De barro estamos hechos

Like Matute’s “El salvamento”, “De barro estamos hechos” is also a short story but it’s written by Isabel Allende, another well-known Hispanic author. Translated literally, “De barro estamos hechos” means “From Clay We Are Made”, but another way of saying that is “We Are Made From Clay”. In “De barro estamos hechos”, Rolf Carlé, a news reporter, tries unsuccessfully to rescue Azucena, a young girl who is trapped in the mud due to a landslide that came through her village. Unlike Matute’s “El salvamento” in which inaction was the problem, in “De barro estamos hechos” action yields no fruit. Unable to able to save this young girl, Rolfe retreats into a solitude that is expressive of the solitude of many of the characters in Gabriel García Márquez’s Cien Años de Soledad. The narrator, whom we believe is Rolfe’s girlfriend, describes a Rolfe who has left his reporting, his cameras, and overall his life by retreating into himself leaving his girlfriend to only hope that one day “regreses de tus pesadillas caminaremos otra vez de la mano, como antes” (you will return from your nightmares and we will walk hand in hand again, as before). Although Azucena’s death is in itself a tragedy, I think that the greatest tragedy is actually what results from her death. Azucena’s death leaves Rolfe not only devoid of life, but also with only thoughts about what he could have done to save her. In a way Azucena’s death wasn’t just the loss of one life, it was also the loss of two lives, the second being Rolfe’s. Similar to Márquez, Allende is portraying a message that despite the sometimes edifying effects of solitude, and not just external solitude but also internal solitude, solitude can become a detriment not just for us but those around us. For Rolfe, his internal solitude left him devoid of life in an abstract sense, which in turn left his girlfriend wishing for the vitality of life that once was.