All Green Shall Perish: Analysis of Major Characters
"All Green Shall Perish" explores the complex lives of its major characters, particularly focusing on Ágata Cruz, the disillusioned protagonist. Once a beautiful woman, Ágata's life is marked by frustration and isolation stemming from her unfulfilling marriage to Nicanor Cruz, a failed farmer whose passionless demeanor mirrors the barrenness of their surroundings. As Ágata grapples with the despair of her existence, she seeks solace through a brief affair with Dr. Sotero, a charming yet opportunistic lawyer who ultimately abandons her. The story delves into Ágata's internal struggles, highlighting her suicidal tendencies and quest for meaning amidst her tumultuous relationships.
The narrative also presents Nicanor, who embodies defeat and resentment, and Dr. Reba, Ágata's distant father, whose ineptitude as a medical practitioner and heavy drinking contribute to the family's dysfunction. Ema de Volpe, a self-proclaimed courtesan, offers a stark contrast with her flamboyant lifestyle, while Dr. Romo, Sotero's cynical associate, further complicates the social dynamics. Through these intertwined lives, the novel paints a poignant picture of longing, despair, and the search for identity against a backdrop of emotional barrenness.
All Green Shall Perish: Analysis of Major Characters
Author: Eduardo Mallea
First published: Todo verdor perecerá, 1941 (English translation, 1966)
Genre: Novel
Locale: Argentina
Plot: Existentialism
Time: c. 1940
Ágata Cruz (AH-gah-tah krews), the protagonist, a once strikingly beautiful, fair-skinned, dark-haired woman, grown pallid and harder-featured from the frustration of her barren fifteen years of married life on unproductive farms in southern Argentina. She was reared in a similarly drab setting by her widowed father, developed a need to escape, and for that purpose accepted the marriage proposal of Nicanor, whom she did not love. Life with Nicanor is even less sociable than it was with her father, stifling her inner passion. When she is thirty-five years old, Ágata's anguish reaches a point of crisis. Seeking to end it all, she spends a freezing winter night outdoors and leaves doors and windows open during winter when Nicanor is inside delirious with fever. After his death from freezing, she falls into a brief affair with Sotero. With him, Ágata is able to get out of her intense, tortured subjectivity and thereby knows fleeting happiness. When Sotero callously discards her, though, she again takes up her doomed quest for self. It leads her back to the town in which she was reared, where she ends up as a street person, roaming in closed concentration on her personal void. Ágata's suicidal tendencies are restrained by the fear that the emptiness of her earthly existence will persist after death.
Nicanor Cruz (nee-KAH-nohr), a dry, unimaginative landowner who has sunk into defeat and resentment. A failure as a farmer, Nicanor has to abandon his estate for a smaller, even less productive farm. He is passionless and uncommunicative as a husband, and his relationship with Ágata breeds only bitterness. Nicanor grows dark-skinned from contact with the sun and soil, and he seems as sterile as his land. His stoic attitude brings on his final illness, pneumonia, as he walks over his dead land obsessively for an entire day in a chilling rain.
Dr. Reba (reh-bah), Ágata's father, an inept medical practitioner. He was a reader of the Bible and a sententious reciter of its proverbs but was nevertheless an atheist. A Swiss immigrant, Dr. Reba married an Argentine woman who died at the birth of Ágata, their only child. He never remarried, and he lived a life of solitude alleviated less by his poor professional efforts than by his exercise as a tavern conversationalist. He communicated better with his tavern companions than with his daughter, who loved him despite the gulf that separated them. In later life, Dr. Reba drank heavily. He died some years before the action of the novel.
Dr. Sotero (soh-TEH-roh), a worldly, opportunistic lawyer who seduces Ágata when she is a widow living in a coastal city of Bahía Blanca. Handsome, deep-voiced, good-humored, and self-assured, Sotero claims to like diffident women such as Ágata, who completely subordinates herself to him. Sotero's mysterious business dealings for a Buenos Aires entity called the Organization take him out of Bahía Blanca and give him an excuse to leave Ágata.
Ema de Volpe (EH-mah deh VOHL-peh), a frivolous but also strong-willed woman who attaches herself to Ágata in Bahía Blanca. She is open about her own promiscuous life and does her best to wheedle intimate information out of the reticent Ágata. Conceited, perpetually overdressed, and having an exotic air about her, Ema calls herself a courtesan. She spends her evenings with Sotero, his business associate Romo, and three sisters, who are glib and slack like herself. She introduces Ágata to this group and encourages her to join them in their soirees.
Dr. Romo (ROH-moh), a short, heavy, sarcastic lawyer and associate of Sotero. Romo addresses everyone in an insinuating tone, and he habitually and cryptically calls Sotero “Sycophant” in front of the others. Romo visibly disdains Ágata for her docility. He is vulgar and has a taste for off-color jokes.