Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Carlos y Filiberto, protagonists of Carlos Fuentes’ short stories “La muñeca reina” and “Chac Mool” are the prototypical existential characters of Latin American literature from the 1950’s.  Much like the main character from Juan Carlos Onetti’s “Un sueño realizado,” they are solitary and anguished men unable to act because of their constant questioning and reflecting.   They also strive to find an illusory and nostalgic past in a failed attempt to attain redemption, and their search is guided with Jungian psychological models: their repressed inner selfs, their animas, are never able to surface or create unified and fully realized individuals.