SOURCE: Frisch, Mark. “Absurdity, Death, and the Search for Meaning in Two of Elena Garro's Novels.” In A Different Reality. Studies on the Work of Elena Garro, edited by Anita K. Stoll, pp. 183-93. London and Toronto: Bucknell University Press, 1990.

In the following essay, Frisch discusses Garro's affirmation of identity and order in Testimonios sobre Mariana and La casa junto al río.

The absurdities of life, the void of death, and the order and meaningfulness of existence are major concerns in several of Elena Garro's works. These problems, with all their ramifications, are central both to the protagonists and to the very fabric of Garro's two recent fictional works, Testimonios sobre Mariana and La casa junto al río. Garro deals with the interrelated questions of order and meaningfulness of existence, the nature and function of time in regard to meaning, the importance of confronting death, and...