States.

1.2. ROMANTIC NARRATIVE

ROMANTICISM

Cultural and artistic period that took place in Europe and America
during the 19th century and during which this cultural movement developed.

ORIGIN

It begins, not shamelessly, throughout the 19th century, in the 1940s

thanks to Fermín Del Toro.

CONCEPT

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 It was a movement that generated dominance over literature that
seeks to be original by implementing feelings and imperfection is well seen, it
values the unconscious and there is contradiction in the works.

CHARACTERISTICS

• Its main characteristic is the breaking of the classicist tradition based on a

set of specified rules. Romanticism is a way of feeling and conceiving nature,
life and man that is presented in a particular way in each country where it
develops. The motto of this movement is freedom in all aspects, creating
works that are less perfect and irregular and more intimate.

• It was revolutionary in nature. It is projected in all the arts and constitutes

the essence of modernity.

• He likes the night atmosphere, dark, gloomy, lonely, ruined, disorderly...

• It is also characterized by its dedication to the imagination and the

subjectivity of thoughts, and the expression and idealization of nature.

1.2.1. BIOGRAPHY OF EDUARDO BLANCO

Born in Caracas, Venezuela on December 25, 1838. Venezuelan writer

and politician. He completed his secondary education at the El Salvador del
Mundo School, under the teaching of the poet Juan Vicente González. Only
son of José Ramón Blanco and María Eugenia Acevedo.

He began his military career in the service of General José Antonio

Páez, whose trust he gained during the course of the Federal War (1859-
1863). He abandoned the army to dedicate himself to literature, and under
the pseudonym Manlio he published some short stories and the novel Una
noche en Ferrara (1875).

In 1879 he premiered his drama Lionfort at the Caracas Theater, and

in 1881 he published Venezuela heroica, a historical narrative that praised
the exploits of heroes linked together by their love for their country, made up
of a series of eleven historical paintings. If Heroic Venezuela already had a
dazzling success, the two volumes of his novel Zárate (1882) further

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increased its immense popularity; The figure of its protagonist, the bandit
Zárate, perfectly reflects the idiosyncrasy of the Creole population.

He later published the collections of stories The Nights of the Pantheon

(1895) and Epic Traditions and Old Tales (1912), and a third novel, Fauvette
(1905). During the presidency of Cipriano Castro, Eduardo Blanco held the
positions of Minister of Foreign Affairs between 1900 and 1905, and Minister
of Public Instruction between 1905 and 1906. He died on June 30, 1912,
Caracas, Venezuela.

1.3. CREOLLIST NARRATIVE

CREOLISM

Set of characteristics and traditions that are or are considered typical

of the Creole.

ORIGIN

It was born at the end of the 19th century, strongly influenced by the
relatively recent independence of the nations of America under Spanish rule.
It was characterized, as a consequence, by epic and foundational works,
fighting against the attacks of nature or against some hierarchical system.

CONCEPT

He found his resources in realism and naturalism, he approached the

poetic literature of Modernism, but nevertheless he took his own path towards
an objective description of reality; He turned his eyes to the customs and
landscapes of the region where the contemplating subject approaches the
contemplated object. Furthermore, criollismo is that literary movement also
known as regionalism, in other words it was a movement that was born with
the purpose of portraying popular customs, with the types and in the
language of the lower towns, especially the peasants. It was characterized,
as a consequence, by epic and foundational works, fighting against the
attacks of nature or against some hierarchical system. He tried to capture
reality and establish theses about society.

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 It was a literary artistic movement that developed in Venezuela parallel
to Modernism with which in some cases it merged, giving rise to “creole
modernism.”

CHARACTERISTICS

• Its main objective is to achieve Latin American cultural affirmation and

proclaim its difference with respect to European and universal culture.

• Creole production is sometimes conceived as a social novel of denunciation

or as a constitutive element of cultural nationalism.

• It resorts to aesthetic representation, to the abundance of figures and signs

considered.

• The actions of the novels are preferably located in non-modernized regions.

For example, in the pampas, in the countryside.

• The land is an essential element in the works of Creoleism. Costumbrismo,

tellurismo or regionalism are categories that overlap in the traditional
understanding of the term.

• Literature is a massive propaganda form at the service Considered

characteristic of a country or region, precisely to achieve its objective. For
example: presents the descriptions of the gaucho, the llanero, the guaso, etc.

• The authors master the use of the language and have in-depth knowledge
of syntactic vocabulary regionalisms, which they use without prejudice in their
works.

• The dialogues are characterized by fidelity to local speech.

