Christopher Columbus s `` The Harp And The Shadow `` Essay

For many centuries, Christopher Columbus has been portrayed as a hero who founded America. As many may discover, later in life, Christopher Columbus can be considered to be the head of a mass genocide. Alejo Carpentier’s novel, The Harp and the Shadow, shines light on the evils of Christopher Columbus with a fictional twist. Victoria Chase states, â€Å"Carpentier combines an Old World perspective, formed by tradition, expectation and necessity, with a decidedly New World sense of its origin and history† (Chase 28). This paper will examine despite what Christopher Columbus was famed to be, he is demythologized by Alejo Carpentier’s novel when the true side of Columbus is exposed. Alejo Carpentier writes this new historical novel for a reason: â€Å"These novels have as a unique feature: their closeness to the events described in the chronicles of the Indies. It has been their purpose to preserve what was already told thru conquest documents, yet making subtle va riations to reinforce their agendas† (Atia 42). Many point out that Carpentier wrote this novel because of his political visions of the time, â€Å"His writings were by and a large notable critique of bourgeois society and Western civilization. The Harp and the Shadow provides sufficient evidence of that intellectual attitude in his passionate condemnation of colonialism and the imposition of bourgeois values in the new continent† (Atia 22-23). Carpentier demythologized Columbus because of these reasons. He begins â€Å"The Hand†