52
represented Summer Institute of Linguistics to ask if Tower of Babel would give a space for the institute to celebrate their
‗linguist-missionaries‘ in Peru. The narrator did not feel any hesitation when he was offered the chance since he was
so curious about a mystery he had not yet found the answer related to the Machiguengas Llosa, 1989: 155-156.
The narrator then described when he finally went back to some villages in Amazonian jungle where he had ever been.
Since that trip in mid-1958 when I discovered the Peruvian jungle, I had returned to Amazonia several times: to Iquitos, to San Martín, to the Alto
Marañón, to Madre de Dios, to Tingo María. But I had not been back to Pucallpa. In the twenty-three years that had gone by, that tiny, dusty
village that I remembered as being full of dark, gloomy houses and evangelical churches, had been through an industrial and commercial
―boom,‖ followed by a depression, and now, as Lucho Llosa, Alejandro Pérez, and I landed there one September afternoon in 1981 to film what
was to be the next-to-last program of the Tower of Babel, it was in the first
stages of another ―boom‖ though for bad reasons this time: trafficking in cocaine. The rush of heat and the burning light, in whose embrace people
and things stand out so sharply unlike Lima, where even bright sunlight has a grayish cast, are something that always has the effect on me of an
emulsive draft of enthusiasm Llosa, 1989: 158.
A moment in September 1981 was like a repetition for the narrator to visit
the Amazonian jungle. He described that it was the duration of twenty three years that gave so much changes to the villages he had ever visited in 1958. In addition
to the use of 1981 as a time in which the narrator could go back to Amazonian jungle, this year is also significant to explain that it was the time when he could
finally get a chance to get in touch again with his research about Machiguenga storyteller called hablador.
Ever since my unsuccessful attempts in the early sixties at writing about the Machiguenga storytellers, the subject had never been far from my
53
mind. It returned every now and then, like an old love, not quite dead coals yet, whose embers would suddenly burst into flame Llosa, 1989: 156.
The research was very important for him since he finally decided to work
with that again after his failure in the early sixties. Apparently his curiosity about Machiguenga storyteller, hablador, is what finally led him to get the information
about his best friend, Saúl Zuratas. After spending years to long for the explanation about mysterious Machiguenga storyteller, his visit again to
Amazonian jungle in 1981 finally turned his curiosity into a feeling of suspicious that the figure was his own best friend, Saúl Zuratas Llosa, 1989: 181-185.
Thus, the overall setting of time in 1981 is telling about the narrator‘s going back to Peru and his six months working for a television channel.
Apparently, his decision to work organizing one of the programs in that channel gave him a chance to visit Amazonian jungle again. This visit finally answered his
curiosity about a figure of Machiguenga storyteller that he had longed since 1960s.
The setting of time in the novel is then continued with the period of 1985, four years after his visit to Amazonian jungle in 1981. At the beginning of the
discussion about setting of time in The Storyteller, it is explained that this is a flashback story which its first part is in the recent time. In this setting of time, the
story is put back in its most recent time. The beginning of the story describes that the narrator was in Firenze when
he started to recall and tell his story from 1950s until 1981. In the end of the story, the setting is put back in Firenze. This signifies that moments in Firenze described
54
in the beginning and the end of the story are the setting of time at which the narrator retold his flashback story.
This flashback story was retold in a frame of 1985 and the narrator did that in a way of writing it. It is proven in the last chapter when the narrator said that
the thing that made him write the story was his best friend figure, Saúl Zuratas. Where I find it impossible to follow him―an insuperable difficulty that
pains and frustrate s me―is in the next stage: the transformation of the
convert into the storyteller. It is this facet of Saúl‘s story, naturally, that moves me most; it is what makes me think of it continually and weave and
unweave it a thousand times; it is what has impelled me to put it into writing in the hope that if I do so, it will cease to haunt me Llosa, 1989:
243-244. It explains how the narrator rearranged the story. So as to close this
flashback story, he enclose the place and date where and when he arranged the story.
