Content area
Abstract
The novel Inocencia narrates the life of a family of peasants who live in Antioquia, Colombia at the beginning of the twentieth century. The protagonists, Lorenzo Pasos, Jacinta, Inocencia, Angel and Peter, are characters who exhibit the typical characteristics of illiterate Antioquian people, such as an over zealous religiosity, industriousness, familial love and neighborliness. At the same time, the novel presents aspects of an oral tradition in a rural community where literature plays a very small role.
The first section of the dissertation contains the bibliography of the author, Francisco de Paula Rendón, and an overview of the criticism which has been generated thus far regarding this novel. In addition, there is an analysis of the political, social and religious aspects of Antioquia during the middle of the nineteenth century, as well as a study of the narrative voice, the characterization of the protagonists, the oral traditions and a phonetic study of the uniqueness of the lexicon of these antioqueños .
In the second section I include the twenty chapters of Inocencia , with footnotes in which I define and explain colloquial words. Herein, I provide linguistic analyses of the many colloquialisms used in Antioquia, as well as explanations of proverbs and sayings which are prevalent in this region of Colombia.