Asterisk denotes entries on real places.
*Llano
Altamira (ahl-tah-MEER-ah). Ranch on which Santos grows up and to which he returns after completing his university studies. Santos maintains an ambivalent relationship with his family estate. When he returns to Altamira, he finds it overgrown with neglect and thinks about selling it. Soon, however, he learns of Doña Bárbara’s underhanded schemes to cheat him out of his property, and decides to stay and put up a fight. Resolving to end the dispute by civilized means, he attempts to defend his claim legally, through the courts. Meanwhile, he struggles to tame the wild savanna, as well as stem Doña Bárbara’s greed. Eventually, he puts up a fence to mark the border of his property. Santos’s ultimate triumph over Doña Bárbara represents a victory for civilization over barbarism. In Spanish, Altamira signifies highmindedness. In the novel, the law prevails over unbridled power.
El Miedo (ehl mee-AY-doh). Ranch owned by the Luzardo family’s rival, the Barquero family, until Doña Bárbara, a beautiful woman of humble origins and a violent past, swindles Lorenzo Barquero out of its title. Doña Bárbara–whose name resembles the Spanish word for barbarism–dabbles in the occult and otherwise takes advantage of the dark forces of nature.
El Miedo, which means “fear” in Spanish, represents the danger and power of barbarism. Where Santos builds a fence to contain his land, Doña Bárbara sets fire to her fields in an attempt to encourage growth. Her ranch hands steal and brand the stray cattle from Santos’s fields and move the boundary posts that mark the division between El Miedo and Altamira. At the end of the novel, Doña Bárbara mysteriously disappears and leaves her estate to her estranged daughter, Marisela. Marisela marries Santos, and El Miedo becomes part of Altamira. Thus, highmindedness, or civilization, triumphs over fear, the ruling principle of barbarism.
*Caracas (kahr-AH-kahs). Capital of Venezuela, to which Santos moves as an adolescent, along with his mother. The two flee the Altamira ranch after Don José’s violent and deadly rage against his eldest son, Felix. In Caracas, which symbolizes civilization, the passions that led to Don José’s and Felix’s deaths are constrained by law and order. At first, Santos finds the city dull and longs to return to the adventures of his childhood in the plains. Soon, however, he embraces the discipline and culture of the city and longs to flee his homeland for the civilization of Europe. In Caracas, Santos studies law and excels at many intellectual pursuits. At the university, he first speaks out against the barbarism of the plains.
Barquero house (bahr-KEH-roh). Dilapidated shack in which Lorenzo, once an ambitious student in Caracas, now lives as a pathetic drunk–another of Doña Bárbara’s victims whose uncivilized dwelling represents the consequence of unchecked barbarism. Once the owner of the Barquero ranch, El Miedo, Lorenzo lives with Marisela, the daughter he had with Doña Bárbara.
The Lick. Stretch of savanna crossing the creek that Lorenzo Barquero sells to Señor Danger, an unscrupulous American capitalist who wants to usurp the fertile plain. He bribes the addicted Lorenzo with liquor.