Lauren Henderson
Eng-371-001
October 21, 2015
Behind the Brutal
Amid the Spanish Civil War, Camilo Jose Cela wrote a novel showing the destruction of Spanish traditions and society with such realism and horrific imagery that the first two editions were banned. Drawing from his interpretations of what Spanish society was for most people, Cela published La Familia de Pascual Duarte (The Family of Pascual Duarte) and was hugely successful. His novel is focused on themes of war and family and religion but skews those themes until they are unrecognizable. Cela mixes extreme realism and the European existentialism in order to deliver an interesting, semi-autobiographical story of a disturbed young man.
Camilo Jose Cela was born in 1916 in rural Spain. As a teenager he was diagnosed with Tuberculosis and was placed in a sanatorium. While there, he focused on his writing. Once he was released Cela went to live in Madrid with his family (because of his father’s business, their family traveled a lot.) At the age of 20 he became a part of Franco’s army and even reached the rank of Corporal. By the time he had been discharged from the army in 1939, Cela was healing after being badly wounded and he started studying law at the University of …show more content…
It was there that he began to write what would become his first novel, La Familia de Pascual Duarte (The Family of Pascual Duarte), which was finally published when he was 26, in 1942. Pascual Duarte has trouble finding any truth in societal morality and commits a number of crimes, including murders, for which he feels nothing. In this sense he is similar to Meursault in Albert
Eng-371-001
October 21, 2015
Behind the Brutal
Amid the Spanish Civil War, Camilo Jose Cela wrote a novel showing the destruction of Spanish traditions and society with such realism and horrific imagery that the first two editions were banned. Drawing from his interpretations of what Spanish society was for most people, Cela published La Familia de Pascual Duarte (The Family of Pascual Duarte) and was hugely successful. His novel is focused on themes of war and family and religion but skews those themes until they are unrecognizable. Cela mixes extreme realism and the European existentialism in order to deliver an interesting, semi-autobiographical story of a disturbed young man.
Camilo Jose Cela was born in 1916 in rural Spain. As a teenager he was diagnosed with Tuberculosis and was placed in a sanatorium. While there, he focused on his writing. Once he was released Cela went to live in Madrid with his family (because of his father’s business, their family traveled a lot.) At the age of 20 he became a part of Franco’s army and even reached the rank of Corporal. By the time he had been discharged from the army in 1939, Cela was healing after being badly wounded and he started studying law at the University of …show more content…
It was there that he began to write what would become his first novel, La Familia de Pascual Duarte (The Family of Pascual Duarte), which was finally published when he was 26, in 1942. Pascual Duarte has trouble finding any truth in societal morality and commits a number of crimes, including murders, for which he feels nothing. In this sense he is similar to Meursault in Albert