He wrote ‗Firenze, July 1985‘ and ‗London, May 13, 1987,‘ Llosa, 1989: 246.
Although he wrote also ‗London, May 13, 1987‘, it seems that the setting was put mostly in Firenze in 1985. It seems so because the enclosing of ‗London,
May 13, 1987‘ did not come along with the description of London or year of 1987 in the story. The last chapter decribes only a moment in Firenze at which the
narrator wrote the story, ‗―in the period in which this Firenze, where I am writing, produced its dazzling effervescence of ideas, paintings, buildings crimes,
and intrigues―,‘ Llosa, 1989: 244. Thus, the setting of time of this story covers four periods: 1950s, 1960s,
1970s, and 1980s. The period of 1950s functions as a period at which the narrator deals with his college life especially his bachelor degree. The period of 1960s and
1970s explains his entering postgraduate and his being away from his country. In
55
1980s, the narrator went back to his country and did some programs on a television channel and research about Machiguenga. Along with his returning
back to Peru, this decade also explains when he went outside again from his country, to Firenze. The period of 1980s is significant because it is the setting of
time at which the narrator rearranged his story from 1950s until 1980s. Thus, the period of 1980s covers the whole setting of time in the story.
3. Setting of Social Circumstance
The writer focuses the analyses of the setting of social circumstances on the discussion of the condition of social dynamics among the Peruvian societies
depicted in the story. Some societies with their characteristics described in the story are discussed along with the dynamics of lives they undergo. How they live
side by side along with so many different characteristics that can stimulate conflicts among them is the focus of this discussion. Thus, the writer analyzes the
setting of social circumstances in a way of mentioning some Peruvian societies in the story and analyzing how they are depicted.
a. The Whites and Mestizos
Some people indicated as whites and mestizos were mentioned in the story. The mentioning of those considered as white and meztizos does not come
along with specific description of their characteristics nor where they come from, though. They appear in the story as part of the development of the conflicts.
The whites and mestizos appear in the story in the second chapter. They are actually described differently but they often appear together especially when
56
the narrator described the conflicts among the societies. Whites and mestizos in the story are often described as people who cause destruction to Peruvian nature
and the lives of indigenous people. The description of these societies and their dynamics are first mentioned in
the second chapter. The first description is about the mestizos. Mestizo describes a person whose one of the parents is a white and another is a native. It is depicted in
a figure named Fidel Pereira. It is a man Saúl Zuratas met when he visited Quillabamba.
Meeting the legendary Fidel Pereira, for instance, the son of a white man from Cusco and a Machiguenga woman, he was a mixture of feudal lord
and aboriginal cacique. In the last third of the nineteenth century a man from a good Cusco family, fleeing from the law, went deep into those
forests, where the Machiguengas had sheltered him. He had married a woman of the tribe. His son, Fidel, lived astride the two cultures, acting
like a white when with whites and like Machiguenga when with Machiguengas Llosa, 1989: 18.
