WORKS CITED. Aguilar e Silva, Víctor Manuel de, La Estilística. Teoría de La

WORKS CITED Aguilar e Silva, Víctor Manuel de, La Estilística. Teoría de La Literatura.1968. Trans. Valentín García. Madrid: Gredos, 1972. Albert C. Baugh, University of Pennsylvania. A History of the English Language (Third Edition). Thomas Cable, University of Texas Prentice-Hall USA, 1978. Dirección de Publicaciones del Ministerio de Educación. Cuentos de Barro. 13ª Edición San Salvador. Impreso en la Dirección de Publicaciones 17 Av. Sur #450. San Salvador, 1985. Edward L. Vockell, J. William Asher Prentice-Hall, Educational Research (Second Edition). USA, 1995. Hearn, Michael Patrick. Illustrated Works of Mark Twain Selection and introductions. Portland House New York. Jorge Pauda. Técnicas de Investigación Aplicadas a las Ciencias Sociales. Primera Edición. Fondo de Cultura Económica. México, 1979. Materials Branch English Language Program Division. Highlights of American Literature. First Published. Washington DC, 1981. Ministerio de Educación Dirección de Publicaciones. Cuentos de Cipotes. Primera edición Completa. Editorial Universitaria. San Salvador, 1961. Segunda Edición, Dirección de Publicaciones San Salvador. San Salvador, El Salvador C.A. 1974 Roque, Consuelo. Métodos de Análisis Técnicas y Figuras Literarias, Sexta Edición. El Salvador, 2005. Thomson Corporation and Peterson s. How to Write Research Papers. Third Edition. THOMSON-ARCO, ed. Canada, 2002. 159

DICTIONARIES Logman. Dictionary of American English New Edition. Marvin Terban. Scholastic Dictionary of Idioms. 1996. The New International Webster s Concise. Dictionary of the English Language. International Encyclopedic Edition. The University of Chigago. Spanish-English; English-Spanish Dictionary. Fourth Edition. WEB SITES Spunckeren, Kathryn Van. Outline of American Literature. Published by the US Embassy. USA. Posted November, 1998. <http://usinfo.state.gov/products/pubs/oal/oaltoc.htm> Wikipedia the Free Encyclopedia. Free Documentation License. Literature. 2006. <http://en.wilkipedia.org/wiki/literature> Wikipedia the Free Encyclopedia. Free Documentation License. Triangulation. 2006. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/triangulation> Wikipedia the Free Encyclopedia. Free Documentation License. History of the English Language. 2006 <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/language> 160

The Cambridge History of English and American Literature in 18 Volumes (1907 21).VOLUME XVIII. Later National Literature, Part III. The English Language in America. 2005. <http://www.bartleby.com/228/0703.html> Editor s Picks. History of Spanish in El Salvador. Encarta Online Encyclopedia. Microsoft Corporation. 1993-2006. <http://www.encarta.msn.com/encyclopedia/el Salvador.html> Melero, Nina. Qué es el Estilo Literario? Apuntes y Reflexiones de un Traductor. Venezuela. Febrero, 2005. <http://www.letralia.com/120/ensayo02.htm> Salvador Salazar Arrué. Cuentos de Barro [Stories Made of Clay]. San Salvador: Editorial "La Montaña," 1933. 180 p. (Lacks ISBN). LC Call No.: PQ7539.S3 C8. World of Books. International Multiculturalism. 2005. <http://www.loc.gov/rr/international/books02.html> Pep Cardona. El Estilo Literario. Palma Mallorca. Diciembre, 1996. <http://www.mallorcaweb.net/mostel/estilol.htm> Infoplease Encyclopedia. Style. Daily Almanach. USA, 2006 <http://www.infoplease.com/ce6/ent/a0847045.html> The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, 6th ed. Style. Columbia University Press. Library of Congress Help Desk, May 22, 2002 <http://www.wsu.edu/-campbelld/amlit/color.html> 161

