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This dissertation studies three of the Mexican generation of 1958's most gifted writers: Juan Garc(')ia Ponce (1932), Sergio Pitol (1933) and Rosario Castellanos (1925-1974). These writers, as well as the entire generation, have been eclipsed by their contemporary Carlos Fuentes (1928). Unlike Fuentes, however, they are more concerned with contemporary social or personal problems and less obsessed with the search for Mexican identity.
Garc(')ia Ponce's short stories break out of the traditional Mexican short short story dichotomy established by Juan Jose Arreola and Juan Rulfo. Neither fantastic nor realistic with a rural setting, Garc(')ia Ponce's stories deal with the personal and psychological problems encountered by the individual human being and not by a prototype or symbol of Mexico.
Sergio Pitol's stories attribute man's failure to the preservation of traditional values maintained by the family. These absolete values still dictate norms of conduct from which man can not escape, condemning him to alienation, insanity or death.
Rosario Castellanos provides us with a unique and personal view of the individual's contemporary problems. Combining Garc(')ia Ponce's individual outlook with Pitol's social scope, Castellanos presents protagonists, usually women, as alienated people predestined to a life which can not be modified or controlled. In this situation, the individual is unable to achieve his or her ultimate fulfillment which leads to disenchantment, solitude and dehumanization.
Garc(')ia Ponce, Sergio Pitol and Rosario Castellanos' short stories reflect the generation's world view; its' attempt to decipher man's individual and collective problems in order to rescue him from alienation, to indicate the roots of man's suffering in order to set him on the road to self-fulfillment.