El silencio de los oprimidos: la narración de la sumisión y represión en <i>Levantado del suelo</i> de Saramago y <i>Los santos inocentes</i> de Delibes

Abstract

Abstract. The Silence of the Oppressed: the Narration of Subjugation and Repression in Saramago’s Levantado del suelo and Delibes’s Los santos inocentes. This article analyses and compares the narration of subjugation, repression and physical abuse in José Saramago’s Levantado del suelo (1980) and Miguel Delibes’s Los santos inocentes (1981). The purpose of the study is to analyse the similarities between two fables dealing with the same problem: the hard-working conditions in latifundiums in the Portuguese region of Alentejo and the Spanish Extremadura, the workers’ impossibility of changing their lives and the subjugation and repression they would face in terms of political, military and ecclesiastical power. Specifically, the study focuses on the relations between privileged people and farmers and how the former deprive the latter of their rights in order to maintain their status through the narration. The article begins with an overview of both the content and the characters of the two novels. Then, we select and analyse some climactic episodes in which the abuses against farmers take place, paying special attention to how the two narrators define their positions on the workers’ side. Finally, we examine how the accumulation of the power suppresses the eruption of any riot in both novels.