• Creole writers know in depth the psychology of the inhabitants of these

regions, and present them with exaggerations or unrealistic idealizations.

1.3.1. BIOGRAPHY OF JOSÉ RAFAEL POCATERRA

Born in Valencia, Carabobo State on December 18, 1889 and died in

Montreal, Canada, on April 18, 1955

He was a Venezuelan writer, journalist and diplomat. He published

numerous stories, novels, articles and press chronicles. His best-known work
is Memoirs of a Venezuelan of Decadence, one of the most severe criticisms
of the Juan Vicente Gómez regime. He participated in the invasion of

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Cumaná aboard the steamship Falke in 1929. In his capacity as a journalist
and diplomatic official he lived in the United States and Canada.

Considered one of the masters of the Venezuelan short story of the

20th century. In 1907 he was imprisoned for his collaboration in the
opposition newspaper Caín. Upon his release from prison, he accepted
several public positions and began to publish his first works: the novels
Doctor Baby (1910), in which he satirized the figure of Samuel Eugenio Niño,
a character closely linked to the Castro government, and Dark Lives. (1912).

Moved to Maracaibo in 1914, he became President of the Chamber of

Deputies of the Legislative Assembly of the State of Zulia, founded the
magazine Caracteres and published his third novel, Tierra del sol amada
(1917). Returning to Caracas and involved in a conspiracy against Juan
Vicente Gómez, he was imprisoned in the feared La Rotunda prison from
1919 to 1922.

There he wrote one of his two fundamental works: Memories of a

Venezuelan of Decadence (1927), the best chronicle written in his country
about the tragic events of the caudillismo of Cipriano Castro and Juan
Vicente Gómez. Also in prison he wrote the novel The House of the Ávila
(1946), and several of the stories that make up his other masterpiece: the
Grotesque Tales. Some of these have achieved the status of emblematic
aspects and circumstances of the lives of Venezuelans. Thus, "Panchito
Mandefuá" summarizes the traits of the street child.

Voluntarily exiled upon his release from prison, he collaborated from

New York with El Heraldo de Cuba. A year later he settled in Montreal, as an
employee of an insurance company. He participated in the failed
revolutionary Falke expedition, led by General Román Delgado Chalbaud in
1929. He returned to Venezuela in 1938, and assumed the positions of
Minister of Labor and Communications, Plenipotentiary Minister in Great
Britain and Ambassador in Moscow, being the one who inaugurated
diplomatic relations between Venezuela and the Soviet Union.

He was still Venezuela's ambassador to Brazil and Washington, but he

resigned from this and any other Venezuelan public office after the
assassination of Carlos Delgado Chalbaud in 1950. Retired in Canada, he
held the chair of Latin American literature at the University of Montreal until
his death.

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1.4. NATURALIST NARRATIVE

NATURALISM

Literary movement that emerged at the end of the 19th century in

France in opposition to romanticism and that is characterized by its
methodical deterministic character and by reflecting with great realism in its
works the crudest and unpleasant part of reality.

CONCEPT

It emerged as a derivation of Realism, which aimed to explain human

behavior. The Naturalist novelist aims to interpret life by describing the social
environment and discovering the laws that govern human behavior.
Naturalist writers represented their characters in extreme situations of poverty
and marginalization, and they liked to describe the lowest and most sordid
environments in order to expose the scourges of society. The description of
these environments was interesting to the extent that it allowed us to observe
how a hostile environment influences the characters' way of being and what
the reactions of human beings are in adverse living conditions.

ORIGIN

It emerged in France around 1870. It was Émile Zola (1840-1902) who

was the first to use the term Naturalism in 1868 and it began as a branch of
realism, influenced in Venezuela after peony at the end of the 19th century.

CHARACTERISTIC

 Determinism

In the naturalistic narrative, the absence of free will or free choice

(belief that people have the power to choose and make decisions) stands out.
In this way, the characters that make up the universe of naturalistic novels do
not seem to have hope, although they have problems and dreams, but
without really doing anything for it.

 Morbid or pathological themes, and pessimism.

It has been mentioned how naturalism inherited various characteristics
of realism. In this way, among the main topics or themes treated by
naturalists, are the darkest situations of human life, topics such as vice,
violence, racism, disease. Which led naturalism to be criticized for focusing

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on the negative aspects of life. For example, if a character was born in a poor
environment, the most likely thing in the context of naturalism is that he or
she will die in poverty.
 Scientific method to portray reality

It has been mentioned how, especially in naturalistic narrative, reality is

told with an almost journalistic and scientific impartiality. Precisely, naturalism
as a literary movement emphasized the application of the scientific method
and observation.

