Mario Vargas Llosa: Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter

Ideas:

• Reality and imagination are in a state of tension or conflict
• Art sanctifies life/ Life is better than art
• Dreams vs. Reality
• Self-representation and realism vs. misrepresentation

Quote: “What does it matter to anyone if I lubricate my imagination with a few bits of cloth? What is realism, ladies and gentlemen — that famous realism we hear so much about? What better way is there of creating realistic art than by materially identifying oneself with reality? And doesn’t the day’s work thereby becoming more tolerable, more pleasant, more varies, more dynamic?”

In Mario Vargas Llosa’s book, he conveys the theme of reality and imagination in conflict along with self-representation, realism, and misrepresentation. He cuts off the ‘dream’ of marrying his aunt by getting divorced in a couple of sentences towards the latter end of the book. However, he presented Aunt Julia and Marito’s almost forced romance for most of the book and that sudden break could represent the end of a dream.

His self-representation, portrayal as the character Pedro Camacho shows his mania towards writing, for example not even acknowledging Marito as he walks in the room while he is writing. This mania towards writing, further than passion ultimately leads to the psychotic episode of Pedro and he ends up in a mental asylum for some time. Before this, we saw his short stories get more and more and more confusing. This could almost say that even though he will lose his skill in writing, he will write himself crazy as long as he lives (Mario, in real life).

Mario blends realism into the book by using some realistic elements, and his fruitful descriptions allow for the reader to be able to feel and relate with Mario on a deeper level. Being rejected and insulted by those around him, he turns to his aunt and they develop a romantic relationship- which is indeed possible. However, the combination of such strange events will almost never occur in real life, for example, a minor marrying his aunt, and the rape court case, and the writer who was well regarded and fell down the ranks ultimately ending up in a mental asylum.  These are all possible real-life stories, however, the combination of them and connections between all the characters make the book both possess fiction and non-fictional elements.