Lazarillo de Tormes

Date of publication: 1554; 4 editions: Burgos, Alcalá de Henares, Amberes, Medina del Campo

Autor: anonymous

Structure: Prologue and seven chapters (tratados); circular and united by the 'matter' (“caso”)

Style: pseudo-autobiographical (narrated in first person); mimetic (realism) allegiance to reality; black humour; use of asides; irony

Narrator: first person; duality Lazarillo/Lázaro; and anti-heroe

Themes: hunger (principle motive); honor (the squire); religion, society

Realismo: critical vision of society of the epoch of Charles V (beggars, nobility, clergy)

Folklore: episodes with the blind man

Characteristics of a picaro: marginal figure without a sense of honor; orphan; serves many masters; lives by his wits and cleverness; contrast with the heroes of the books of chivalry in vogue at the time such as Amadís de Gaula, an anti-heroe; the story of the development/education of the protagonist into adulthood; a reflection, retrospective view of his life; a histor, observer

Problems of defining the picaresque genre: How to define it? By structure and narrator/protagonist in first person? Consists of loosely bound episodes told by an orphan. By its discourse? Criticism of society? Different approaches to its definition.

Prologue

1. Why is Lazaro writing? 

2. To whom does he direct his work?   Is this a voluntary act?

3. What other reason does Lazaro give for writing?

4. Is there a duality to the Prologue?

Chapter One 

1. What do we learn about Lazarillo's birth and family? Do you note any irony in his name? Why does he describe his birth in such detail? What does his father do?  Of what is he accused and what “persecution" does he suffer?  How is his father's death described?  What does his mother do after her husband's death? What does this indicate about her as a mother left with a child?

2. Whom does his mother come to 'know'?  How does Lazarillo first react to this new member of the family?

3. What is Zaide's social status? His role in the family?

4. Why is Lazarillo's little brother afraid of Zaide?   What does Lazarillo conclude from this? 

5. What happens to Zaide and Antona on account of the authorities? How are they punished? 

6. Why does Lazarillo's mother give him to the blind man? Why does she tell him to "try and be good" upon saying goodbye? 

7. What is the blind man like, according to Lazaro? What talents does he have? What defects?

8. What do each of the following episodes reveal about the blind man or Lazarillo?

a) the stone bull

b) the canvas bag

c) blancas and half blancas

d) the jug of wine

e) the bunch of grapes

f) the horns at the inn

g) the sausage and the turnip

h) the stone post

9. How does Lazarillo try to avenge himself for the ill treatment he receives? 

10. What prophecies does the blind man make about Lazarillo's future?

11. Why does Lazarillo laugh in spite of himself when the blind man recounts the episodes?

Chapter two 

1. Why does Lazaro say that he escaped 'out of the frying pan and into the fire"? 

2. What does he compare the blind man to Alexander the Great?

3. Describe the Priest of Maqueda's chest. What does he keep inside? 

4. How is the Priest a hypocrite and miser? 

5. Why does Lazarillo look forward to attending funerals and even prays that people will die?  

6. Lazarillo experiences great hunger with the Priest of Maqueda but he doesn't leave him. Why? 

7. Why does Lazarillo describe the tinker and the bread in religious terms?  How would you describe Lazarillo's relationship with God?

8.  What does the Priest do when he discovers the missing bread? How does Lazarillo react? 

9.  What happens with the key, the snake, the priest and Lazarillo? 

10. How does Lazarillo's life with the Priest end? Why does the Priest say that he must have served a blind man? 

General Considerations:

1. How does black humour function in the first two chapters?

2. What is the function of the asides? What do they indicate?