CHARACTERS of Lazarillo de Tormes and characteristics

The Spanish novel "The life of Lazarillo de Tormes and his fortunes and adversities" It is better known as "Lazarillo de Tormes", it was written in 1554 and it was believed that it was by an unknown author until, in the year 2010, the ancient scripture scholar Mercedes Agulló documented that the author of this classic work was Diego Hurtado de Mendoza. This novel, considered a precursor of the picaresque novel, takes place in the sixteenth century, is narrated as a autobiography of Lázaro de Tormes and, in it, is told from the birth and poor childhood of the protagonist to his adulthood.

From his childhood until he became an adult, Lázaro changes his master and, with each one of them, he learns new things in life, thus becoming a very mischievous young man and a survivor. This work tries to reflect the society of the sixteenth century emphasizing, above all, hypocrisy. In this lesson from a teacher we are going to comment on everything about the characters of Lazarillo de Tormes and their characteristics.

Index

1. Lazarillo de Tormes, the main character of the book
2. Lázaro's parents: Tomé González and Antona Pérez
3. The blind man, one of the Lazarillo's characters
4. The clergyman
5. The squire
6. The friar of Mercy
7. El buldero, another of the main characters in Lazarillo de Tormes
8. Secondary Lazarillo de Tormes characters
9. What are the 9 masters of Lazarillo de Tormes?
10. How many characters are there in Lazarillo de Tormes?

To start talking about the characters of Lazarillo de Tormes and his characteristics, we must start with the main character, Lazaro Gonzalez Pérez, better known as the Lazarillo de Tormes.

He is the protagonist of this novel and is so named because he was born in Salamanca, next to the river Tormes, and for this reason his parents decided to nickname him with this name. Lazarillo and his family live on what the father earns working in the mill and they barely have enough to eat, in the work they represent the poor class of the time. For this reason, when Lázaro's father dies, the mother cannot support him on her own and decides to hand him over to a blind man who needs a waiter to help him.

Lázaro is a small and skinny boy due to his hunger, but always very alert and, moreover, Serving the blind Lazarus, he breaks a tooth when he is hit with a jug of wine, so his appearance is the one of a hungry wanderer boy with ragged teeth.

After a while he abandons the blind man and begins to work for a clergyman and thus, changing his master every little bit. time not to go too hungry in the streets, he learns to subsist as he can and becomes a rogue. Since his masters hardly share food with him, he decides to use all kinds of tricks to trick them into getting something to put in his mouth.

Total gets to have up to 9 masters and thus, between hardships and famine, he passes through childhood and adolescence, until reaching adulthood when he marries the maid of his last master, the archpriest of San Salvador.

In this other lesson from a TEACHER you will discover the brief summary of Lazarillo de Tormes.

To continue locating ourselves in the history of this picaresque novel and in the characteristics of the characters in Lazarillo de Tormes, we continue commenting on who the parents of Lazarillo, Tomé González and Antona Pérez.

They baptized his son as Lázaro González Pérez, but they nicknamed him Lazarillo de Tormes because he was born next to the river of the same name. Lazaro's father, Tomé, works in a mill, but since he doesn't get enough to eat, he decides to take some grain from the mill to feed his wife and his son. When he is discovered he is accused of robbery and he is sent as punishment to serve far away, he dies in a battle against the Moors.

Antona, Lázaro's mother, when she was widowed she began to work as a cook for students and as a laundress for the stable boys. Antona begins a relationship with another man named Zaide, the stepfather of Lazaro, who was captured for robbery and was arrested and flogged. At this point, Lázaro's mother decides to hand him over to a blind man who needs help, since she can no longer support him.

Find out here who wrote the Lazarillo de Tormes, one of the most debated topics in the history of our literature.

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The blind man is Lazarus' first masterTherefore, he is one of the characters in Lazarillo de Tormes that most influences the child, teaching him through blows to be cunning, mischievous and tricky. Thus, Lazarillo learns to get food and some money for the blind man.

Some of the characteristics of the blind man are that he was a greedy and selfish old man, he shares little food with Lázaro, he devises various tricks to steal something to eat, but he is discovered by the blind man many Sometimes, until one day when he was stealing wine from his jug, the man slaps the boy in the mouth with it, leaving him nicked to forever. Lazarillo, seeing that with his master he will not be able to satisfy the need to eat from him nor will he be happy, he decides to leave him and look for another place.

The clergyman is the second master of Lazarus and his characteristics in the novel make him represent corruption and greed of the religious of the time. Like many of the Lazarillo de Tormes characters, he also does not provide Lazarillo with food, although he does have food from spare that he keeps in an ark for himself, offering the child only what he did not like and the food that was bad condition.

Lazarus finds the key to the ark and keeps it so that he can eat some bread at night and, so as not to be punished and be able to continue eating in this way, he makes the cleric believe that it is the mice that nibble his food at nights. Until, one day, the clergyman discovers little Lazarus and throws him out of his house forever.

