281
La ciudad junto al río inmóvil, p. 227.
282
Ibid., p. 54.
283
El sayal y la púrpura, pp. 210-211.
284
It is essential to recognize the symbolic value of her suffering. Failure to do this leads to opinions like those of Lloyd Mallan, op. cit., p. 478: «She is supposed to represent the aloofness and austerity of a fine ideal, but actually she seems a poor frustrated woman, throwing away whatever good she might have accomplished with her life because of narrow, neurosis-inspiring conventions». I suppose that these "conventions" must mean the desire to stay with her husband , at least for the sake of her children.
285
Notas de un novelista, pp. 74 ff.
286
The question of symbolism in Los enemigos del alma was raised by Eduardo González Lanuza in «Carta a Eduardo Mallea», Sur, no. 197 (1951), 38-43. Mallea answered in the same issue, with his «Contestación a González Lanuza», pp. 43-48. González Lanuza especially criticizes the character of Débora as not being in accord with that of the Devil which she represents. Mallea denies that his characters are abstractions, that they are the enemies of the soul. They are human beings, mundane, carnal, and demoniac, not the World, the Flesh, and the Devil. In Notas de un novelista, Mallea seems less certain. He declares that each of the three Guilléns embodies one of the enemies of the soul (pp. 74 ff.): Débora is «la imagen potencial y actuante del demonio, la soberbia maligna» (p. 97). Later (pp. 101-102) he declares: «Y estos tres hermanos Guillén de Los enemigos del alma no representan nada más que lo que son. La vida -y no yo- ha querido que encarnen las direcciones divergentes de esos tres enemigos acusados por la doctrina tradicional. Pero no tienen que ver con la doctrina más que en la medida de su coincidencia: una coincidencia puramente humana. No son símbolos. O si son, lo son -en la medida en que cada cosa es símbolo de otra- de un círculo de orgullosos, de una de esas familias tremendas de deformación por la soledad de que el mundo debe alejarse más y más, pero que están ahí porque han nacido, ficticiamente, sin ser elegidos, como no es elegido para nacer un infirme o un lastimoso horror humano de la naturaleza de Smerdiakow». All this discussion of what is a symbol and whether characters that «embody» and «represent» are symbols or not seems to rest on the fact that Mallea certainly does want his characters to represent (or symbolize) the enemigos del alma, since all his characters are representative, whereas González Lanuza insists that if the characters symbolize the World, the Flesh, and the Devil they must do so in accordance with the traditional Catholic concepts of these «enemies of the soul». The discussion, at any rate, hardly changes the meaning of the characters, nor the fact that Débora, symbolic or not, is a real and consistent personality.
287
Los enemigos del alma, pp. 180-181.
288
Ibid., pp. 30-31. Similar to Mario in his moral aspects is Claudio Murillo, of La sala de espera. He, too, is an admirer of Nietzsche, and bases his self-sufficient superiority on a clever use of words, covering his inner hollowness and futility with continual thrusts at the weaknesses of others.
289
Los enemigos del alma, p. 54.
290
Ibid., p. 172.