...rights theory as viewed through both tales.

**********

Recognized as one of the premiere short story writers of the Southern Cone, Horacio Quiroga (1878-1937) composed the majority of his work from 1917 to 1935 while living in Misiones, Argentina. The most salient characteristic of his oeuvre is the abundance of animal protagonists. His collection of short stories for children, Cuentos de la selva, later translated to English as Jungle Tales, is comprised entirely of stories with animal protagonists. Although Quiroga experienced limited success in his lifetime (he committed suicide by ingesting cyanide after being diagnosed with cancer in 1937), he was eventually recognized as a master storyteller as well as a precursor to the Latin American "boom" of the 1960s.

Quiroga spent his early years writing for various magazines in Buenos Aires. After a brief stay in Paris, Quiroga travelled back to the Southern Cone and moved to the remote area of Misiones to make a living primarily as a farmer. He spent the next sixteen years of his life in this area, and the majority of his short story collections are heavily influenced by his experiences in the jungles bordering Uruguay and Argentina. Horacio Quiroga's "cuentos misioneros" are routinely cited as the masterpieces of all his work (Alonso 45; Marcone, "De retorno" 306) and primarily focus on the precarious relationship that exists between human beings and the natural world in which they live. Noe Jitrik, prolific Quiroga scholar, states in his study Horacio Quiroga: una obra de experiencia y riesgo that "Quiroga ama y conoce la naturaleza como por un desafio hecho contra si mismo y no como un descubrimiento placentero o mistico [Quiroga loves and experiences nature more like a challenge against himself than as a mystical or romantic discovery]" (93). (1)

For Quiroga, nature (more specifically, the region of Misiones, situated geo-graphically in northeastern Argentina) provided more than a convenient backdrop for his tales of animal and human death and destruction. With a basis in ecocritical theory, this study will establish a fictional mediation between the detrimental effects of an encroaching human presence and on the animal world as personified through the snakes in Quiroga's two sister tales, "Anaconda" and "Regreso de Anaconda" ("Return of Anaconda").

Ecocriticism is broadly defined as "the study of the relationship between literature and the physical environment" (Glotfelty xvii). More specifically, ecocriticism can be seen as an intersection of ecology and literature, with the notion of what Barry Commoner calls the first law of ecology being a central and shared theme: "the first law of ecology is that everything is connected to everything else. Ecology is similar to cybernetics--everything depends on oscillating movements; very fluid back and forth" (33). Commoner posits a network theory, which is one that states that every human action has consequences on the earth's ecospheres. These actions often reflect human beings' dominance over their natural environment, and further support the dyadic relationship of nature and culture. Ecocriticism seeks to dismantle the Western, traditional notion of cultural superiority over nature by seeking interpretations of natural texts (as cultural artifacts) that show different perspectives of the animal/human relationship in which this dichotomy is overturned.

This study suggests that Quiroga's experience in Misiones instilled in the author an acute awareness of the issues surrounding ecologists and ecocritics today, and specifically the unmediated destruction of a natural environment based on the Western notion of human superiority over the natural world. Quiroga's work presents various inter-relationships between animals and other animals, humans and animals, and humans and other humans. It is a mixture of views that gives readers a glimpse into Quiroga's concept of the mind of animals, and their reactions to human presence in their world. The majority of Quiroga criticism concentrates on the portrayal of nature and animals in his "cuentos misioneros [Misiones stories]" as a simple form of criollismo (a literary movement defined by the tendency of authors to place emphasis on description of the landscapes, their respective prowess, and the death of protagonists at nature's hands; criollista authors tended to be very descriptive and made excellent use of local language) and do not offer a more in-depth study of the relationships expressed and developed in the stories. Although some classify Quiroga's work in the same category as regional writers Ricardo Guiraldes, Ciro Alegria, Eustacio Rivera, and Romulo Gallegos, his work seems to elude a specific classification. The majority conclude that his work, if anything, is criollista.

In an effort to dismantle the criollista interpretation of Quiroga's work in favour of a more complex approach, this essay considers "Anaconda" and "Regreso de Anaconda" using ecocritical theories, thereby adding an innovative dimension to the existing criticism on Quiroga's "cuentos misioneros." Additionally, the question of animal rights philosophy must be addressed in an ecocritical reading of Quiroga, as he masterfully de-centres the human being while emphasizing both the humanity and animalism of the non-human inhabitants of Misiones as well as the human beings.

After spending years in Misiones, Quiroga began to write stories that gave a voice to the natural world and illuminate a new view of the typical relationship between human beings and animals. In Quiroga's work, the animals speak, act, and make decisions to save or preserve their environment. The actions of human beings are judged from an opposite perspective, that of the natural world. At the same time, the particular stories to be studied here show the author's somewhat negative perception of encroaching forms of human civilization and modernization. Specifically, these processes can be seen as forces that disrupt the natural equilibrium that exists in the jungle regions, or at least the natural balance that Quiroga seemed to perceive. Quiroga was not living in total isolation from society, however, and had experience with the nature versus culture dichotomy in some of its other guises--namely the concept of civilization/barbarism as introduced by Domingo F. Sarmiento. Having spent time in France as well as several years living as a school teacher in Buenos Aires (a thriving, "modern" port city in his time), Quiroga witnessed both aspects of Southern Cone life--the arrival of European modernity to the capital city as well as the complete lack of it in the jungle regions further north. The "cuentos misioneros" are representative of Quiroga's best fiction, and stand in clear contrast to other writers of his time who focused heavily on the importance of cultural superiority and the need for the "civilization" of the various "barbaric" regions around the Southern Cone.

Using technology and science, human beings are portrayed as enemies of the jungle inhabitants because they have created unfair advantages for themselves. The scales are tipped in favour of the humans, and the balance necessary for ecological life to sustain itself properly is dismantled. The idea of moderation that sustains equilibrium becomes the cornerstone of Quiroga's criticism of concepts of modernization and capitalism. Bratosevich states that "Quiroga se preocupa en primer lugar por diluir la leyenda del hombre 'rey de creacion' equiparandolo en derecho a vivir y en capacidad de sentimientos instintivos al animal [Quiroga occupies himself primarily with the deconstruction of the accepted notion of man as the 'king of creation' by comparing the rights of the animal to live as well as to imagine their capacity for instincts and feelings.]" (71). Quiroga proposes what others later have called an "alternative modernity" (Marcone, "Cultural" 304) in which human beings learn to respect the processes of nature and incorporate themselves into these in a manner that is nondestructive....

NOTE: All illustrations and photos have been removed from this article.



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