''¡Adiós, Cordera!'' (1892) is a Spanish

short story A short story is a piece of prose fiction. It can typically be read in a single sitting and focuses on a self-contained incident or series of linked incidents, with the intent of evoking a single effect or mood. The short story is one of the old ...

written by

Leopoldo Alas Leopoldo Enrique García-Alas y Ureña (25 April 1852 – 13 June 1901), also known as Clarín, was a Spanish realist novelist and journalist born in Zamora. His inflammatory articles, known as ''paliques'' (“chitchat”), as well as his a ...

(also known as ''Clarín''). Although the author's works are considered examples of

realism Realism, Realistic, or Realists may refer to: In the arts *Realism (arts), the general attempt to depict subjects truthfully in different forms of the arts Arts movements related to realism include: *American Realism *Classical Realism *Liter ...

or naturalism, many consider him a harbinger of

modernism Modernism was an early 20th-century movement in literature, visual arts, and music that emphasized experimentation, abstraction, and Subjectivity and objectivity (philosophy), subjective experience. Philosophy, politics, architecture, and soc ...

. The story is a

dystopia A dystopia (lit. "bad place") is an imagined world or society in which people lead wretched, dehumanized, fearful lives. It is an imagined place (possibly state) in which everything is unpleasant or bad, typically a totalitarian or environmen ...

n work that deals with the rise of

industrialization Industrialisation (British English, UK) American and British English spelling differences, or industrialization (American English, US) is the period of social and economic change that transforms a human group from an agrarian society into an i ...

and

modernity Modernity, a topic in the humanities and social sciences, is both a historical period (the modern era) and the ensemble of particular Society, socio-Culture, cultural Norm (social), norms, attitudes and practices that arose in the wake of the ...

in Spain.

Plot

The tale centers upon a poor family in rural Spain and the gradual

mechanization Mechanization (or mechanisation) is the process of changing from working largely or exclusively by hand or with animals to doing that work with machinery. In an early engineering text, a machine is defined as follows: In every fields, mechan ...

of their environment. Widower Antón de Chinta and his two young children (Pinín and Rosa) own a cow. The animal, which serves as a representation of the family's deteriorating economic situation, is affectionately called Cordera or lamb, and has become a family pet. The story begins in a

pastoral The pastoral genre of literature, art, or music depicts an idealised form of the shepherd's lifestyle – herding livestock around open areas of land according to the seasons and the changing availability of water and pasture. The target au ...

setting interrupted by a telegraph pole. Soon after, a

railway Rail transport (also known as train transport) is a means of transport using wheeled vehicles running in railway track, tracks, which usually consist of two parallel steel railway track, rails. Rail transport is one of the two primary means of ...

is put through the field, which further ruptures the tranquility of the bucolic countryside and foreshadows the ending of the tale. Eventually the family's economic situation forces the father to sell the cow, which is taken away on the train for slaughter and gives the work its name. Years later, Pinín is drafted to fight in the war and departs on the same train as the cow, an act that implies his future death. At the same time, it implies that the slaughter of innocents is a result of modernity and the city's expansion into rural areas.

References

1892 short stories Spanish short stories Works by Leopoldo Alas {{1890s-story-stub