Petén Department
and Negrura. The protagonists of the novel represent the socially stratified culture of Guatemala in the middle of the 20th century. The novel presents Petén as an isolated and vulnerable part of Guatemala. The work may be seen as an allegory of the incorporation of the remote Petén Department into the Guatemalan nation, which was a reaction against an external British threat. Chapter 3 of the work relates the ethnic composition of Guatemala to its regional discussion of Petén, and the history of the Petén department. It also sets out ethnic tension between the Criollo narrator and a Caribbean woman. The territory represented in the novel reflects the incomplete incorporation of the region into the Guatemalan nation and the failure of efforts to modernise the country.