Gibaldi, Joseph. MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Paper. Sixth Edition. New York, MLA, 2003. <http://www.areasearchguide.com/12biblio.html#h> Portal E-SCOALA. Huckleberry Finn Critical Essay. USA, 2006. <http://www.e-scoala.ro/referate/engleza_huckleberry_finn_critical.html> Portal E-SCOALA. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn Literary analysis. USA, 2006. <http://www.e-scoala.ro/referate/engleza_huckleberry_finn_literary.html> PERSONAL INTERVIEWS Escolero, Josó Luís. Coordinator and Professor of Literature in Universidad de El Salvador. Personal Interview about The Importance of a Comparative Study between the literary styles of Mark Twain and Salarrué. San Salvador, March, 2006. Gómez, Arnoldo. Professor of Literature in Universidad de El Salvador. Personal Interview about The Importance of North American and Salvadoran Literature. San Miguel, February, 2006. Ramírez, Jorge de Jesús. Professor of Literature in Instituto Nacional de Usulutan. Personal Interview about The Importance of Literature in El Salvador. Usulutan, October, 2005. 162

ANNEX I Literary analysis The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, written by Mark Twain. 1. SETTING Huckleberry Finn takes place in the 1830s or 1840s. It begins in St. Petersburg, a fictional town much like Hannibal, but its main action occurs on the Mississippi River. After Huck meets Jim on Jackson's Island, the two travel down river on a raft that comes to symbolize their brotherhood and freedom. Hoping to drift to Cairo, Illinois, where Jim can escape to freedom, they are diverted by a fog and travel southward to Arkansas instead. The trip ties together a series of adventures, which, as many commentators have remarked, contrast the peace, and freedom of the raft with the violence, corruption, and constraint of the shore. 2. CHARACTERS Main characters Huck: Huckleberry Finn is the main character and narrator of the story. Without a mother and with an often absent (and drunk) father, he is basically an orphan who lives with Miss Watson and the Widow Douglas. Leaving the conservative clutches of the home, Huck chooses to flee society and enter the natural world, where he feels most at home. When he and Jim cross paths in the wilderness, the two decide to travel together, and both use a raft to escape the bondage of the land. Tom: Tom appears in the beginning and end of the novel. Like Huck, he enjoys the outdoors. Unlike Huck, however, he comes from an honorable, civilized family, and due to the monotony of such a stable living arrangement, he must invent adventures to keep his mind occupied. Tom is just as clever as Huck, and the two are best friends. 163

Jim: Jim is the escaped slave of Ms. Watson who encounters Huck in the wilderness and agrees to travel with him down the Mississippi. Though Jim is often ignorant and child-like, the profound feelings he expresses for his family and his overall persona prove to Huck (and the reader) that he is just as entitled to liberty as any white person. Jim, however, is trained by society, and though he believes he deserves freedom, also considers himself inferior to whites. Secondary characters Ms. Watson/Widow Douglas: These sisters are Huck s caretakers. They largely come to represent the romantic attitudes of the nineteenth century American South. Their hypocritical religious values are also exposed, particularly in the beginning of the story, when they interact most with Huck. Judge Thatcher: Judge Thatcher is the genuinely fair and impartial local judge who is entrusted with Huck s six thousand dollars. He plays a minor role in the book but he is generally heralded as the typical good-guy. Pap: Huck s father is the ruthless, corrupt and often drunk figure who darts in and out of his son s life. He is opposed to Huck s educational pursuits and is basically the stereotypical Southern racist. He almost kills Huck on at least one occasion, causing the boy to flee into the wilderness. Shortly thereafter, Jim finds the man s dead body on an abandoned houseboat. Shepherdsons and Grangerfords: These feuding families are encountered by Huck midway through the book. Twain uses them in his general indictment of American society, especially in regards to the hypocrisy of religion (the families attend church together but have no qualms about shedding each other s blood afterwards). King and Duke: These comical, though genuinely ruthless villains force Huck and Jim to accompany them on their own travels down the Mississippi. Time and time again, they dupe the local townspeople into some scheme, always involving shady 164

