The century of lights by Alejo Carpentier

We present you a summary of Age of Enlightenment by Alejo Carpentier! It is a novel by the Cuban writer that was published in 1962. The work is set during the time of the French Revolution, although it takes place mainly in Cuba. His main character is Victor Hughes and explains the adventures that he lives with 3 young people, two brothers and his cousin. The author explains that Victor Hughes was a real person sent to the Caribbean with the objective of expand the revolution, although he ended up becoming a despot quite independent of French politics.

In this lesson from a TEACHER, we want to take you into the history of novel Age of Enlightenment, so that you can get to know this era a little better from the point of view of literature. Ready to immerse yourself in the paradise of letters?

Alejo Carpentier he is one of the representatives of magical realism in the literature. He was a Cuban novelist, as we mentioned above, who comes from a Gallo-Russian ancestry. He was born in Havana in December 1904 and began a career in architecture, only to abandon it later and

dedicate yourself to the world of letters. Mainly, he dedicated himself to writing articles in The Discussion. Later, he began to rise as a writer, with higher positions, such as editor-in-chief of Posters, founding member of the Retail Group or co-editor in the Advance Magazine.

In 1927 he was imprisoned for political reasons and in 1928 he was transferred to Paris, where he began to interact with the surrealist group and became the editor-in-chief of the magazine Magnet. It was in 1933, in Madrid, when he published his first novel Ecue-Yamba-O.

In 1959 he returned to Cuba and took an active part in the cultural programs of the Castro revolution, with several important positions: deputy director of the Directorate of Culture of the Ministry of Education (1960), vice president of the Union of Writers and Artists of Cuba (1961) and director of the National Editorial Board (1962).

Alejandro Carpentier's novels are characterized by their overloaded prose, more typical of the baroque.

In unProfesor we leave you a summary of magical realism literature.

Before entering fully into the summary of Age of Enlightenment by Alejo Carpentier, let's get to know better what it is about. It is a fictional novel that is based on a episode that occurred on the island of Guadeloupe during the French Revolution. The main theme is ideological, although the description of the characters, the lands and the seas, have a very important weight in the narrative.

The three main young people, who function as protagonists, are Cuban and belong to the bourgeoisie. Víctor Hugues is a French emigrant from Marseille who settles in Haiti and indoctrinates young people in the ideas of the Enlightenment and the Revolution. Their ideas permeate to the point of turning them into authentic enlightened revolutionaries.

This novel consists of 7 chapters, each one divided into several sections and headed by a short phrase attributed to Goya. For example: Chapter 3 begins like this: "They take advantage. Goya". The phrases he uses are those that appear in the Goya's drawings about the War of Independence. We must not forget that Goya belongs to the same period in which the novel is inspired. Age of Enlightenment. Alejo Carpentier wanted to illustrate the ideology with a story, just as Goya does with his paintings.

• Main theme of the work: The French Revolution in the Antilles and the ideological revolution of the characters.
• Main characters: Sofía (the female vision of the work). Esteban (Sofía's cousin), Víctor Huges (the merchant who presents them with the ideas of revolution)
• Storyteller: Omniscient 3rd person narrator (capable of knowing the characters' thoughts)
• Space: The spaces are very varied, since the scenes occur in specific places such as the house or the warehouse, but also in general locations, such as Cayenne, Havana, etc. However, everything happens in the Antilles.
• Internal time of the work: It is a slow time in which the events are narrated in a calm manner. The work takes place over approximately 25 years and takes place at the end of the 18th century and the beginning of the 19th century.

We begin this summary of The century of lights by Alejo Carpentier indicating that it is a work narrated from the point of view of the two young people Sofia and Esteban, and explains the French Revolution from the point of view of the Antilles.

Sofía is the daughter of a Havana merchant and he is a teenager who has been educated by nuns and by her love of books. His father is an exemplary man and, when he dies, Sofia, Carlos and her cousin Esteban meet a merchant from Port-au-Prince, Haiti. This merchant turns out to be Victor Hughes, a Cuban of French origin. He is a man with a lot of energy and with very advanced ideas that had not yet reached the Caribbean.

The first thing she does is make friends with the boys, fix their broken house and teach them the ideas of the French Revolution: Freedom, Equality and Fraternity. These liberal ideas are beginning to penetrate the minds of young people.

In the first chapters of the work we can see how Sofía feels a certain aversion to black people, by the culture in which she has been educated and the natural prejudices typical of her high social level. There is a moment when Víctor brings a mulatto doctor named Doctor Ogé, to cure an asthma attack that Esteban suffers and the first thing the girl says is: "But... he is a black man! However, Victor quickly answers, "All men are equal."

