The Truce of Mario Benedetti

Truce is a novel by the writer from Uruguay Mario Benedetti. This work narrates the life of Santomé, a man who is at retirement age and who has been living alone for some time now because his wife died. The plot explains how Fall in love he madly from his co-worker and regains his will to live.

In this lesson of a PROFESSOR we want to make you a chapter summary of Truce, this work that was published in 1959 and that places his story in Montevideo, Uruguay.

Truce is structured as entries in his own diary, What does the main character do? That is to say, the work will always be written in the first person and speaking in a very personal way, as someone who captures his deepest thoughts on paper.

Santome is a man who loves to collect books and who works as chief accountant in a small business. He is passionate about routine and life has led him to surprises being what he hates most in life. It's been a few years since he he was widowed and his only concern now is what he will do when he retires. His retirement is the only thing that keeps the head of the protagonist of the novel busy.

His wife Elizabeth died at twenty-five years old in her last birth (that was more than two decades ago). He raised his 3 children by himself, to this day, that the youngsters still live with him. Over the years he has developed the ability to be with other women just to have sexual intercourse, but at no time does he make an effort to develop any type of contact beyond the physical.

One day, in his company, they assign him a group of new workers who will be under his orders, a woman enters them, Laura Avellaneda. At first Santomé gets upset because he doesn't think it's appropriate for him to have to work with a woman, but as time goes by, her feelings towards her change completely.

The man realizes that what occupies his mind are no longer thoughts of retirement, but rather this alive and fresh girl, which he is twice her age.

We continue to know this summary of Truce to talk about the second part of the novel. It begins when the protagonist explains to us that the relationship he had with his wife was unbeatable. He explains a lot of memorable scenes that he lived with her and remembers them fondly, knowing that they will never happen again. After Isabel's death, he has never imagined anyone taking his place in his heart.

Laura he has come to revolutionize the life of the protagonist who never thought he could fall in love again. Santomé explains that he knows perfectly well all the difficulties that maintaining a relationship with a girl he has the same age as her daughter, but everything and so cannot be contained in the face of such a strong passion. He knows that he could never be seen with Laura on the street and he says it with phrases like this:

"I love you in what is called reality, but the problems arise when I think about what is called appearances."

When the protagonist has things less clear in his life, because of this woman who has decided to revolutionize his inner world, more changes are about to come to his life. In his company offer a promotion to a higher position that he had always longed for, although this means postponing retirement. the man decides continue building your future and take this job opportunity. He will leave retirement for later.

A wide variety of acquaintances of the protagonist appear in his diary entries referring to how the man was in his past and how he is now, when life has given him a second opportunity.

The characters in the novels express themselves not only with what they say, but by how do they say it. Some ways of writing the sentences are with which the author allows us to know the inner world of each of these people who make the plot move forward.

Santomé, he feels that after the death of his wife, he is only able to feeling like that:

"How many words, just to say that I don't want to seem pathetic"

The protagonist sees no future in his work or love life and expresses it with these words:

"I got bored of myself, of my own patience"

The author also lets us see what are the convictions of the character he has created, through the deeper thoughts of existentialism:

“You are or you are not, no matter the day”

We hope this chapter summary of Truce, has helped you better understand Mario Benedetti's novel. If you are interested in continuing to learn more about this topic or something similar, do not hesitate to consult our reading section.