moneymaking activities. In the end, however, these two characters meet justice when they are tarred and feathered for their scheming. Wilks family: This unfortunate family nearly becomes the victim of one of the king and duke s grandest schemes. Expecting the arrival of Peter Wilks two English brothers, the family is easily convinced that the king and the duke really are these long-lost kinsfolk. Luckily, Huck helps Mary Jane and the others realize their mistake, and the two con men do not manage to escape with the money. Aunt Sally and Silas Phelps: The Phelps family appears near the end of the novel. They are Tom s relatives, and interact with Huck, Tom and Jim in the grand finale of the novel. Comically, Aunt Sally is the definite head of the household, with Silas meekly carrying out her orders. 3. PLOT OVERVIEW The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn opens by familiarizing us with the events of the novel that preceded it, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. Both novels are set in the town of St. Petersburg, Missouri, which lies on the banks of the Mississippi River. At the end of Tom Sawyer, Huckleberry Finn, a poor boy with a drunken bum for a father, and his friend Tom Sawyer, a middle-class boy with an imagination too active for his own good, found a robber s stash of gold. As a result of his adventure, Huck gained quite a bit of money, which the bank held for him in trust. Huck was adopted by the Widow Douglas, a kind but stifling woman who lives with her sister, the selfrighteous Miss Watson. As Huckleberry Finn opens, Huck is none too thrilled with his new life of cleanliness, manners, church, and school. However, he sticks it out at the bequest of Tom Sawyer, who tells him that in order to take part in Tom s new robbers gang, Huck must stay respectable. All is well and good until Huck s brutish, drunken father, Pap, reappears in town and demands Huck s money. The local judge, Judge Thatcher, and the Widow try to get legal custody of Huck, but another well-intentioned new judge in 165

town believes in the rights of Huck s natural father and even takes the old drunk into his own home in an attempt to reform him. This effort fails miserably, and Pap soon returns to his old ways. He hangs around town for several months, harassing his son, who in the meantime has learned to read and to tolerate the Widow s attempts to improve him. Finally, outraged when the Widow Douglas warns him to stay away from her house, Pap kidnaps Huck and holds him in a cabin across the river from St. Petersburg. Whenever Pap goes out, he locks Huck in the cabin, and when he returns home drunk, he beats the boy. Tired of his confinement and fearing the beatings will worsen. Huck escapes from Pap by faking his own death, killing a pig and spreading its blood all over the cabin. Hiding on Jackson s Island in the middle of the Mississippi River, Huck watches the townspeople search the river for his body. After a few days on the island, he encounters Jim, one of Miss Watson s slaves. Jim has run away from Miss Watson after hearing her talk about selling him to a plantation down the river, where he would be treated horribly and separated from his wife and children. Huck and Jim team up, despite Huck s uncertainty about the legality or morality of helping a runaway slave. While they camp out on the island, a great storm causes the Mississippi to flood. Huck and Jim spy a log raft and a house floating past the island. They capture the raft and loot the house, finding in it the body of a man who has been shot. Jim refuses to let Huck see the dead man s face. Although the island is blissful, Huck and Jim are forced to leave after Huck learns from a woman onshore that her husband has seen smoke coming from the island and believes that Jim is hiding out there. Huck also learns that a reward has been offered for Jim s capture. Huck and Jim start downriver on the raft, intending to leave it at the mouth of the Ohio River and proceed up that river by steamboat to the free states, where slavery is prohibited. Several days travel takes them past St. Louis, and they have a close encounter with a gang of robbers on a wrecked steamboat. They manage to escape with the robbers loot. 166

