From reflection to deception : Martín Morúa Delgado's narrative series : Sofía and La familia Unzúazu

From Reflection to Deception examines the circumstances surrounding the mulata and mulatto in nineteenth-century Cuba. In Chapter One, this analysis argues that Martín Morúa Delgado inverts the paradigm of the literary tradition of narratives about the theme of slavery; he reveals that the tradition is not about realism, but rather artifice. By highlighting a subjective rather than objective narrator, Morúa simultaneously draws attention to the process of writing and the construction of "truths" in a context in which white elite men have controlled access to power and even the imagination. In Chapters Two and Three, this analysis shows how Morúa inverts the social paradigms that apply to mulatas and mulattos and instead applies them to whites. In doing so, he reveals the hypocrisy underlying the prevailing beliefs surrounding the situation of mulatas and mulattos in nineteenth-century Cuba. With Morúa's inversions, he demonstrates that mulata and mulatto representations are social constructions and in short reveals that race and gender are constructed to support the economic and social needs of the nineteenth- century Cuban landowners. By presenting deception as a reflection of reality, Morúa creates a consciousness of perspective whereby he challenges the social structure upon which much of nineteenth-century Cuban society is based.