SOURCE: "Cela's Quest for a Tragic Sense of Life," in Kentucky Romance Quarterly, Vol. XVII, No. 3, 1970, pp. 259-64.

In the following essay, Kirsner explores the elements of tragedy in Cela's fiction.

From the very beginning of his literary career, even before the birth of that famous family of Pascual Duarte, Cela has sought to express a tragic sense of life. His first creation, Pisando la dudosa luz del día, composed presumably in the trenches of the Spanish Civil War in 1936, attempts to depict the waning of a doubtful light as life passes into the cavernous darkness of death. "Ven, Muerte, ven" cries out the youthful poet.

La familia de Pascual Duarte, published in 1942 but meaningfully dated 1937, strives to convey an atmosphere of impending doom. Conceived in the throes of imminent execution, the narration of Pascual Duarte aspires to capture the tragic essence of man's existence. Indeed, an...