This method consists of systematic observation, measurement,

experimentation, formulation, analysis and modification of hypotheses. In this
way, naturalists use this approach to produce the characteristics of their
stories and their characters.

 Rejection of romanticism

This movement, like realism, rejects the evasion typical of romanticism,

focusing on material and everyday reality, sometimes in a grotesque way in
the treatment of some themes.

 Use of colloquial or vulgar language.

In the literary works belonging to this movement, it is common to find

the use of vulgar language, over polite or correct language, with an absence
of lyricism. This was done by seeking the abolition of literary rules, which
were branded as a product of academic tyranny.

 Social criticism.

In his themes he makes social criticism, in the most scathing way

possible, reaching literary ugliness, criticizing the politics of his time, the
church, as well as society in general, exposing the worst of human nature and
the worst of social life.

1.4.1. BIOGRAPHY OF RUFINO BLANCO FOMBONA

Born in Caracas on June 17, 1874, important Venezuelan writer and

politician of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. His parents were Rufino
Blanco Toro and Isabel Fombona. He completed his primary and secondary
education at the Santa María and San Agustín schools in Caracas. In 1889,
he graduated from high school and entered the Central University of

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Venezuela to study law and philosophy; studies that he abandoned shortly
after to enter the Military Academy (1891). In 1892, he participated in the
Legalist Revolution, after which he traveled to the United States (1892-1895)
as consul of Venezuela in Philadelphia. Upon returning to Venezuela, he
joined El Cojo Ilustrado as a collaborator. In 1895, his first printed writing was
published, the poem "Patria". In 1896 he served as attaché of the Venezuelan
Legation in Holland. He returned to Venezuela in 1898 and the following year,
he published his first book Trovadores y trovas. In 1899 he acted as consul of
Santo Domingo in Boston. When Cipriano Castro took power on October 23,
1899, he appointed him general secretary of the state of Zulia (1900); In
Maracaibo he published his pamphlet De full body.

Between 1901 and 1904 he was consul of Venezuela in Amsterdam,

and upon returning to the country he was appointed governor of the federal
territory Amazonas in 1905. During this administration he opposed the rubber
monopoly that was carried out in the region, which cost him being accused
and detained for a time. In the Ciudad Bolívar prison, he wrote one of his
best-known novels, The Iron Man. After being released he returned to Europe
where he lived between 1906 and 1908. Once the Cipriano Castro regime
was overthrown, he served as a deputy, the Secretary of the Chamber of
Deputies. However, shortly afterward he began to make severe criticisms of
the government of Juan Vicente Gómez, which led to his imprisonment in La
Rotunda for a year (1909-1910) and then sent into exile until 1936. His exile
led him to live in Paris (1910-1914), and then in Madrid (1914-1936). In Spain
he continued his work as a writer, the anti-Gomecist pamphlet Judas
capitolino (1912) belonging to this period; 2 volumes of his diary The novel of
two years (1929) and Camino de imperfectión (1933); several critical studies
such as those that appear in Great Writers of America (1917) or in
Modernism and the Modernist Poets (1929); chronicles such as those
presented in Aladdin's Lamp, or historical studies such as The Spanish
Conqueror of the 16th Century (1921). In 1925, his name was proposed for
the Nobel Prize in Literature. During his stay abroad, he held various public
positions: consul of Paraguay in Toulouse (1918-1925), in Lyon (1927) and in
Lérida (1928-1932). Once the Republic was reestablished in Spain (1931), he
served as governor of the provinces of Almería (1932) and Navarra (1933).
Two years after Gómez's death (5/17/1935) he returned to Venezuela. In
1939, as president of the Miranda state, he was incorporated as an individual
member of the National Academy of History. Later, between 1939 and 1941,
he was Minister of Venezuela in Uruguay. The last years of his life were

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dedicated to the study of the figure of Bolívar, publishing the following titles:
Bolívar and the war to the death, The spirit of Bolívar and Mocedades de
Bolívar. He died while traveling through Argentina, so his remains were
repatriated and buried in the General del Sur Cemetery, on December 8,
1944. On June 23, 1975, his remains were transferred to the National
Pantheon.

2. TERESA DE LA PARRA

(Ana Teresa Parra Sanojo; Paris, 1889 - Madrid, 1936) Venezuelan

writer considered, along with Rómulo Gallegos, the most important novelist of
the first half of the 20th century in her country. His father, Rafael Parra
Hernáiz, was consul of Venezuela in Berlin; His mother, Isabel Sanojo
Ezpelosín de Parra, descended from a rancid family in Caracas society. "Both
my mother and my grandmother belonged by their mentality and customs to
the remains of the old colonial society of Caracas," wrote Teresa de la Parra
in 1931, in a brief autobiographical review.

