SOURCE: Anderson, Robert K. “Myth and Archetype in Recollections of Things to Come.” Studies in 20th Century Literature 9, no. 2 (spring 1985): 213-27.

In the following essay, Anderson finds that the Mexican social landscape is secondary to larger existential issues in Garro's Recollections of Things to Come.

Recollections of Things to Come (1963), Elena Garro's first published novel, vividly portrays life in a small Mexican town, Ixtepec, during the late 1920s. In part, it focuses upon a broad gamut of regional phenomena; yet, in the words of Emmanuel Carballo, “the social relations, economy, politics and religion” depicted therein merely “occupy a secondary position.”¹ Essentially, although Garro presents significant “local” concerns in the novel, she also directs our attention toward existential realities. According to her, “the great writer will be the one who presents the Mexican as a universal being.”² In Recollections of Things to Come she achieves this goal primarily through...