One Day of Life by Manlio Argueta

First published:Un día en la vida, 1980 (English translation, 1983)

Type of plot: Social protest

Time of work: 1979

Locale: El Salvador

Principal Characters:

• Guadalupe (Lupe) Fuentes de Guardado, the protagonist, a matriarch and peasant
• José (Chepe) Guardado, the husband of Lupe, a village leader of the Federation of Christian Farmworkers
• Adolfina Fuentes, the granddaughter of Lupe and Chepe

The Novel

The narrative thread recounts one day in the life of a middle-aged peasant woman, from 5:00 a.m., when she arises at dawn, until 5:00 p.m., when she lights the candles as darkness closes in. The chapters divide the day’s segments as she goes about her routine activities of cooking, child care, house and garden work, and musing about the people and events that have shaped and informed her life. This interior monologue reveals her past—the unremitting, wretched poverty as well as her simple, humble acceptance of the inhuman conditions under which she and the other peasants in the village live.

She muses about her childhood, her betrothal to José (Chepe) Guardado, their marriage, their children, their work, and their efforts to better their lot. By exercising extreme frugality, they have bought a small piece of land of their own. The carefully tended crops have enabled Lupe and Chepe to provide a few comforts for their meager existence; for example, they are able to buy a few toys and candies for the children at Christmas. Lupe recalls the early hardships, as when their child died of malnutrition, dysentery, and worms as many of the peasant children do, and how the “old priests” advocated resignation and hope of eternal happiness in heaven.

Then the “new priests” came and offered instruction and help in forming cooperatives, recommended pharmaceuticals to treat worms and dysentery, and cheese as food for malnourished babies. They encouraged the farm laborers to seek higher pay and the peasants to sell their goods in town, where they could get higher prices than the local merchant offered. Then she remembers how the authorities came and began abusing the peasants and finally attacked the priests. The priests were sent away, but the changes they had wrought could not be stopped, and the authorities became increasingly abusive as the peasants became increasingly assertive. The abuses included torture, imprisonment, and murder. Lupe’s son was one such victim, decapitated by the guards and his head stuck on a pole outside the village.

As the hours pass, Lupe reminisces about the increasing involvement of her family members in protest activities: Chepe has become a leader in the farm-workers’ movement; Helio Hernandez, Lupe’s son-in-law, has been seized by the guards for his activist involvement, and the family can get no information as to his whereabouts or fate. Lupe’s granddaughter, Adolfina Fuentes, who is a child of less than fifteen years, is the most outspokenly militant. She took part in a week-long demonstration in which a cathedral was seized and occupied by the peasants; as she was returning home, the bus on which she and other demonstrators were riding was attacked by the guards and most of the passengers were killed. She and another girl escaped, and on the day of the narrative, she arrives to visit her grandmother for a few days until the situation cools down.

Later, the authorities come to question Adolfina about a man whom they have apprehended and beaten; the man murmured her name as he slipped into unconsciousness. They must wait for an hour or so with Lupe until the girl and Lupe’s smaller children return from the store.

In her interior monologue, Lupe recapitulates the fears, compliance, hopes, anger, human kindness, and resignation that follow one another as she waits helplessly for Adolfina’s return. Later, however, when the guards want to take Adolfina away to identify the man they are holding, she defies them and insists that they not take Adolfina away alone. Finally, they bring the man to the hut for the girl to see, but only Lupe recognizes Chepe by his clothes. He is dying from the brutal and disfiguring beating he has received. To protect her family, she denies knowing who he is and they take him away. Lupe resolves to carry on and to encourage her granddaughter also to continue such resistance as they can offer to the authorities.

The novel is detailed and often moving in its description of the miseries and brutalities of life in El Salvador. The ignorance and hopelessness of the peasantry are palpable in the lifestyles portrayed. Lupe’s random associations are simplistic yet believable, and there is an occasional contrast to the misery: the surprise of joy at the beauty of dawn, the pleasure of watching and hearing the tropical birds, the affection for a dog. Indeed, these poignant flashes of delight remind the reader that Manlio Argueta established his reputation first as a poet, and his lyricism and powerful images confirm his poetic talent.