In the end we can see how Sofia completely overcomes these prejudices, walking a path towards absolute liberation. She is even capable of turning against her family and what she has experienced so far, stating that she has never loved her father. She says verbatim: I am tired of God; tired of nuns; tired of guardians and executors..."

Next, the author shows a much more serene and pragmatic Sofia who is able to quickly decide what to do when Dr. Ogé returns with the news that she has started a freemason hunt to which Victor and he belong. The two men, along with the young people, spend their days hidden on the family farm, her talking about the revolution. This topic begins to excite Sofía, although she is not so interested in the ideological concept, but rather in concrete issues, such as the condition of women or the education of children.

It is at that moment when Sofía begins to feel attraction for Víctor, although when he approaches her with sexual intentions, she rejects him the first time. Finally, during the trip to Port-au-prince, on the boat, she decides to give herself completely to him.

Once in Port-au-prince, Sofia does not arrive with the others at the destination they have chosen, since there is a commotion in the city. At that moment, Victor loses all his assets and He travels back to Europe, along with Esteban.

Esteban becomes a direct witness of the Victor's ascension to the role of Revolutionary Commissioner and he realizes the change that his character is undergoing, since he finds that the Revolution is full of contradictions.

When Esteban returns from the trip, he arrives at the family house and finds the house in disarray and the painting of his uncle again on the wall. The most surprising thing is that Sofia has married a man He comes from a very good family and has a lot of purchasing power. The new husband managed to turn around the family business and now they have a lot of money.

Then, Esteban assumes that Sofía's ideals had disappeared and that she had simply settled for a life of stability alongside a merchant. However, the young man discovers that the girl is packing her bags and filling them with clothes to return to the adventure. The truth is Sofia is a very mysterious woman with a double life. which Esteban cannot understand.

Sofía's husband dies and she immediately prepares to go to Cayenne, to meet Victor, although Esteban doesn't think it's the best idea.

Once Sofía and Víctor meet, he explains to her how the Revolution has evolved and the way in which she knew how to defend herself from her enemies. Furthermore, she explains to him that Consul Bonaparte chose him to take over cayenne. Some of the words she uses to explain her story to the girl are the following: “They must have told you that I had a hard, very hard hand. He couldn't be any other way. A revolution is not reasoned: it is done.”

Sofía then realizes that her life is not at all interesting next to Victor's, so she remains silent and does not explain anything to him about what has happened during these years. The girl, suddenly, is amazed again at the attraction that she feels towards Victor and he expresses it this way: “Suddenly, his arms, his shoulders, his chests, his flanks, his knees, had begun to speak…”.

Sofía, then, begins her new life with Victor and she takes care of things at home, while she dreams of doing great things one day, with the man she loves. However, over time, Sofía begins to become disillusioned and realizes that Victor is not the same as he was before: Victor, the same one who brought to America the Decree abolishing slavery, now repeats the words of his new idol, Napoleon. Now, under its same roof, massacres of black people are organized.

Víctor goes from giving lessons on racial equality to directing one of the largest black hunts that took place in the region. These blacks had escaped so as not to be slaves and now they were going to die at the hands of a man who claimed to be a revolutionary.

The hunt, luckily, goes very badly and Victor falls seriously ill. While Sofia takes care of him, she realizes the reality that lives inside him: Victor is a politician drunk by his own power and will not achieve any of his goals with him, so the girlShe decides to leave. Victor tried to stop Sofía from leaving and used her most powerful tactic, physical attraction. However, that time was not enough: "He hugged her tightly without encountering resistance: what was offered to him was a cold, inert, distant body, which was willing to do anything in order to finish soon."

Finally, Sofía goes to Madrid where she lives with her cousin Esteban, until the outbreak breaks out. popular uprising against Napoleon. Sofía decides to do what she believes is most fair, a suicidal action in which her cousin Esteban accompanies her as well as her second. Sofia dies in the revolution against Napoleon, her beloved Victor's new idol.

This is the point at which the process that Sofía began with the she rebelled against her father, her husband and her lover. Sofia is sure that her suicidal action can do something against this world and that will give her the greatness that Victor will never be able to achieve. The play ends when Sofía and Esteban die in the tumult and no one knows anything more about their footprints nor are their bodies found.

We hope this summary of Age of Enlightenment by Alejo Carpentier, has helped you understand this work and the era it represents a little better. If you want to continue learning more about the books that have marked a before and after in the literary scene, do not hesitate to consult our reading section.