Distant Relations: Analysis of Major Characters
"Distant Relations: Analysis of Major Characters" delves into the intricate dynamics between characters set against a surreal backdrop. Central to the narrative is the Comte de Branly, an elderly French aristocrat whose fascination with foreign travel leads him to a peculiar mansion outside Paris after an auto accident. Although he serves as the viewpoint character, his experiences may be influenced by hallucinations stemming from his advanced age and confinement, rendering him a passive participant in unfolding events.
The story also introduces two contrasting Victor Heredias: a spoiled twelve-year-old Mexican boy and a sadistic French businessman. The young Mexican Victor acts as a catalyst, inadvertently drawing the Comte into disturbing encounters, particularly with André Heredia, the cruel son of the French Victor. This relationship culminates in a troubling merging of identities, symbolizing the complex interplay between French and Latin American cultures.
Hugo Heredia, the Mexican Victor's father, is portrayed as a dignified archaeologist whose decisions ultimately set the stage for the tumultuous events. His ambiguous role raises questions about his awareness and potential complicity in his son's fate. The novel's layered storytelling invites readers to engage actively with its themes, reflecting on the characters' intertwined destinies and cultural implications.
Distant Relations: Analysis of Major Characters
Author: Carlos Fuentes
First published: Una familia lejana, 1980 (English translation, 1982)
Genre: Novel
Locale: Paris, Mexico, and the Caribbean
Plot: Occult
Time: The early 1980's
The Comte de Branly, a wealthy French aristocrat whose primary interest is foreign travel. At the age of eighty-three, this highly intelligent, cultured man is emaciated and nearly bald but still retains a rigid military bearing. Most of this complex novel of parallel lives and reincarnations concerns the Comte's surrealistic adventure in a strange mansion outside Paris where he is confined as the result of an auto accident. Because of his advanced age, however, it is probable that much of what he believes to have occurred was in fact hallucinations. Although he is the viewpoint character, he is the passive victim of circumstances throughout the novel.
The narrator, a Latin American author who has taken France as his adopted country. Only at the end is it revealed that this character is Carlos Fuentes himself. Characteristically, Fuentes has chosen a complex manner of telling his tale: The narrator supposedly is writing out an account of incidents described to him by his friend Branly, and parts of what Branly tells him were narrated to the Comte himself by others. By this device, the author is able to maintain a distance from the events described and is therefore not committed to vouching for them. This complex method of developing the story creates a multidimensional, hallucinatory effect. Readers are forced to make their own interpretations and thus become involved as active participants in the events.
The Mexican Victor Heredia, (heh-reh-DEE-ah)a twelve-year-old upper-class Mexican student. This handsome and aristocratic youth has been badly spoiled by a doting father. Victor displays outbursts of a violent temper, beating domestic servants when they displease him and, in one crucial instance, deliberately slamming the door of Branly's Citroën on the chauffeur's hand. When Branly tries to drive the car himself, he runs into a tree and is confined to bed as an involuntary guest of the French Victor Heredia. The young Mexican Victor Heredia is the catalyst of most of what happens in the novel.
The French Victor Heredia, a wealthy businessman with social pretensions who proves to be vulgar and sadistic, in striking contrast to the truly aristocratic Branly. The French Victor Heredia is old but has a youngish face, suggesting an immortal nature like that of a vampire. The young Mexican Victor Heredia, who frequently travels with his father, plays a game of looking in foreign telephone directories to see if anyone is listed with the same name as himself or his father. If he finds such persons, he telephones them and tries to strike up an acquaintance. In this manner, he drags his host, the Comte de Branly, into their strange encounter with the satanic French Victor Heredia, who takes advantage of the fact that the Comte is confined to bed under his roof to play cruel psychological tricks on him. In the meantime, an unwholesome relationship develops between the Mexican Victor Heredia and André Heredia.
André Heredia, the son of the French Victor Heredia, a boy about the same age as young Victor. Like his father, André is cruel and overbearing, the product of inferior breeding. At one point, Branly catches the French boy sodomizing the Mexican boy in the backseat of the wrecked Citroën. After this unnatural copulation, the two boys somehow merge into a single new supernatural individual, evidently symbolizing a merging of French and Latin American cultures. The Mexican Victor Heredia disappears for the rest of the story. The reader is left to wonder whether this truly occurred or is attributable to Branly's senility, the trauma of the auto accident, or his host's mistreatment.
Hugo Heredia, a Mexican archaeologist, father of the Mexican Victor Heredia. This dignified scholar's decision to visit France with his son leads to all the shocking events that occur. Hugo is absent throughout most of the story, leaving his son in the care of the Comte de Branly. When his son vanishes, however, having merged identities with André Heredia, the father reacts in a strange manner that makes the reader believe he was in enforced collusion with the French Victor Heredia and anticipated what was going to happen.