In addition to Lupe’s own chapters, in which her point of view and experiences are dominant, other chapters are interspersed in which the interior monologues and events of other characters’ lives are revealed. The voices of three other women are heard in these chapters, and their experiences parallel Lupe’s own and confirm her justification for hating the authorities. The guards are afforded two chapters in which their point of view is presented; these men are drawn from the peasant class themselves and are in truth turning against their own families, friends, and neighbors in order to uphold the brutally oppressive regime of a handful of wealthy families (fourteen) in El Salvador. Ironically, the voices of the guards, reflecting their confusion about loyalties, their wistful desire for a bit more power, a few more possessions, and a modicum of respect, are more believable than those of Adolfina, Lupe, and Chepe.

The Characters

The characters in this novel are prototypes. They represent two of the several factions involved in the social turmoil in El Salvador. The principal group depicted is the peasantry. Lupe, Chepe, Adolfina, and all the minor characters representing the peasantry share many of the same traits: They are courageous, long-suffering, wise, gentle, generous, and loving. Lacking even the most basic amenities of existence, they manage to create lives and family units which radiate love, harmony, and dignity. They support one another in their mutual opposition to the rapacity of the rich landowners and the brutality of the authorities; they acknowledge the authority of the Church and honor the priests, whether these priests recommend patiently bearing their burdens or offer help and instruction in ways to cooperate and unionize to improve their lot.

Lupe is the archetypical matriarch, warm and loving to her family, pious and generous to the Church, steadfast and courageous to Chepe, her beloved husband. Chepe, in turn, is bold in asserting his rights, a natural leader of the community, where he works diligently to improve the living conditions for his family and the farm workers in the union. He faces danger bravely, endures suffering silently, and, like his son, suffers martyrdom at the hands of the brutal guards.

Adolfina is an intense, idealistic girl who represents an impassioned new generation arising amid the repression and the turmoil. She is determined to avenge and justify the deaths of the martyrs and the sufferings of the peasants at the hands of the authorities. In the final lines of the book, Adolfina imagines that she sees the corpse of the guard who has just taken her dying grandfather away. She assures Lupe that this vision “has to be true.”

The novel’s preoccupation with terrorism and misery precludes any expansive development of characters: The characters all tend to be flat, representing the idealized qualities and political leanings of the peasant class. Their relationships to one another are likewise lacking in emotional variety and authenticity.

The minor characters among the peasant group are scarcely differentiated from the major ones, except in having smaller roles. Their characteristics and behavior are much the same: The son and son-in-law of Chepe are cut from the same mold as he, and Lupe’s daughter is another staunchly brave and loyal matriarch in the making.

The only other characters with a substantial voice in the narrative are the guards, who wield authority over the peasants. These guards never waver in their commitment to keep the peasants down and protect the holdings of the rich. Although they come from the peasant class themselves, they have been effectively brainwashed by their leaders and trainers to feel only contempt and viciousness toward the hapless people over whom they have control. Their trainers, who provide both political and military instruction, are callous, arrogant, and sometimes brutal Americans, who teach the neophyte guards contempt for their own people.

The priests are a shadowy group, most of them preaching resignation and humility while accepting favors and gifts from the impoverished people; a few attempt to help the peasants or at least to mediate between the peasants and their oppressors. None of the priests is sufficiently developed to stand out as an individual. No members of the wealthy landowner group are represented in the narrative, although their malign nature is forcefully conveyed.

Critical Context

One Day of Life was Manlio Argueta’s third book, but his first one to address in such direct fashion the social conditions in El Salvador. He is known principally as a poet, and critics have commented favorably on this book with respect to his lyricism, his poetic and moving imagery, and the authentic flavor of the vernacular language. Yet they have also found the characterizations flat and the story line thin, as is often the case with novels of social and political protest. The book was first published in 1980 in El Salvador and quickly excited so much interest there that Argueta was forced into exile and the book was banned. Since then, it has been translated and published in Italy, Germany, the Netherlands, and the United States. Argueta was not known widely outside his own country prior to the publication of this book, which has established him as a new and dynamic voice in Central American literature.

Bibliography

Dickey, Christopher. Review in The New Republic 189 (November 21, 1983): 46-47. A useful critical perspective.

Edelman, Marc. “The Rural Terror.” Commonweal 111 (May 4, 1984): 283-284. Discusses Argueta in the context of Central American strife.

Flores, Angel. “Manlio Argueta.” In Spanish American Authors: The Twentieth Century. New York: H. W. Wilson, 1992. A good overall view of Argueta’s work. Offers a brief critical analysis of selected novels and common themes that thread through Argueta’s fiction.