The Life of Lazarillo de Tormes

The story is told in the first person by Lázaro de Tormes a boy of humble origins who recounts his life from childhood to adulthood. Lázaro is the son of a poor miller and a washerwoman and his early life is marked by hardship and poverty. After his father dies his mother remarries and Lázaro is eventually given as a servant to a blind beggar. Throughout the novella Lázaro serves a series of masters each more corrupt and morally dubious than the last. These include the blind beggar a miserly priest and a hypocritical nobleman. Lázaro learns to survive by his wits often resorting to clever tricks and deceptions to feed himself and avoid punishment. The novella is a sharp social satire exposing the hypocrisy and corruption of various figures of authority in 16th-century Spain. It is a critique of the rigid class structures and the moral decay of society as seen through the eyes of a resourceful but downtrodden protagonist.