During a night of thick fog, Huck and Jim miss the mouth of the Ohio and encounter a group of men looking for escaped slaves. Huck has a brief moral crisis about concealing stolen property Jim, after all, belongs to Miss Watson but then lies to the men and tells them that his father is on the raft suffering from smallpox. Terrified of the disease, the men give Huck money and hurry away. Unable to backtrack to the mouth of the Ohio, Huck and Jim continue downriver. The next night, a steamboat slams into their raft, and Huck and Jim are separated. Huck ends up in the home of the kindly Grangerfords, a family of Southern aristocrats locked in a bitter and silly feud with a neighboring clan, the Shepherdsons. The elopement of a Grangerford daughter with a Shepherdson son leads to a gun battle in which many in the families are killed. While Huck is caught up in the feud, Jim shows up with the repaired raft. Huck hurries to Jim is hiding place, and they take off down the river. A few days later, Huck and Jim rescue a pair of men who are being pursued by armed bandits. The men, clearly con artists, claim to be a displaced English duke (the duke) and the long-lost heir to the French throne (the dauphin). Powerless to tell two white adults to leave, Huck and Jim continue down the river with the pair of aristocrats. The duke and the dauphin pull several scams in the small towns along the river. Coming into one town, they hear the story of a man, Peter Wilks, who has recently died and left much of his inheritance to his two brothers, who should be arriving from England any day. The duke and the dauphin enter the town pretending to be Wilks s brothers. Wilks s three nieces welcome the con men and quickly set about liquidating the estate. A few townspeople become skeptical, and Huck, who grows to admire the Wilks sisters, decides to thwart the scam. He steals the dead Peter Wilks s gold from the duke and the dauphin but is forced to stash it in Wilks s coffin. Huck then reveals all to the eldest Wilks sister, Mary Jane. Huck s plan for exposing the duke and the dauphin is about to unfold when Wilks s real brothers arrive from England. The angry townspeople hold both sets of Wilks claimants, and the duke and the dauphin just barely escape in the ensuing confusion. Fortunately, for 167

the sisters, the gold is found. Unfortunately, for Huck and Jim, the duke and the dauphin make it back to the raft just as Huck and Jim are pushing off. After a few more small scams, the duke and dauphin commit their worst crime yet: they sell Jim to a local farmer, telling him Jim is a runaway for whom a large reward is being offered. Huck finds out where Jim is being held and resolves to free him. At the house where Jim is a prisoner, a woman greets Huck excitedly and calls him Tom. As Huck quickly discovers, the people holding Jim are none other than Tom Sawyer s aunt and uncle, Silas and Sally Phelps. The Phelpses mistake Huck for Tom, who is due to arrive for a visit, and Huck goes along with their mistake. He intercepts Tom between the Phelps house and the steamboat dock, and Tom pretends to be his own younger brother, Sid. Tom hatches a wild plan to free Jim, adding all sorts of unnecessary obstacles even though Jim is only lightly secured. Huck is sure Tom s plan will get them all killed, but he complies nonetheless. After a seeming eternity of pointless preparation, during which the boys ransack the Phelps s house and make Aunt Sally miserable, they put the plan into action. Jim is freed, but a pursuer shoots Tom in the leg. Huck is forced to get a doctor, and Jim sacrifices his freedom to nurse Tom. All are returned to the Phelps s house, where Jim ends up back in chains. When Tom wakes the next morning, he reveals that Jim has actually been a free man all along, as Miss Watson, who made a provision in her will to free Jim, died two months earlier. Tom had planned the entire escape idea all as a game and had intended to pay Jim for his troubles. Tom s Aunt Polly then shows up, identifying Tom and Sid as Huck and Tom. Jim tells Huck, who fears for his future particularly that his father might reappear that the body they found on the floating house off Jackson s Island had been Pap s. Aunt Sally then steps in and offers to adopt Huck, but Huck, who has had enough sivilizing, announces his plan to set out for the West. 168

