Content area
Full Text
This essay studies the two sister tales "Anaconda" and "Regreso de Anaconda" by Horacio Quiroga using an ecocritical approach. By questioning specifically the anthropomorphization of the animal protagonists, the essay illuminates ecocritical tenets as well as acknowledges the issues of animal rights theory as viewed through both tales.
Recognized as one of the premiere short story writers of the Southern Cone, Horacio Quiroga (1878-1937) composed the majority of his work from 1917 to 1935 while living in Misiones, Argentina. The most salient characteristic of his oeuvre is the abundance of animal protagonists. His collection of short stories for children, Cuentos de la selva, later translated to English as Jungle Tales, is comprised entirely of stories with animal protagonists. Although Quiroga experienced limited success in his lifetime (he committed suicide by ingesting cyanide after being diagnosed with cancer in 1937), he was eventually recognized as a master storyteller as well as a precursor to the Latin American "boom" of the 1960s.
Quiroga spent his early years writing for various magazines in Buenos Aires. After a brief stay in Paris, Quiroga travelled back to the Southern Cone and moved to the remote area of Misiones to make a living primarily as a farmer. He spent the next sixteen years of his life in this area, and the majority of his short story collections are heavily influenced by his experiences in the jungles bordering Uruguay and Argentina. Horacio Quiroga's "cuentos misioneros" are routinely cited as the masterpieces of all his work (Alonso 45; Marcone, "De retorno" 306) and primarily focus on the precarious relationship that exists between human beings and the natural world in which they live. Noë Jitrik, prolific Quiroga scholar, states in his study Horacio Quiroga: una obra de experiencia y riesgo that "Quiroga ama y conoce la naturaleza como por un desafío hecho contra sí mismo y no como un descubrimiento placentero o místico [Quiroga loves and experiences nature more like a challenge against himself than as a mystical or romantic discovery]" (93).1
For Quiroga, nature (more specifically, the region of Misiones, situated geographically in northeastern Argentina) provided more than a convenient backdrop for his tales of animal and human death and destruction. With a basis in ecocritical theory, this study will establish a...