Rulfo's fiction can be read as a series of ‘centripetally-efficient’ works of irony but his allusions to context through centrifugal irony are given a heuristically useful framework in the form of postcolonial theory, which emphasises the urgency of analysing fictional narratives within the context of political projects of economic and cultural dominance. Postcolonial Studies has not yet dealt adequately with the benefits and limitations of its application to Latin American cultures partly because its growth as a field was related principally to the legacy of British and French empires. One could argue, of course, that Latin American Studies has always dealt with the issues addressed by this field but many concepts, such as Bhabha's ‘mimicry’, (colonial) ‘fetish’ and ‘ambivalence’, have not yet been applied directly to Latin American culture in any systematic way. This study represents a partial attempt to meet this challenge but the task is made much easier by Rulfo's irony. This irony creates a relationship between the writer, the characters, and the reader which facilitates a greater understanding between Self and Other, Coloniser and Colonised, West and non-West.

The irony works because Rulfo is economical to the point of self-effacement. As Self, he suppresses his objectivising voice to inflict a Barthesian ‘suicide’, thus enabling the subjective response of his characters, his Other. There is much evidence in the original manuscripts that the restraining of the authorial voice was a painstaking process involving brutal editing. Rulfo admits as much: