Jennet Rodriguez Betancourt

estudio, ni patios, ni jardines; comemos como las fieras cada uno en su rincón, y
cuando la miseria y los malos tratamientos acaban de trastornar nuestro juicio
nos encierran en una jaula o nos atan como a perros con un collar y una
cadena.”(Alonso 86)
After much uproar, a Puerto Rican patient respectfully requests that he be
permitted to speak about his country and when he is granted the opportunity, the dream is
interrupted-he (Alonso) is awakened and the reader is left wondering what the Puerto
Rican patient would have said. This was a brilliant way to avoid oppression. First, the
setting is France, not Puerto Rico. The complaints are not from the Criollo because he
was never able to articulate his opinion. Yet, the negative conditions were undoubtedly
exposed and contrasted with the fair and humane ones using fictive characters. Most
importantly, Alonso didn’t assert anything-he didn’t need to; the question to anyone who
knew the island was already answered. Censorship was evaded and between the many
layers, the message was undeniably communicated. The neglect, the injustices, and the
ill-treatment were voiced through the characters of a different race and in another land.
Once again there is a hidden transcript in which what is left unsaid is just as important as
what is.
In Espiritu de provincialism, Scene I, Alonso once more evades censorship using
fictive characters and the literary technique of a story within a story. In this vignette
there is a masked criticism to those who believe that their culture is superior to others.
The author escapes repression by presenting a dialogue between three characters: a
Cuban friend named Pepe, a young arrogant Cuban student (el cubanito), and the
narrator, a Puerto Rican which is perhaps Alonso himself. The cubanito is a student in
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