The protagonist is Augusto Perez, young, rich, professional—and totally indecisive and lost. He is an only child and when his widowed mother dies, Augusto does not know what to do with his life. To give direction to his life, Augusto pursues a piano-teacher, Eugenia Domingo del Arco, and begins to woo her, but she rejects him because she has a boyfriend whom she adores.
Augusto befriends Rosario, one of the maids of Eugenia; in his conversations with Rosario and his servants, Domingo and Liduvina, he wants to learn whether women have souls and if you can trust them. As an experiment, Augusto Eugenia asks her to marry him to see how he would respond. Eugenia, who at the time had a fight with her boyfriend Mauricio decides to accept his marriage proposal. Little did Augusto know that he was going to be victimized.
After his deep disappointment with Eugenia, Augusto contemplates suicide. But before doing so, he decides to go to Salamanca to see Don Miguel de Unamuno. During his visit, the writer tells Augusto that does not exist, it's just a fictional character in his book and is destined to die, not suicide. Augusto argues with Don Miguel-who plays the role of God in the life of the character as author of the book, and begged him not to kill him. Augusto returns home very confused and dies there next to his dog Orfeo. It is not known if Augustus Don Miguel killed or killed him. Victor says in the preface that Augustus committed suicide. Unamuno says in the post-prologue that he decreed the death of Augustus.
Topics:
In addition to the theme of Hispanicism, Unamuno deals with immortality, the inadequacy of man, existentialism, the equality (or inequality) of women, meta-fiction, and the confrontation between reality and fiction.
Structure and Style:
Monologues and dialogues predominate, underpinned by an omniscient narrator, and finally by the author himself who unceremoniously inserts himself into the fiction. There is very little description, which should not be surprising as Unamuno's prose is distinguished by the lack of description, in contrast to the modernist narrative, which is detailed and full of dense panoramic presentations.
Mist, to use the post-modern jargon, is 'interactive' because it forces the reader to interpret certain acts of the characters. The end of the novel is 'open' because the death of Augustus is not only ambiguous, but also undetermined, without closure.
The work consists of 33 chapters, a preface, a post-prologue and an epilogue. In the manner of Cervantes, includes five stories interspersed.
Victor Goti, a character and friend of Augusto's, is the author of the prologue. The epilogue was written by the dog Orfeo.