4. THEME Several themes run quietly through the Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, a book often thought to be simply a carefree children s novel. Though the book may certainly be read on this level, it is also important to recognize Twain s less obvious motives for writing his epic American novel. Twain s introductory warning about the dangers of finding motives, morals, or plots in his novel ironically proves the existence of each. The central theme, of course, is the constant struggle between freedom and slavery. This struggle exists for both Jim and Huck. Jim fears the physical slavery of the 1840 s South while Huck fears the captivity of thought and behavior he so despises about Miss Watson and the Widow Douglas. He also, obviously, wants to escape the tyranny of his father. Both Jim and Huck turn to nature itself to escape the bondage of civilization. The raft enables them to find their escape from the barbarism of their society. The idea that Americans can find liberty by moving to the frontier was very real for those of Twain s generation. Often the American West proved to be a testing ground, not only for American individualism, but also for the pioneering ideas of equality and freedom. More subtly, Twain indicts the American South for its phony romanticism and hypocritical Christianity. In Huck Finn, Twain suggests that the Christianity of the South is a living contradiction in that it accepts slavery yet ignores the Biblical notion of the equality of all believers. Though Twain often uses the N-word to reflect the realism of the times, a closer examination of the work as a whole, particularly the way in which he depicts Jim as a real person, proves that Twain was no racist, but actually an opponent of slavery. 169

ANNEX II Literary Analysis The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (Mark Twain). 1. SETTING The setting of Tom Sawyer is very important in creating a sense of atmosphere. Tom lives in a village on the Illinois bank of the Mississippi, facing the state of Missouri. Particular locations in the novel are The village of St. Petersburg; The island where the boys play at pirates, and The cave where Tom and Becky get lost. 2. CHARACTERS Main Characters Tom Sawyer The protagonist of the novel. He is a typical young boy, about ten years of age, who is full of mischief, imagination, and activity. Huckleberry Finn A friend of Tom s, who is about his same age. As the son of the town drunk who has abandoned him, he is allowed to live the life of a vagabond and is the envy of all the other boys in town who are made to wash themselves, help with chores, attend school, and obey. 170

Injun Joe A dangerous half-breed Indian that is Tom s antagonist in the story. When Tom and Huck see the Indian murder Dr. Robinson, they are afraid that Joe will punish them as well. Becky Thatcher The wealthy daughter of a judge with whom Tom falls in love. She is a blond, blueeyed beauty. Aunt Polly Tom s aunt and guardian. She is the soft-hearted sister of Tom s dead mother and feels very responsible for raising Tom correctly. Sidney Tom s half-brother who is called Sid and who also lives with Aunt Polly, sharing a room with Tom. As an obedient, tattling, and deceitful boy, he is a constant source of grief to Tom. Secondary Characters Mary Tom s kind cousin who lives with him at Aunt Polly s house and who tries to guide and protect Tom. Widow Douglas The widow of the Justice of Peace who "adopts" Huck Finn and plans to civilize and educate him. 171

Joe Harper Tom s good friend and classmate who is less daring than Tom. Muff Porter A local drunk who is an affable man and who is falsely accused by Injun Joe of murdering Dr. Robinson. Judge and Mrs. Thatcher Becky s wealthy and respected parents. Mr. Jones The Welshman who helps save the Widow Douglas from Injun Joe Reverend Sprague The pastor of the village church. Mr. Walters The superintendent of the Sunday school. Mr. Dobbins The village school teacher who makes life miserable for his students Dr. Robinson The young doctor who is murdered by Injun Joe. 172