In that same review she declared that she was born in Venezuela, and
although Paris is nine thousand kilometers from Caracas, it can hardly be
said that she was lying, since Ana Teresa's childhood was spent near the
Venezuelan capital, on the family farm in Tazón. Shortly after his father died,
in 1900, he moved with his mother and siblings to Spain, and in 1902 he
entered the Valencian boarding school of the Colegio del Sagrado Corazón
de Godella.

Teresa de la Parra's literary career presents three clearly differentiated

moments.

FIRST MOMENT

His first forays were some short stories, with a fanciful rather than
fantastic theme and vaguely orientalizing overtones, and the apocryphal diary
"of a woman from Caracas in the Far East", published in the magazine
Actualidades, directed by Rómulo Gallegos.

The story Mama The weekly reading, directed by José Rafael

Pocaterra. Later, Teresa de la Parra would remember that year of 1922 as
the beginning of her true vocation as a writer.

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 This vocation bore fruit in Paris, the city where he took up residence in
1923. There his two novels would see the light: in 1924 Ifigenia, translated
into French by Francis Marmande and praised by Miguel de Unamuno and
Juan Ramón Jiménez. It narrates the vicissitudes of the heiress of a wealthy
Caracas family that has fallen into disrepair and explores, for the first time in
Venezuelan narrative, the world and sensitivity of a woman. In the second,
The Memoirs of Mamá Blanca (1929), we find a family chronicle that rescues
and recreates, with a simplicity that does not elude the narrative mastery, the
Venezuelan voices and speech of its time, while lucidly evoking a world
forever lost: that of the Creole aristocracy.

In Paris she led the kind of life that suited a young lady of good
Caracas society: attending receptions at embassies and hanging out with
Spanish-American writers. He then began a friendship with the Ecuadorian
diplomat and writer Gonzalo Zaldumbide, first loving, then endearing and
brotherly, which has been documented in a large collection of letters.

SECOND MOMENT

That of the full assumption of his vocation was also that of his other
great friendship, loving and sisterly, with the Cuban writer Lidya Cabrera,
whom he met in 1927 during a trip to Cuba in which he represented
Venezuela at the Inter-American Conference of Journalists and spoke on
"The hidden influence of women on the Continent and in the life of Bolívar."
Cabrera accompanied her until the last moment during her painful pilgrimage
through Swiss and Spanish sanatoriums, in search of the impossible cure for
her tuberculosis. The disease, whose first symptoms appeared in 1931,
fundamentally changed his personality and his life. With respect to her work,
it would be more accurate to say that the illness aggravated a certain turn that
the author had begun to take since her lecture series the previous year.
"Adjusting words to life, renouncing oneself, without fashion, without personal
pretensions to success, is the only thing that attracts me at the moment," he
wrote in 1930 to the Venezuelan historian Vicente Lecuna .

THIRD MOMENT

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 The project then arose, which he was unable to carry out, of writing an
"intimate biography" of Simón Bolívar that would avoid the facilities of the
historical novel, which Teresa claimed to detest. Bridging the gap between
such dissimilar authors, it can be said that Teresa de la Parra was the first to
conceive an idea that would be executed, in very different registers, by Álvaro
Mutis in his story The Last Face and Gabriel García Márquez in The General
in His Labyrinth.

Until her death in 1936, Teresa de la Parra gave nothing more to the
printing press. His unpublished writings, however, have the weight and
importance of his edited work. His epistolary, above all, is a monument of
reflective maturity and an impeccable exercise in loving and friendly dialogue.
In 1947 his remains were transferred to Caracas and buried in the General
del Sur Cemetery. On November 7, 1989, they were buried in the National
Pantheon, becoming the first Venezuelan woman to enter this mausoleum.

3. IFIGENIA SUMMARY

It tells the story of the young María Eugenia Alonso, a pretty, lively and
intelligent eighteen-year-old girl who returns to Caracas after the death of her
father. He had lived in France for many years and had forgotten his native
Venezuelan customs. Upon his return, he discovers that his uncle Eduardo
has stolen his inheritance and is now totally dependent on his uncle. Despite
her love for her grandmother and her aunt Clara, María Eugenia finds it
difficult to fit into the atmosphere of Caracas society.

