Lazarillo of Tormes | Page 4

of Gregory IX contains an
illustration of a boy drinking through a straw from a blind man's bowl.
The episode in which Lazarillo thinks a corpse is being brought to his
house appears in the _Liber facetiarum et similitudinum Ludovici de
Pinedo, et amicorum_ and may be a folktale. And the story of the
constable and the pardoner is to be found in the fourth novel of Il
novellino by Masuccio Salernitano, and may also be a folktale.
It has long been said that this novel is an accurate reflection of society
in sixteenth-century Spain. And to some extent, this does seem to be
true. The king of Spain, Charles I, became involved in several foreign

wars, and had gone deeply into debt to German and Italian bankers in
order to finance those wars. Soon the quantities of gold and silver
coming from Spain's mines in the New World were being sent directly
to the foreign bankers. The effects of inflation were to be seen
everywhere, as were other social ills. Beggars and beggars' guilds were
numerous. Men of all classes were affixing titles to their names, and
refusing any work--especially any sort of manual labor--unless it suited
their new "rank." The clergy was sadly in need of reform. And
pardoners were--often unscrupulously--selling indulgences that granted
the forgiveness of sins in return for money to fight the infidel in North
Africa and the Mediterranean. All these things are to be found in
Lazarillo of Tormes.
But is the book really an accurate reflection of all of Spanish society? If
there were avaricious priests, and priests who had mistresses, were
there none with strong moral principles? If poverty was felt so keenly
by Lazarillo and others, was there no one who enjoyed a good meal?
As another writer has suggested, the Spanish conquerors did not come
to the New World on empty stomachs, nor was the Spanish Armada ill
supplied. It is obvious, then, that while Lazarillo reflects Spanish
society, it mirrors only one segment of that society. Its writer ignored
uncorrupted men of generosity and high moral principles who surely
existed alongside the others. So just as the chivalresque novels
distorted reality upward, this novel distorts reality downward and
almost invariably gives us only the negative traits of society.
An important point is the unity, or nonunity, of the book. Earliest
critics of Lazarillo of Tormes saw it as a loosely formed novel of
unconnected episodes whose only point of unity happened to be the
little rogue who told his life story, in which he is seen as serving one
master after another. Later criticism has changed that point of view,
however, by pointing to such unifying factors as wine, which is used as
a recurring theme throughout (Lazarillo steals it; it is used for washing
his wounds; he sells it). Then there is the "initiation" in which
Lazarillo's head is slammed against a stone statue of a bull. Later the
blind man smashes his own head against a stone post as poetic justice is
meted out. Finally, Lazarillo's mother will "lie at the side--or stay on
the side of good people," and as the novel ends Lazaro decides to do
the same.

Claudio Guillen, a modern critic, has noted that time is also a unifying
factor in this novel. Early incidents are told in detail, and at moments of
pain specific amounts of time are measured ("I felt the pain from its
horns for three days"). When Lazarillo is taken in by the squire his
hunger pangs become so great that he begins to count the hours. But as
conditions improve for Lazarillo's stomach, he gradually forgets about
the slow passage of time. In fact, time now begins to race past: four
months with the pardoner, four years with the chaplain. This slow, then
swift, passage of time is used by Guillen to explain the extreme brevity
of some later chapters of the novel. It is a mature Lazaro, he says, who
is telling the story and reflecting on his childhood. And we are really
seeing the memory process of this older Lazaro who glosses over less
important parts of his life and dwells on the moments that matter.
Other critics have responded to the question of "finality" in the work;
that is, is Lazarillo an incomplete novel or not? Francisco Rico believes
the novel is complete, and that there is a "circular" structure to it all. He
notes that the novel is addressed to a certain fictional character ("You":
Vuestra merced), and that Lazarillo intends to tell this character "all the
details of the matter," the "matter" apparently being the questionable
relations between the archpriest and Lazarillo's wife. So there is a
continuity from the beginning of the work through the details of
Lazarillo's life, until the last chapter ("right