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