Guzman de Alfarache and the Machinery of Justice

Abstract

This article will analyze the relationship between justice, law, and the construction of identity in Mateo Aleman’s Guzman de Alfarache (2°, II, 3-5). The selected chapters show two ways of symbolic configuration which produce the social being: the event (crime and subjection to the law) and the infinite chain of sorrow that comes with it. Exploring the logic behind justice and law will illuminate the ways a society thinks about the statuo quo and whom are condemned to its marginal positions.