The novel begins with a long letter to the narrator's childhood friend,
Cristina de Iturbe, whom he met in Paris. In the letter, María Eugenia
recounts her experiences in Paris and presents herself as a sophisticated,
modern and daring woman. However, she is trapped by the old tradition of
her native society. Later in the story, María Eugenia meets with Mercedes
Galindo, who plays an important role in María's life. Mercedes is a
sophisticated woman in her thirties and symbolizes everything that María
would like to be: Exotic, modern, charming and beautiful, Mercedes has the
lifestyle that María wants to have. In the company of Mercedes, María feels
liberated from the suffocating atmosphere of her house. There, she meets
Gabriel Olmedo with whom she falls madly in love. However, Gabriel marries
another woman and Mercedes moves to France. María then spends the next
two years at her grandmother's house reading widely and gradually accepting
the norms of Caracas society. After two or three years she is allowed to have

17
a suitor whose name is César Leal. As María despises him, her aunt Clara
and her grandmother pressure her to accept his courtship. On the other hand,
Gabriel will never be able to appreciate his wife, acting in a domineering and
oppressive manner. When her uncle Pancho is about to die, María meets
Gabriel again, who is unhappy with his marriage and asks María to leave with
him. But she abandons Gabriel and her happiness, to sacrifice herself for the
family reputation, her safety and her freedom.

CENTRAL THEME

In Ifigenia, Teresa de la Parra explores the theme of female identity

through the psychological and emotional development of her protagonist,
María Eugenia Alonso. It reflects the discontent of a young woman who has
no voice of her own or the possibility of choosing her destiny in a world that ,
according to its definition, is "a banquet of men alone." The novel shows the
reality of many of the author's contemporaries. For this reason, and for its
genuine depiction of a woman in search of her own self, the novel is an
important achievement of the time. The text opens the way towards a new
appreciation of women.

AUTHOR'S MOTIVATION

The author has transformed some of her first experiences into fiction
and into the life of María Eugenia Alonso. Added to this is the point of view
through which the protagonist's life is presented, which reveals the author's
analytical and ironic capacity. In fact, the author's life was very different from
the life of her character, who married a man she despised. Teresa de la Parra
never married and throughout her life she dedicated herself to writing,
traveling and cultivating relationships with family and friends. Unlike her
character, she doesn't smother herself in old tradition.

Antonio de la Parra's uncle was the inspiration for the character of "Tío
Pancho" in Ifigenia. It should be noted, in fact, that a large number of
components of the author's life inspired her first book. The protagonist María
Eugenia, for example, attends school in Paris, where de la Parra was born
and raised, while both the protagonist and the author have Venezuelan
parents.

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CONCLUSION

We carried out this research work in order to know what the Venezuelan
Narrative is in general and how its narratives were developed, The
Costumbrista Narrative, Romantic Narrative, Creole Narrative, Naturalist
Narrative and the authors of each of them, as well as Teresa De La Parra and
one of her most important works, Ifigenia

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BIBLIOGRAPHY

Costumbrista Narrative: https://www.ecured.cu/Costumbrismo_Literario

Origin and Characteristics of the Costumbrista Narrative:

https://www.lifeder.com/caracteristicas-costumbrismo/

Biography of Nicanor Bolet Peraza:

venezuelaehistoria.blogspot.com/2017/06/nicanor-bolet-peraza.html

Romantic Narrative: https://es.slideshare.net/Marijecarv/la-narrativa-

romntica-latinoamericana

Origin and Characteristics of the Romantic Narrative:

https://es.scribd.com/document/225961187/1-La-Narrativa-Romantica

Biography of Eduardo Blanco:

https://www.biografiasyvidas.com/biografia/b/blanco_eduardo.htm

Criollista Narrative: https://es.scribd.com/document/230453886/Narrativa-

criollista

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Origin and Characteristics of the Criollista Narrative:
https://www.caracteristicas.co/criollismo/

Biography of José Rafael Pocaterra:

https://www.biografiasyvidas.com/biografia/p/pocaterra.htm

Naturalist Narrative: www.escolares.net/historia-de-la-literatura-

latinoamericana/.../la-narrativa-naturalista/

Origin and Characteristics of the Naturalist Narrative:

https://www.lifeder.com/caracteristicas-del-naturalismo/

Biography of Rufino Blanco Fombona:

https://www.venezuelatuya.com/biografias/blanco_fombona.htm

Biography of Teresa De La Parra:

https://www.biografiasyvidas.com/biografia/p/parra_teresa.htm

Summary of Ifigenia: venezuelaysuhistoria.blogspot.com/2013/07/resena-

sobre-ifigenia-de-teresa-de-la.html

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