3. PLOT OVERVIEW An imaginative and mischievous boy named Tom Sawyer lives with his Aunt Polly and his half-brother, Sid, in the Mississippi River town of St. Petersburg, Missouri. After playing hooky from school on Friday and dirtying his clothes in a fight, Tom is made to whitewash the fence as punishment on Saturday. At first, Tom is disappointed by having to forfeit his day off. However, he soon cleverly persuades his friends to trade him small treasures for the privilege of doing his work. He trades these treasures for tickets given out in Sunday school for memorizing Bible verses and uses the tickets to claim a Bible as a prize. He loses much of his glory, however, when, in response to a question to show off his knowledge, he incorrectly answers that the first two disciples were David and Goliath. Tom falls in love with Becky Thatcher, a new girl in town, and persuades her to get engaged to him. Their romance collapses when she learns that Tom has been engaged before to a girl named Amy Lawrence. Shortly after being shunned by Becky, Tom accompanies Huckleberry Finn, the son of the town drunk, to the graveyard at night to try out a cure for warts. At the graveyard, they witness the murder of young Dr. Robinson by the Native American half-breed Injun Joe. Scared, Tom and Huck run away and swear a blood oath not to tell anyone what they have seen. Injun Joe blames his companion, Muff Potter, a hapless drunk, for the crime. Potter is wrongfully arrested, and Tom s anxiety and guilt begin to grow. Tom, Huck, and Tom s friend Joe Harper run away to an island to become pirates. While frolicking around and enjoying their newfound freedom, the boys become aware that the community is sounding the river for their bodies. Tom sneaks back home one night to observe the commotion. After a brief moment of remorse at the suffering of his loved ones, Tom is struck by the idea of appearing at his funeral and surprising everyone. He persuades Joe and Huck to do the same. Their return is met with great rejoicing, and they become the envy and admiration of all their friends. Back in school, Tom gets himself back in Becky s favor after he nobly accepts the blame for a book that she has ripped. Soon Muff Potter s trial begins, and Tom, 173

overcome by guilt, testifies against Injun Joe. Potter is acquitted, but Injun Joe flees the courtroom through a window. Summer arrives, and Tom and Huck go hunting for buried treasure in a haunted house. After venturing upstairs, they hear a noise below. Peering through holes in the floor, they see Injun Joe enter the house disguised as a deaf and mute Spaniard. He and his companion, an unkempt man, plan to bury some stolen treasure of their own. From their hiding spot, Tom and Huck wriggle with delight at the prospect of digging it up. By an amazing coincidence, Injun Joe and his partner find a buried box of gold themselves. When they see Tom and Huck s tools, they become suspicious that someone is sharing their hiding place and carry the gold off instead of reburying it. Huck begins to shadow Injun Joe every night, watching for an opportunity to nab the gold. Meanwhile, Tom goes on a picnic to McDougal s Cave with Becky and their classmates. That same night, Huck sees Injun Joe and his partner making off with a box. He follows and overhears their plans to attack the Widow Douglas, a kind resident of St. Petersburg. By running to fetch help, Huck forestalls the violence and becomes an anonymous hero. Tom and Becky get lost in the cave, and their absence is not discovered until the following morning. The men of the town begin to search for them, but to no avail. Tom and Becky run out of food and candles and begin to weaken. The horror of the situation increases when Tom, looking for a way out of the cave, happens upon Injun Joe, who is using the cave as a hideout. Eventually, just as the searchers are giving up, Tom finds a way out. The town celebrates, and Becky s father, Judge Thatcher, locks up the cave. Injun Joe, trapped inside, starves to death. A week later, Tom takes Huck to the cave and they find the box of gold, the proceeds of which are invested for them. The Widow Douglas adopts Huck, and, when Huck attempts to escape civilized life, Tom promises him that if he returns to the widow, he can join Tom s robber band. Reluctantly, Huck agrees. 4. THEME 174

This book is very much about the excitement and dangers of an active childhood (twice Tom is believed to be dead). Discuss the way in which Mark Twain presents the activities of the children. How does Tom view the adult world? Is Tom the sort of child parents would like you to read about (he smokes, swears and plays truant)? 175

