Loneliness, Creation and Communication in Carlos Rojas

Carlos Rojas is the creator of highly imaginative, intricately\nwrought and richly written novels. Their thematic structure could\ninclude a range of subjects from dream and reality to history and\nreligion, and be woven with a personalised style whichx is\nunmistakeable. But the themes underlying most of his work are those\nelemental problems of man: loneliness and alienation, selfexamination,\ncommunication and creation. It is through an examination\nof these themes as explored by Rojas in his fiction and other\nwritings, that the source of his artistic inspiration and style may\nbe discovered. I intend in the following three chapters to reveal\nhow a sense of loneliness and alienation contributes greatly to his\ncreative urge, and how this feeling of aloneness, together with the\nallied themes of self-examination and communication, has a basic\ninfluence on the wayin which he writes. The two novels I will refer\nto mainly are La ternura del hombre invisible and Adolfo Hitler esta\nen mi casa.\nIn the first chapter I will discuss the question of character\nidentification and communication. Within these novels, the\ncharacters come to realise that communication with others must be\npreceeded by ..confrontation with the self. Rojas is as convinced of\nthis truth as his characters. For in this way communication can be\nseen as a creative force; for man in his relations with himself\nand other men, for the writer with his public.\nThe concept of creative force will be dealt with in more detail\nin Chapter Two. Here, through structural and stylistic analysis\nof the symbolic pattern of fertility, I hope to show that fertility\nsymbols and images are carefully and consistently used to\nconsolodate the hope in creation as the solution to a lonely and\nbarren existence. They are, in effect, an essential part of the\nstructure of the novels.\nIn Chapter Three I propose to examine his non-fiction in the\nlight of his fictional writings, and to relate the meaning of life\nwith the means of living. For Rojas, communication is an important\nmeaning of life in a world where man lives with himself and with\nother people. In his non-fiction, he relates the problems of\ncommunication which he explores in his novels, to the means of\nliving, which is the manner in which man lives out his life. He\nemphasises the necessity of an understanding communication as a\nprerequisite to the harmonious co-existence of mankind. He\ndiscusses this not only in the universal brotherhood of man\ncontext, but with particular reference to isolationist states of\nmind in communities of his native country.