The quotation describes that Fidel Pereira was a son from a man from white society and his mother was a Machiguenga, one of Peruvian indigenous
communities. For the fact that he was born mixed blood, he was considered as mestizo. He and his descendants were called mestizos as explained in a moment
when the narrator told that Saúl Zuratas made posters of anti dynamite-fishing and addressed them to the whites and mestizos. To explain who are the mestizos he
refers to, the narrator mentioned, ‗―the children, grandchildren, nephews, bastards,
and stepsons of Fidel Pereira―,‘ Llosa, 1989: 19. Mestizo
is also known as ‗creole‘ because creole, as well as mestizo, refers to the mixed blood descendants. This is explained in the conversation between the
narrator and Saúl Zuratas about Fidel Pereira. During his arguing that modernity
57
should not be a way to educate the indigenous communities, he questioned if it was good to ‗civilize‘ the natives in a way of employing them as slaves for the
Creoles. ‗By putting them to work on the farms as slaves to Creoles like Fidel Pereira?‘ Llosa, 1989: 26. This shows that the man named Fidel Pereira who
was born mixed blood was described not only with the term ‗mestizo‘ but also ‗creole.‘
The mentioning of creole is also seen from the description of Saúl Zurata s‘
mother. ‗My mother was a Creole from Talara; the old man took up with her soon after coming to this country as a refugee,‘ Llosa, 1989: 10. Saúl said that during
his conversation with the narrator when they were at his house. The word ‗Creole‘
describes that his mother was mixed blood. As well as ‗mestizo‘ which can also be called ‗creole‘, the white people
also have their popular name among Peruvian society. The whites are also known as ‗gringos.‘ Although the whites and gringos refer to the same people, they are
used differently among the societies. Since ‗gringos‘ is a term coming from
Spanish-speaking society, in the story it is always used by Peruvian societies. The term ‗gringos‘ is described in the fourth chapter when the narrator
was about going to an expedition to Amazonian jungle. The expedition was conducted by Summer Institute of Linguistics. The institute itself was established
by American linguists who wanted to study the languages and dialects among the communities dwelling nearby the Amazon. There were many controversies and
criticism addressed to the institute since it was considered as a form of American imperialism. Along with the controversies and criticism toward the institute, one
58
of the narrator‘s lecturers seemed to warn him for the expedition he wanted to follow.
A number of conservatives disapprove of the presence of the Institute in Peru for nationalist and Hispanist reasons. Among these latter was my
professor and academic adviser back in those days, the historian Porras Barrenechea, who, when he heard that I was going on that expedition,
solemnly cautioned me: ―Be careful. Those gringos will try to buy you.‖ He couldn‘t bear the thought that, because of the Institute, the jungle
Indians would probably learn to speak English before they did Spanish Llosa, 1989: 71.
It can be seen that the narrator‘s professor was using the term ‗gringos‘ to refer to some people. The people he referred were finally revealed when he said
that it might happen that the Indians would study English earlier than studying Spanish.
It explains that ‗gringos‘ refers to those speaking English and they were American linguists.
The term ‗whites‘ or ‗gringos‘ then appeared again when the narrator finally underwent the expedition with the institute. The whites were mentioned
several times along with the mestizos in this moment. During the expedition, the narrator learned some problems faced by the indigenous communities which were
related by the whites and mestizos. He found out by himself that the Peruvian indigenous communities were
slowly exploited by modernity which his friend, Saúl, described as destruction. The whites and mestizos in this moment were mentioned as the societies bringing
the modernity influences. It is described when the narrator visited Urakusa, a village of Aguaruna community. He and some friends who joined the expedition
met a cacique, leader of the indigenous community, who had just been getting an incident. The cacique, whose name was Jum, was chosen to be educated in
59
Yarinacocha where the base camp of Summer Institute of Linguistics gave the education for literacy.
Apparently Jum‘s coming to Yarinacocha was a chance for the whites and mestiz
os to get materials for trading. ‗These bosses, whites or Amazonian mestizos, periodically visited the tribes to buy rubber and animal
skins.‘ Due to his realizing that he and his people were being exploited, he decided not to sell the materials to them. For he was considered as denying the
contract, Jum was tortured by the whites and mestizos. A par
ty of whites and mestizos from Santa Maria de Nieva−a trading post on the banks of the Nieva River that we had also visited, put up in a
Catholic mission−had arrived in Urakusa, beat up all the Indians they could lay their hands on, and raped several women. They carried Jum off
to Santa Maria de Nieva, where they submitted him to the indignity of having his hair cut off. Then they tortured him in public Llosa, 1989: 74.
This moment when the narrator visited Amazonian jungle for the expedition reveals that the whites and mestizos are described through their
relation to the indigenous communities. Almost all of the description of the whites and mestizos in the story were about their conflicts with the natives.
b. Indigenous People
The indigenous people described in Peruvian society were the Indians. They are communities scattered through Amazonian jungle. There were various
groups of Indians in Peruvian society. Some of them were named by the language they speak.
In the story, some Indian groups are mentioned and described. At least four groups are depicted. They are Aguarunas and Huambisas, Shapras, and
