On Heroes and Tombs: Analysis of Major Characters
"On Heroes and Tombs" explores the intricate relationships among its major characters, primarily focusing on Martín del Castillo and Alejandra Vidal Olmos. Martín, a sensitive and introspective seventeen-year-old, grapples with his tumultuous emotions and harsh familial dynamics, leading him to view women through a lens of either reverence or disdain until he encounters the enigmatic Alejandra. At eighteen, Alejandra embodies a haunting beauty and a complex personality shaped by her aristocratic heritage, which is now decaying in the modern world. Her tumultuous relationship with her father, Fernando Vidal Olmos, who personifies the cruel legacy of an old elite, culminates in tragedy when she takes both his life and her own.
Bruno Bassán, a thoughtful friend of Martín, serves as a philosophical guide, helping him navigate the emotional aftermath of his relationship with Alejandra while reflecting on the futility of existence juxtaposed with the enduring nature of hope. The narrative is enriched by the presence of Alejandra's eccentric family members, each representing different facets of Argentina's historical psyche and madness. Through these characters, the novel delves deeply into themes of love, despair, and the haunting legacies of the past, making it a profound exploration of personal and cultural identity.
On Heroes and Tombs: Analysis of Major Characters
Author: Ernesto Sábato
First published: Sobre héroes y tumbas, 1961 (English translation, 1981)
Genre: Novel
Locale: Buenos Aires and Patagonia, Argentina
Plot: Psychological realism
Time: 1953–1955
Martín del Castillo (mahr-TEEN dehl kahs-TEE-yoh), the sensitive young man whose relationship with the mysterious Alejandra Vidal Olmos provides the focus of the book. Martín, seventeen years old when he meets Alejandra in 1953, hates his mother and has no respect for his father; he lives on his own, in poverty. Until he meets Alejandra, he regards women as either pure and heroic or as gossiping deceivers. He has some weeks of happiness with Alejandra, but his enigmatic lover finally casts him aside brutally. His attraction to her is like the fascination exerted by a dark abyss, and she takes him to the verge of suicide. His attempt, with Bruno's help, to heal himself and to understand what has happened to him and to Alejandra provides the intellectual problem of the novel.
Alejandra Vidal Olmos (ah-leh-HAHN-drah vee-DAHL OHL-mohs), the daughter of a decayed branch of an old family of the Argentine oligarchy. Alejandra is eighteen years old when she meets Martín and is an exotic beauty: She has long black hair with reddish tones, dark gray-green eyes, a pale face, a large mouth, and high cheekbones. She is a mysterious figure, exerting an almost occult influence on Martín. He never understands her puzzling personality and enigmatic lifestyle. She lives in the old family home, once a mansion but now a ruin located in an area of factories and tenements. Her family is lost in a time warp. Its members possess the manners and memories of the old Argentina; their aristocratic gentility only brings ruin in the materialistic modern world. Alejandra realizes that her family lives in a world that no longer exists, yet she detests the new Argentine elite. Alejandra's beauty is vitalized by violent movements and shifts of personality, from laughing lightheartedness to cruelty and anger, from self-hatred to ennui and remoteness. Martín finally understands that she is locked into an incestuous relationship with her father. In June, 1955, she kills her father with a gun and then commits suicide by setting fire to the family home.
Fernando Vidal Olmos, Alejandra's father. Fernando is fifty-five years old in 1955, with a hard, powerful, handsome face; white hair; and mysterious beauty. Alejandra is his daughter by Georgina, his first cousin, who is a carbon copy of both his mother and his daughter. His relationship with everyone is marked by cruelty and lack of affection. Bruno, who has known him and his family since they were children together, describes him as alienated from everything most people consider to be the real world and says that part of his madness is that of Argentina pushed to the extreme. Fernando's obsessions dominate his life. He narrates the third part of the book, “Report on the Blind,” which takes the reader into the mind of the paranoid madman. He has been obsessed by blindness from the days of his youth, when he blinded birds with a needle. He believes that the world is controlled by a secret sect of the blind; that nothing happens by accident; and that the blind spy, persecute, and determine everyone's destiny.
Bruno Bassán (bahs-SAHN), an unpublished writer from a prosperous family. Bruno, a pensive man with a gentle, ironic air, grew up with Fernando and Georgina, whom he loved. He provides the philosophic comments of the book (life is lived as a rough draft without a chance to rewrite, he says), helps Martín understand the nature of the trauma of his relationship with Alejandra, and helps Martín reconcile himself to the inevitable tragedies of the doomed Vidal and Olmos families. While Bruno experiences and describes the meaninglessness of existence, he regards hope as concomitant with despair; if humans are condemned to despair, they are armed with hope.
Uncle Bebe (beh-BEH), Grandfather Pancho (PAHNchoh), and Aunt Escolástica (ehs-koh-LAHS-tee-kah), members of Alejandra's family, representing Argentina's past and the madness inherent in the Argentine character pushed to the extreme. Uncle Bebe, a gentle madman, wanders through the crumbling mansion playing a clarinet. Grandfather Pancho, ninety-five years old, lives entirely in the past, endlessly repeating stories of the wars in early Argentine history. Escolástica was a mad recluse. In 1852, during the civil wars, Escolástica's father was killed by his enemies, who threw his head into his family's parlor. Her mother died of shock, and Escolástica seized the head and fled to the garret. She lived with the head, never leaving the room, until she died in 1932. The family still has the head in its possession when Martín meets Alejandra.