The Ernesto Sábato Tunnel: summary and analysis

The novel The tunnel, by Ernesto Sábato, was published for the first time in 1948. It is the first novel by the multifaceted Argentine who, in addition to being a writer, was a physicist and a painter.

Well received by some and badly received by others, The tunnel it was briefly censored in the country of Spain during the Franco dictatorship, which considered it immoral.

Let's get to know some of the elements that make this work a controversial reference in Latin American literature.

Synopsis

Juan Pablo Castel, the protagonist of the novel, is the narrative voice that describes in detail the psychological process that led him to the murder of María Iribarne, his lover.

The relationship between the two begins after an art exhibition in which Castel, a painter by profession, warns the only person among the audience - critics included - that he has noticed in a marginal scene of his painting Maternity. It is about María, with whom Castel becomes obsessed, believing that only she is capable of understanding him.

Castel establishes a relationship with her marked by her isolation, which is why only shortly afterwards he discovers that she is married to Allende, a blind man. The discovery unleashes in Castel a neurosis of which he has already shown signs in his previous encounters.

Submerged in a sea of ​​brainy and stormy musings, Juan Pablo Castel concludes that Maria has had and has a collection of lovers, of which he is only one piece. Castel, who has been imprisoned by her confused speculations, decides to assassinate her.

Analysis

On The tunnel, Sábato shares with the reader the psychological world of a character, Juan Pablo Castel, in the form of a first-person story. She shows the path by which Castel goes from self-control to an absolutely irrational state. Mary is the motive for this transformation, an indecipherable woman, who cannot be possessed or scrutinized; his commitment is not total and his game is dangerous.

On the one hand, Castel is affected by his natural violence. From the beginning, there are signs of a disturbance in the character of Castel, a painter who perceives himself as misunderstood and who repeatedly shows contempt for his fellow men. The seemingly banal details with which he begins the story of his first encounters with Maria are quite clear: he watches her, he speculates about her intentions, pursues her, becomes aggressive in the face of the frustration of her expectations... evolution of Dreamworld of the character that reminds us of the postulates of surrealism, where the subconscious plays a fundamental role.

On the other hand, existential conditions affect him and these become triggers for a transformation in the initial state of the character. Vanity, memory, forgetfulness, loneliness, fidelity, truth and lies, guilt and punishment, all are reviewed in Castel's train of thought. Apparently intellectual, the painter shares his arguments with an imaginary reader from whom he expects understanding, perhaps pity. His philosophical reflections are for him almost justifications for his inordinate impulses. Every philosophical argument, like every speculation about Maria, throws him into a dead end tunnel.

Castel had to be a painter, that is, an artist, a figure who in the twentieth century enjoyed the reputation of a thoughtful, intellectual person, almost a good spiritual or moral of the society for that which is creator, but which at the same time passes for "tormented" as a consequence of its extreme sensitivity.

For the same, The tunnel it is also constructed as a discourse marked by aesthetic self-reflexivity, that is, by the reflection of one's own artistic work, whether it is about painting, whether it is about literature. At this point, for example, the reflection on the detective novel as a literary genre has a weighty place.

Thus, Sábato makes this work a story that, even in its brevity, covers elements of the psychological novel, the police novel and the existentialism own of his generation.

The novel, however, while it has become a reference in 20th century Latin American literature, has not been without its critics. Although the work gained international recognition when Albert Camus, as an unequivocal sign of his admiration, made arrangements for it to be translated into French by Gallimard, some have questioned its significance.

The critic Christopher Domínguez Michael affirms in an article entitled “Sabato en el tunnel: an appreciation of the work of the Argentine writer”, the following:

The tunnel It seemed to me a perfect example of a didactic novel, written under the good influence of the detective novel, that writing manual at the (sic) height of art and with two or three magnificent moments ...

As we see, if for some The tunnel it is a magnificent representation of the inner world of a human being turned neurotic, schizophrenic or murderous and, to that extent, it is a brainy, direct and concise piece teacher of the psychological novel, for critics like Domínguez Michael it is a story that redounds in the stereotype of the romantic artist, of the disturbed genius and misunderstood.

Is Castel just a tormented romantic hero, as Domínguez points out? Will Castel be a sad cellopath, and The tunnel just the story of a crime of passion? Could it be that the threads of history reveal the mechanisms of thought of a femicide? It is up to the reader to face the novel and answer these questions for himself.

Characters

• Juan Pablo Castel, narrator and protagonist; painter by profession, with a volatile temperament.
• María Iribarne, lover of Juan Pablo Castel.
• Allende, blind, husband of María Iribarne.
• Maid of María Iribarne.
• Hunter, Allende's cousin.
• Mimi, Hunter's sister and Allende's cousin.
• Lartigue, Hunter's close friend and Castel's friend.
• Mapelli, friend of Castel.

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Biography of Ernesto Sábato

Ernesto Sábato was born in Argentina on June 24, 1911 and died almost a hundred years later, on April 30, 2011. He was a writer, essayist, painter, and physicist.

He obtained his scientific training at the University of La Plata and, after his stay in France at the service of the Jolliot-Curie Laboratory, he returned to dedicate himself to teaching.

In 1945, the year he published his first book, which would be essays (One and the Universe) he left physics to devote himself fully to writing.

His first novel was The tunnel, published in 1948, followed by About heroes and graves in 1961. However, the narrative work that will make him a consecrated writer was Abaddon the exterminator, 1974.

Since the publication of his last novel, a progressive blindness motivated him to leave literature to dedicate himself to the visual arts. Painting, in his own words, was his first artistic passion and he returned to it in his last decades.

Even so, he continued to write opinion articles and, as a human rights defender, he was a declared combatant of all forms of dictatorship, either on the right or on the left.

He was president of the National Commission on Disappearance of Persons (CONADEP) and from there he was in charge of writing the call Sabato Report or Never more, which addressed the disappearances that occurred in the Argentine Republic between 1976 and 1982.

He obtained the Miguel de Cervantes Prize for Literature; the Gabriela Mistral award from the OAS; the title Illustrious Citizen of the city of Buenos Aires; the title of honorary doctorate from the University of Buenos Aires; the Gabriela Mistral Award from the Chilean government; the honorary degree from the University of the Republic of Uruguay; the Menéndez Pelayo International Prize and, finally, the Rosalía de Castro Prize.

Most important works by Ernesto Sábato

Novel

• The tunnel, 1948.
• About heroes and graves, 1961.
• Abaddon the exterminator, 1974.

essays

• One and the Universe, 1945
• Men and gears, 1951.
• Heterodoxy, 1952.
• The writer and his ghosts, 1963.
• Dialogues with Jorge Luis Borges, 1976.
• Apologies and rejections, 1979.
• Never again: report of the National Commission on the Disappearance of Persons (CONADEP), 1985.
• Before the end (memories), 1998.
• The resistance, 2000.
• Spain in the diaries of my old age, 2004.

References

• Franco's censorship banned "The Tunnel", by Ernesto Sábato, for being "a pornographic novel." ABC Culture. 25/07/2018. Recovered from abc.es/
• Domínguez Michael, Christopher: Sabato in the tunnel: an appreciation of the work of the Argentine writer. Free letters. 16/05/2011. Recovered in https://www.letraslibres.com/