SOURCE: "The Art of Literary Allusion in Juan Rulfo," in Modern Fiction Studies, Vol. 23, No. 2, Summer, 1977, pp. 242-44.

In the following essay, Mancing examines Rulfo's use of literary allusion in "Diles que no me maten, " and asserts that Rulfo "lifts the story onto a broader plane of meaning, linking an atemporal present to an eternal (even mythic) past in order to anticipate an inevitable future. "

The literary fame of Juan Rulfo rests on two slim books published some twenty years ago. In both his collection of short stories, El llano en llamas (1953), and the novel Pedro Páramo (1955) Rulfo's style is stark yet poetic; his technique is surprisingly simple in spite of its relationship to the Joyce-Faulkner tradition. His evocations of the land and people of Mexico are simultaneously related to the American criollista (nativist) tradition and to the nueva novela movement. Rulfo is a meticulous artisan, working...