Do You Hear What Rulfo Hears? Auditory Symbolism in El llano en llamas

At a time when cognitive literary scholars and scientists are delving deeper into the relationship between reading and meaning-making, and between reading and the mental simulation of sound, it is worth revisiting the role of the auditory in Juan Rulfo's short fiction. In this study I offer an analysis of the author's symbolic use of sound, especially non-verbal sound, in four stories from El llano en llamas . I argue that Rulfo employs sound as a means of auditory symbolism, frequently overturning accepted symbolic meaning in order to express a profoundly pessimistic vision of human nature and experience.