Musings on Romance de lobos

I don't know if this makes sense, but I tend to project my interests and beliefs on the works that I'm reading. Whenever I read something, I focus first on the humor and enjoyment aspect before anything else, which might not be the best thing for a graduate student in Spanish literature who should be suffering, questioning everything, having a critical and engaged experience with the words on the page...I'd rather laugh and have fun. But once I get past that and realize you can't just say I liked that book, it's good, it's funny, uh uh., I decide to focus more. However, I find it hard to not either project my social beliefs on a work nor is it easy to take what I've read and see the bigger picture, how it fits into the larger picture of the author's production, time period, history, genre, metaphors, symbols, and to see the differences and similarities with past writers/works. One issue I have is paying attention to the plot and argument more than the formal aspects; I like good stories. So one thing I need to improve upon is taking a work, drawing a larger conceptual map and then supporting that theoretical scaffolding with concise, specific examples from the works that I'm reading.
Romance de lobos can be one of those works; I cannot read VI's works without first thinking about the consistent employment of grotesque elements...the dead Indian child eaten by pigs in Tirano Banderas, Max Estrella dying on the street, cold, alone, his friend robbing his winning lottery ticket, the need to test and see if he's really dead by burning his toe, and I'd say that there are a lot of grotesque images and actions in Romance de lobos. The sons fight over their inheritance while their just dead mother Maria's body is upstairs. Tended by two women, one woman has sewed her a mortaje without fixing the hems (because it's not like she's going to a dance) and then cutting it in half to put it on her. Maria's face is bloated and blue. One son is a priest, who neglects to say the prayers and take care of his Christian duties regarding his mother. On the contrary, he is obsessed with who took the valuable silverware; later we see him climbing into the chapel where her body has been laid and proceeds to steal the sacred cups. There is a constant bombardment of discomforting and grotesque images.
It is important to note the critic Kaiser's definition of the grotesque: 'estrangement from the real'. If we agree with Kaiser, entering into an unknown world is the grotesque. From the very moment the play begins, the atmosphere is uncomfortable and unknown. Our horseman is drunk, returning from the feria which is a wink at the Carnaval/grotesque; there is a terrible storm; he falls off his horse, is lifted through the air and then is immediately confronted by the Santa Campana, a funeral procession. Its surreal qualities jolt Montenegro; there is a river the size of a lake that symbolizes the River Styx, they are building a bridge between life and death, and on the other bank is a burial, which he assumes to be of his wife, Maria. The witches of the procession turn into bats and fly away, and Montenegro is returned to 'reality' to flee back to his house in the storm.
Given the extent of the grosteque, it is hard to take seriously the reading of this work as only the Catholic Redemption of a devil sinner, the patriarch of the Montenegro family. Undoubtedly this is a valid reading, but not alone. It does not take into consideration the historically symbolic role of this novel/play, nor does it allow for the generic experimentation (is it a dialogued novel, a hybrid novel/play) nor the abundance of grotesque elements.
What is the historical occurrence equivalent to the plot of this novel? Decay of traditional values, great men, to avarious greedy animals. It mirrors the downfall of Spain, especially in the 19th century, and the attempt to unearth the reasons behind its decadence. Montenegro refers many times to the greatness of his family lineage, full of great capitans and saints. However, it is evident that this greatness did not trickle down to his sons; rather, they are animalistic, barbaric, brutal wolves, Cains, ravens. Where did this deformation of lineage come from? It does not come from the outside (of Spain or Montenegro). Nowhere does Valle-Inclan blame French ideas or foreign intereference.
Lost my train of thought...