ANNEX III Literary Analysis Tales of Mud (Salarrué) 1. SETTING Tales of Mud takes place in the country of El Salvador. Through Tales of Mud, Salarrué tries to portray socio-cultural backgrounds of some regions of this country, especially the regions in which people used colloquialisms of their place and time. 2. CHARACTERS Main characters Some main characters of Tales of Mud are listed above: a. Jose Pashaca: a lazy guy who became a hard worker.(la Botija) b. La Juanita: a girl who lost her honour.(la Honra) c. Goyo and his son: Both of them wanted to travel to Honduras in order to earn some money.(semos Malos) d. Agruelio: a man who liked to be always in church.(el Sacristan) e. La Peche Maria: a hunch back girl whose father take her to bad man in order to help her with her hunchback but he did not because he wanted to take her honour and he did and as a result of that she got pregnant.(la Petaca) f. Pedro: a man who works as an angler and had a weird experience when he was fishing one night (La Siguanaba). g. Genaro Prieto y Luciano Garciya: two people who found a starfish and one killed the other one for it.(la Estrellemar) h. Don Tacho: a teacher (El Maishtro) i. Felipe and Chema : two relatives who went to see a medicine man in order to fix some problems they had((el Brujo). 176

j. El Negro Mayo an Chabelo Boteya: Chabelo taught El Negro how to play the flute and because of that El Negro Nayo became popular among girls. 3. PLOT OVERVIEW. Tales of Mud is a compilation of thirty-four short stories in which the cultural reality of the people in El Salvador is portrayed in each short story. Through the first short story La Tranquera (The Wooden Fence), Salarrué compares his tales of mud with clay and how they are different from each other as well as pottery.the tales of mud reflects the reality related to religion, beliefs, social background of the time and place in which each tale is set.el Sacristan(The Sacristan), La Petaca(The Hunchback girl), La Casa Embrujada(The Haunted House), La Siguanaba, La Virgen Ludres(The Ludres Virgin), El Padre(The Priest) are concerned to religious aspects, thus beliefs flow all over the book. In fact, people used to believe in certain aspects regarding to the Catholic Religion that was the principal church in El Salvador in those times.the tales of mud mention different types of the ways of living of people in El Salvador. For instance the work of pottery in Ilobasco ; and how potters cover their hands with reality by which they are able to express their culture through shapes such as old men with shaking heads, jars, millers, pots of clay, etc. Besides the fishing, the hunting that were the works of men.salarrué portrayed reality through satire in order to express the social problems of peasants in El Salvador. La Honra (The Honour) reflects the sexual assaults toward humble young girls. In addition, the most important element in tales of mud is the dialectological aspect regarding to the simple and common language of Salvadoran low society. There can be found words such as cipotes ( young boys), bamba (coins of gold), bolo (drunker), cachimbazo (a hit), joder (to annoy), prieto (a black person), chula (a pretty girl). Those words are colloquialisms of Salvadoran people, practiced only within certain areas, and basically reflect realism through language and setting. 4. THEME These short stories are very much about the reality related to religion, beliefs, social background of the time and place in which each tale is set. 177

ANNEX IV Literary Analysis Tales of Children (Salarrué). 1. SETTING Tales of Children takes place in the country of El Salvador. Through Tales of Children, Salarrué tries to focus socio-cultural backgrounds of some regions of this country, especially the regions in which people used colloquialisms of their place and time. 2. CHARACTERS Main characters Some main characters of Tales of Mud are listed above: k. Yanto Yanto : an injured guy that was bidding in his way to the doctor.(el cuento del cuento que descuenteya) l. Doctor Moncho: the doctor who took care of him. (El cuento del cuento que descuenteya) m. Cenifera : a very good-looking nanny.( El cuento del dichoso Turis Turista) d. Pedro Garniya, Pedro Lengua, Pedro Cusuca, y Pedro Loroco: Cenifera `s pretenders. ( El cuento del dichoso Turis Turista) e..dundo Cirujia: He is a typical salvadorean young boy, who lived in the country. ( El cuento de Dundo Cirujia que por tantito lo revolco el toro en la barranca inorvidable) f. Sefardino: a guy who had an American friend. (El Cuento del gringito regalante que da zapatos y no guante) 178