The Bad Girl

Style and Technique

Mario Vargas Llosa’s style in «The Bad Girl» is marked by refined simplicity and subtle irony, where every word is filled with hidden meaning and emotional depth. The language of the novel is flexible and vivid: the author masterfully combines concise dialogues with rich descriptions, creating an atmosphere of eternal searching and elusive longing. Llosa skillfully uses interior monologue, allowing the reader to penetrate the most intimate corners of the protagonist’s soul, while the alternation of narrative perspectives gives the novel a special dynamism. Literary devices—from allusions to classical literature to nuanced psychological portraits—serve not only to reveal character but also to create a multilayered canvas where personal history intertwines with the history of the era. The structure of the work is built as a series of meetings and partings, where recurring motifs become a refrain, emphasizing the constancy of human passions and the illusory nature of happiness. In this novel, Llosa achieves a remarkable balance between passion and irony, between lyricism and the harsh truth of life.