Bohemian lights: main and secondary characters

One of the best known literary works of Valle Inclán is "Luces de Bohemia". It is a theatrical piece that inaugurated a new literary subgenre created by the author himself: the grotesque. A work created in the early 1900s and that portrays a decadent Madrid and a "deformed" Spain almost bordering on surrealism and caricature. In this lesson from a PROFESSOR we want you to discover in depth this literary work and, therefore, below we are going to offer you a analysis of the characters of "Luces de Bohemia" both major and minor. Thus, you will be able to better understand the authentic essence of this Valleinclanesca piece and get closer to one of the most emblematic works of contemporary Spanish literature.

Before going fully into the analysis of the characters in "Luces de Bohemia" it is important that we do a brief introduction to the work at hand in order to better understand the function and evolution of each of the characters.

Inclán Valleypresents us in this work to

Max Star, an elderly poet who has gone blind with age and is living the last hours of his life. For one night we will accompany this writer through the streets of Madrid, some dark and marginal streets that will be visited by our poet and by a friend of his who is an excellent opponent of his verbiage: Don Latin. They both represent that bohemian madrilenian of the early twentieth century and debate on issues that affect both social and political life and the most human affairs.

With "Luces de bohemia", Valle Inclán not only introduces us to some characters who have reached a point in their life sad, comic and almost grotesque, but also presents us with a city, Madrid, that fulfills these same features. In this work we walk through the streets of a deformed, unjust and oppressive country that has greatly affected the characters that live in it, allowing them to become caricatures rather than people. And this is the definition of grotesque, the subgenre created by the author and that was inaugurated with the appearance of said theatrical piece.

In general, "Luces de bohemia" is a work that hides behind it a great social criticism of the Spain of the time (early XX and, specifically, the 20s). In a PROFESSOR we offer you a summary by chapters of Bohemian lights that will help you get closer to this work.

Once the work at hand has been introduced, we are going to talk about the main characters of "Luces de Bohemia". You have to know that the most prominent during the narration of the events are four: Max Estrella, Don Latino, Madama Collet and Claudinita. To get to know each of them better, we are going to analyze them in a detailed and concise way below.

Max Estrella, the protagonist of Luces de bohemia

Named Máximo Estrella, this is the undisputed protagonist of "Luces de bohemia". It is about an old man, who has gone blind, who is a poet and who embodies the bohemian man figure of Madrid at the beginning of the century. This character embodies the figure of the fallen hero, an ancient hero who achieved a certain fame for his poetry but who, today, is in the stage of decadence.

Currently, Max Estrella drowns his sorrows in alcohol and isolates himself from his social maladjustment by taking refuge in the world of letters and scholarship. His blindness prevents him from working and, therefore, suffers a great economic misery that pushes him to realize the importance of the bourgeoisie and the injustices that exist in this new society invaded by capitalism and the industrial age.

Don Latino

Another of the most prominent "Luces de Bohemia" characters is Don Latino who, we could say, acts as Max's co-star. During the course of the play, this character acts as if he were a guide, a man very loyal to Max that respects and admires you. Or, at least, that's what it looks like at first glance. Deep down, Don Latino will take advantage of the slightest opportunity to steal money from his friend and even when Max he dies, he will steal the lottery ticket with which he could have brought his friend's family out of misery.

He is a very ironic character and he is presented with a more informal and conversational. The Madrid flair can be seen at all times and this indicates that he is a man with less academic training and less cultural knowledge.

Madama Collet and Claudinita

Finally, other main characters in "Luces de Bohemia" are the relatives of the protagonist, Max Estrella. Madama Collet is his wife and Claudinita is his daughter. They are two people who are governed by social norms, they are conventional and adapted to their time. They feel great love and affection for Max, an old man whom they already see at a difficult time in his life. They overprotect him because they feel compassion for his blindness over the years.

In addition to the most prominent characters from "Luces de Bohemia", during the course of the play other characters will appear that are also part of the action and precipitate its development. For this reason, below, we will analyze the secondary characters that are part of this piece of Valle Inclán. The most important are the following:

• Zaratrustra: It is about the bookseller who tries to deceive Max Estrella. Along with him, Don Latino will join forces to try to get more money from the poor old man
• Don Gay: is another of the secondary characters in this work. He is one of the clients of Zaratrustra's bookstore and presents himself as a pedantic and well-traveled man. He constantly complains about the plight of Spain and compares it with other cities in the world that he has visited.
• Pica Lizards: This is the owner of the bar that Max and Latino go to. He can be considered as another friend of these two fellow travelers and therefore also participates in the conversations. He is a representative of the republican society of the time although, when they touch him, he becomes a defender of private property
• Henrietta the Tread Well: she is a cheerful and flirtatious woman who is in charge of selling the lottery ticket to Max Estrella. She also has the nickname of the "Marquesa de Tango" and she is married to a man they call the "King of Portugal", but who is actually a nobody.
• Dorian of Gúdex: It is a character who represents the modernist poets so frequent in Spain at the time. But despite this, he is not a very brilliant writer in letters.
• Prisoner Mateo: He is another of the most important supporting characters in Luces de bohemia. He is the prisoner with whom Max Estrella will share a dungeon and who will reflect the injustice that existed in Spain at the time. He is a worker who has been arrested for making a strike and who will be shot to death.
• Don Filiberto: he is the editor-in-chief of the newspaper where Max Estrella works, "El popular". He is a professional who, although he wants to be closer to the workers, will also be an oppressive character and who will differentiate very well who is below him
• Ruben Dario: and, finally, another of the characters in "Luces de Bohemia" that appears only at the end of the play is the character of Ruben Dario, the poet who inaugurated the literary modernism movement and who will attend the funeral of Max Estrella