The squire is the third master of LazarusAmong the characters in Lazarillo de Tormes, he stands out for being a man very proud of himself and who he cares a lot about appearances, to the point of feigning wealth since he had been disowned for his family. In the play he represents the low nobility of society from the time of the 16th century. Also very concerned about his appearance and hygiene and his skinny appearance.

Lázaro discovers that he really does not have wealth and that in reality the squire does not even have what to eat, so it depends on him and not the other way around as he had been making him believe. Thus, Lazarillo returns to the street and looks for a new master to try to survive.

The friar of Mercy is the fourth master of Lázaro, another of the Lazarillo de Tormes characters. The characteristics of him are the kinship with some neighbors of the previous master of Lazaro, this is how he knows him, and that, although his His appearance is worldly and is somewhat more generous than the previous masters since he gives Lazarillo his first pair of shoes, he is a friar promiscuous, playful and corrupt. As he does not like to be inside the convent much, he prefers to go out and spends his time outside doing errands and business necessary for the convent.

Lázaro realizes that he does not achieve happiness and hardly eats at the service of the friar, who spends much more time in the company of women than fulfilling his duties and, for this reason, Lazarillo decides to leave him and continue looking for a place where he can find food and happiness.

Another of the Lazarillo de Tormes characters is andThe buldero, the fifth master of Lazarus, and among the most marked characteristics of him we find that he sold false bulls, some sealed documents on religious and political matters, deceiving people in order to earn some money. For this reason, in the novel represents false religiosity of many at the time.

Lázaro gets tired of him, of his scams and of his falsehoods, since he is a shameless man who has no scruples and makes a living by deceiving the people. For this reason, he decides that his place is not next to this master and leaves him, in search of another place where he can live.

The Lazarillo de Tormes characters that we have discussed so far are some of the most important but, as we have already commented, Lazarus had more masters and got married to the maid of one from them.

These are other important characters in Lazarillo de Torme's novels o The life of Lazarillo de Tormes and his fortunes and adversities:

• The painter: He is the sixth master of Lazarus and was a short time in his service, since he exploited him just like his previous masters. In the novel, this master of tambourine painting is a character representing the Renaissance class of the time.
• The chaplain: He is Lazaro's seventh master, an opportunist who offers Lazarillo his first salary in exchange for working for him as a water carrier. He spent four years in the service of this master, until he managed to save enough to buy some old clothes and a sword.
• Sheriff: He is the eighth master of Lázaro, in the play this character represents the law at that time and, because of this job, it was very dangerous to always be with him, so Lázaro decides to leave him too.
• The Archpriest of San Salvador: He is the ninth and last master of Lazarus, he also represents the corruption of the religious of the sixteenth century and he is the one who gets Lazaro a wife, a servant in his service.
• The maid of the Archpriest of San Salvador: she is the maid of his last master in the novel. Lázaro decides to marry her, with whom he finally manages to find happiness, stop starving at all hours and have a stable life.

You have already been able to meet the characters of this so classic novel of the Spanish Golden Age and that, in addition, is one of the clear examples of the Spanish picaresque. But now we are going to offer you a clear detail of the masters of Lazarillo de Tormes so that you can better prepare your work or your exam.

In total, the character of Lazarus had eight masters that appear throughout the treatises in which the work is structured. Here we offer you a list of all these masters so that you better understand the plot of the novel:

1. The Blind, the Greedy: he is the first master of Lazarillo de Tormes and appears in the 1st treatise
2. The Cleric, another greedy: is the second master and appears in the 2nd treatise
3. The Hidalgo, the miserable: he is the third master of Lazarus and also appears in the 2nd treatise
4. Squire, just appearances: he is another of the main masters of the protagonist and his story is told in the 3rd treatise
5. Fraile de la Merced, the corrupt: the story of this master and Lazarus is explained in the 4th treatise
6. Buldero, the shameless: is another of the masters of the character and his story is told in the 5th treatise
7. Painter, the most honored: the story of this master appears in the 6th treatise
8. Sheriff: his story is told in the 7th treatise
9. The Archpriest of San Salvador: he is the last of the masters of Lazarillo de Tormes

To finish, we want to make a summary so that you know how many characters there are in Lazarillo de Tormes. As we have already seen, Lázaro is the protagonist of the story, however, the young man is accompanied by more characters who are main and secondary.

In the Lazarillo de Tormes there are 14 characters that share the limelight. The most prominent are Lazaro himself, as well as all the masters he has and who make him become a very prominent picaresque character. Let us remember that the Lazarillo de Tormes is a picaresque novel and that, as such, it has characteristics of the genre.

If you want to read more articles similar to The characters of Lazarillo de Tormes and their characteristics, we recommend that you enter our category of History of Literature.

• Blecua, A. (Ed.). (2011). The life of Lazarillo de Tormes. Castalia.
• Asensio, M. J. (1960). More about the Lazarillo de Tormes. Hispanic Review, 245-250.
• Frenk, M. (1993). Lazarillo de Tormes author-narrator-character.