Ashes of Izalco, by Claribel Alegria and her husband Darwin Flakoll (1989), recounts the state sponsored massacre of over 30,000 indigenous peoples during the early 1930s in what was known as ôLa Mantanzaö (ôThe Slaughterö). Seen from the perspective of Carmen Rojas, the daughter of wealthy parents; Frank, an American ex-patriot; and Paul, a symbol of American democracy, the story brings to light the social, economic and political injustice of El Salvador. El Salvador is symbolized as a small but violent ôVolcano,ö waiting to erupt in Ashes of Izalco (Alegria and Flakoll 34). Alegria, from a privileged family who grew up in western Salvador, focuses on social, economic and political injustice in her works. As one literary critique says of her, she is of ôThat current known among literary circles as æla generacion comprometidaÆ (the Committed Generation). The ægeneracion comprometidaÆ was born out of a drive by the intellectual sectors of the middle and upper classes to achieve social and political justice for their less privileged countrymenö (About 1-2). This essay will illustrate my perceptions on various aspects of the novel pertaining to social, economic and political injustice.
We see various aspects of social injustice in Ashes of Izalco. We see that Carmen and her parents are from the upper class. CarmenÆs parents exhibit values that stem from outside influences, not those common to the indigenous peoples of El Salvador. While her father understands socio-economic and political injustice due to his experiences in Nicaragua, the Rojas family is still defined by and defines others by their class position in society. CarmenÆs father will still fight for the peasants when treated unfairly, but her mother would rather escape from the shadow of the violent Volcano that is El Salvador through books by foreign writers. Mrs. Rojas seems completely unmoved by
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