SOURCE: "Form and Meaning in Juan Rulfo's 'Talpa'," in Romance Notes, Vol. XVI, No. 2, Winter, 1975, pp. 520-25.

In the essay below, Clinton offers a stylistic analysis of Rulfo's "Talpa."

One of the most important characteristics of Juan Rulfo's El llano en llamas is the way in which the local Mexican scene is used to express universal human preoccupations. The dusty Mexican flatland becomes a transcendental image of a cruel reality that is completely hostile to man; although the characters are only Mexican country people, their tortured lives mirror human problems which are common to all men. Rulfo achieves this universality through the use of literary techniques that are worked and polished almost to the point of perfection. This type of skilled craftsmanship can be seen in "Talpa," a story in which the reader is given a moving vision of the disastrous effects of sin and guilt on the...