Carlos Fuentes and Mexico City

Abstract

Carlos Fuentes represented and recreated Mexico City throughout his literary works. In early novels, unequal social order is maintained despite the Mexican Revolution, whose rhetoric revoked precisely that order. In the postrevolutionary city, certain streets and urban spaces are inhabited by the lower classes, while the affluent reside in other neighborhoods like Polanco and Las Lomas. Fuentes portrays a decadent aristocracy aspiring unrealistically to French ideals. Despite emphasizing social inequality, Carlos Fuentes proposes in his novels that Mexico City is composed of diverse cultures, linking the pre-Hispanic and the Hispanic. In his depiction of the city or the house (microcosm of the city), he argues that one must peel back these layers – a mask – to understand Mexican identity. In later novels, Mexico City is completely apocalyptic: pollution, corruption, and PRI authoritarianism take over what little integrity remained, and Mexico City becomes a ruin in decay, where disorder and chaos reign.