Written in the late 1930s, just after the fall of military dictator Primo de Rivera, San Manuel Bueno, Martir was published in a time of economic downturn and political crisis. instability. King Alfonso XIII remained on the throne but shared the popular dislike of Rivera, while the mostly anticlerical Republicans were rapidly gaining support as municipal elections approached. In his “nivola”, Unamuno explores the idea of ​​Truth. I will take it to mean that which is consistent with facts or reality and does not necessarily contain transcendental meaning, although that may be the case. Unamuno uses both form and content to describe the elusive nature of Truth and the importance of perception and belief when dwelling on the question of Truth, which was particularly relevant given the historical context. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why violent video games should not be banned”?Get the original essayThe truth and its search - the theme thatThe notion of truth, especially as it relates to the eternal quest for truth religious and the question of faith, occupies a clearly important place in the content of the novel. Don Manuel engages in a life of deliberate lying because he believes there are truths too horrible to be told, “la verdad…es acaso algo terrible, algo intolerable; la gente sencilla no podra vivir con ella'[1]. Manuel believes that knowing the miserable truth about existence is too great a burden for the common man. He believes that life can be lived either in blissful ignorance of the mortal and temporal nature of humanity through belief in a God and an afterlife, or in the knowledge that we are ultimately doomed to die. This in turn raises the question of the value of religion and blind faith in the modern world. San Manuel Bueno, martir is, in fact, a novel which is completely opposed to the progressive cause; Lzaro's spiritual death is associated with his exposure to progressivism in the New World. There is a particularly uncomfortable line when Manuel echoes Karl Marx: “Opio… Opio… Opio, s. Demosle opio, y que duerma y que suee'[2]; the comparison of religion to opium and the emphatic repetition of the word in the dialogue give the feeling of being lulled into a dreamlike state. It seems that Unamuno is propagating the benefits of religion and, particularly by presenting Manuel as the hero of the novel, he seems to endorse happiness based on blind faith and tradition. In this way, it can be argued that Truth in terms of discovering the meaning of life is actually irrelevant, because having faith in Truth is only a means to an end; a way in which the common man is able to live his life contentedly and without fear. Unamuno himself is known to have had recurring thanatophobia which resulted in part from his religious crisis in 1897; he said that "my religion is to seek truth in life and life in truth, even knowing that I will not find them while I live"[3] and believed that much of all human activity was an attempt to survive, in some form, after our death. He wrote in his diary that he had two choices: become a Catholic or live a life of depression.[4] San Manuel Bueno, Martir actually goes a little further and makes many suggestions that the truth about the function of religion actually goes back through history. Simply by the name “Manuel”, which in Hebrew means “Emmanuel”, Manuel’s patron is Christ himself – “su santo patron era el mismo Jesus Nuestro Seor”[5].Furthermore, the spiritual “resurrection” of Lazarus in chapter 13 can be directly compared to the story of Christ and Lazarus in Saint John 11:1-45. In fact, throughout the novel, allusions are made to the fact that Manuel is meant to be a representation of Jesus Christ himself; he is able to heal the sick, he has carpentry skills, and his “voz divina” moves the congregation in transcendent ways, making the village tremble as he cries, “Dios mo!” Gods mo! Por que'me abandoned[6]. Manuel also reports to Lazaro that more than one of the greatest saints have died without believing in the afterlife. Thus Unamuno implants in the reader's mind the idea that some of the main characters of the Church died without believing in the immortality of the soul. When thinking about the notion of Truth in San Manuel Bueno, martir, the consideration of form is both crucial and easily overlooked. . In terms of narrative structure, the entire story is a second-hand account of Don Manuel's life. This fundamental shift is even more complicated because Manuel never confides in Angela, and she learns the essential information about his disbelief from her brother, Lazaro. Thus, history is doubly refracted and often constitutes a third-hand account of events and feelings. Furthermore, our familiar notions of truth and reality are undermined due to the unreliability of Angela's account; she's an elderly woman whose memory is fading – "empiezen a blanquear con mi cabeza mis recuerdos"[7] and she actually says she's not sure she dreamed the whole episode, "yo no s lo que es verdad”[8]. However, in addition to this complication in the storyline, Unamuno attempts to confuse the reader in the final section of the novel. Not only does he insinuate that Angela is a fantastical character and suggest that fiction and reality are fundamentally the same thing, but he implies that everything in the text is, although fictional, also in some way true - 'esta reality no se me ocurre dudar; creo en ella ms que crea el mismo santo; creo en ella mas que creo en mi propria realidad'[9]. This leaves the reader to ponder the idea that Don Manuel represents a significant truth and, in this way, is more real than Unamuno himself. Yet at the same time we are left with an unreliable narrative, a subjective reporting of feelings and events that leaves us with the unsettling feeling that we cannot achieve a core of certainty, that the truth is held, in any way frustrating, out of reach. These different levels of truth are often exploited in novels of the post-realist era, perhaps because writers no longer believed in the objective and stable reality about which they wrote; instead, they described subjective realities related to individual consciousness and perception. Unamuno's choice to question the narrator's authority and employ metafiction forces the reader to think about the relationship between fiction and reality in a time of political and social upheaval. Many critics of Unamuno's works claim that San Manuel Bueno, martir is an accurate representation of his own beliefs about the truth of life and religion, but he stated in one of his most famous statements that everyone should at all costs face the miserable fact of our mortal existence, even if it means sacrificing our happiness.[10] While Don Manuel wants to keep people ignorant because it means they can lead their lives in contentment, Unamuno has dedicated much of his life and work to shaking his readers out of their complacency and force, not only to confront the tragic nature of humanity. condition, but also to question the fictional truth that they 1930.