In the Carpenter’s Pencil, Herbal, a Nationalist guard, narrates the traumatic story of the Civil War through the account of a Republican doctor, Daniel Da Barcas, to Maria Davisitaçåo, a Portuguese-speaking African prostitute. This narrative counteracts the Spanish collective memory of rebel Galicia (Hirsch, 109) by vindicating the memory of Galician resistance, it also fuels the collective memory of Republican values as progressive and enlightened and Nationalists ones as conservative and ruthless, while at the same time providing an alternative to the collective memory of the triumphant Rebels through illustrating some of the atrocities committed by the Nationalists against the Republicans in Galicia, and the consequent guilt that some Rebels …show more content…
Herbal was guilty of the atrocities he committed against the Republicans during the war, and this is exemplified through the use of the first person narrative and the haunting motif. To illustrate, the first person narrative provides insight into Herbal’s psychology, whose only chance of exercising any agency seems to be to do the dirty work of the Nationalists (Labanyi, 104-105). It can be seen at the ending that Herbal is relieved of the guilt he felt, once he told the story to Maria Davisitaçåo and gave her the carpenter’s pencil, and tells Death that he is ready to die (Rivas, …show more content…
It is not until Herbal successfully narrativitizes the traumatic event and discharges his guilt by telling the story to Maria Davisitaçåo (healing effect) that he is ready to die (Rivas, 166)(Labanyi, 106). This means that Death (the present) haunts him but he is not ready to die because he transmitted the knowledge of the Civil War (the past) to someone else. Also, there are other haunting elements in the book like the Painter through the Carpenter’s pencil that Herbal. Again, in the ending, once Herbal has finalized telling the account about this traumatic past, the Painter tells him to gift the pencil to Maria Davisitaçåo (Rivas, 165). The Painter has been haunting Herbal ever since he killed him and kept the pencil, and it is not until Herbal completes telling the story that the Painter stops haunting him. It is seen that the present is not separated from the past, because even though Herbal’s haunting stops, through the gifting of the Pencil and the sharing of this narrative it is expected that Maria will continue transmitting the knowledge of the traumatic event to others, a form of postmemory (Hirsch, 103). The haunting motif along with the first person narration allow for Rivas to question the idea that all Nationalists were elated about their acts and their victory, as it is remembered in the Spanish collective memory of the
Teja, Jesus F. De La. A Revolution Remembered: The Memoirs and Selected Correspondence of Juan N. Seguin. Austin: State House Press, 1991.
In “The Tell-Tale Heart” and “The Cask of the Amontillado’ Montresor and the unknown narrator are both murders through their confessions they reveal both their similarities and differences. The unknown narrator is trying to convince the auditor of his sanity while Montresor is attempting to convince the auditor of justifiable revenge. It is through these confessions they are trying to convince the auditor of their humanity and of their innocence through the justification of these horrible acts (Dern 53).
The character of Demetrio Macias proves to be quite ironic. One facet of his character reveals his determination to find Pancho Villa’s army, while the other side of his character parallels the extraordinary qualities Pancho Villa had as a hero. People viewed Pancho Villa as a revered hero who pushed out foreign "proprietors" and fought for the common man. On one hand, there is the compassionate man who helped those in need and rescued orphans providing them with food, education, and a home. On the other hand, there was the ferocious general who destroyed villages and killed innocent victims. Villa was generous and helpful to his followers, of which he insisted on loyalty and trust, but to those who violated his trust and authority, he was merciless and cruel. We can clearly see the similarities of these two leaders when we analyze their noble actions. Demetrio’s reluctance to stop ...
In “The Cask of Amontillado,” the narrator shows the reader a lot about how he feels and his thoughts. In the
Demetria Martínez’s Mother Tongue is divided into five sections and an epilogue. The first three parts of the text present Mary/ María’s, the narrator, recollection of the time when she was nineteen and met José Luis, a refuge from El Salvador, for the first time. The forth and fifth parts, chronologically, go back to her tragic experience when she was seven years old and then her trip to El Salvador with her son, the fruit of her romance with José Luis, twenty years after she met José Luis. And finally the epilogue consists a letter from José Luis to Mary/ María after her trip to El Salvador. The essay traces the development of Mother Tongue’s principal protagonists, María/ Mary. With a close reading of the text, I argue how the forth chapter, namely the domestic abuse scene, functions as a pivotal point in the Mother Tongue as it helps her to define herself.
The book The Squatter and the Don was written under such a political and social background, therefore, this book is considered as one that carries political colors and that is similar to Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Actually, through reading The Squatter and the Don, it is not difficult to find out that Ruiz de Burton was trying to challenge the social borderlines of her time and place through her application of political illumination and her integration of historical
I was surprised that I knew this all by myself, without my mother there. And that night in bed, I did not cry. I said to myself, "Salamanca Tree Hiddle, you can be happy without her." It seemed like a mean thought and I was sorry for it, but it felt true. (7.14) page 38
“It was a large, beautiful room, rich and picturesque in the soft, dim light which the maid had turned low. She went and stood at an open window and looked out upon the deep tangle of the garden below. All the mystery and witchery of the night seemed to have gathered there amid the perfumes and the dusky and tortuous outlines of flowers and foliage. She was seeking herself and finding herself in just such sweet half-darkness which met her moods. But the voices were not soothing that came to her from the darkness and the sky above and the stars. They jeered and sounded mourning notes without promise, devoid even of hope. She turned back into the room and began to walk to and fro, down its whole length, without stopping, without resting. She carried in her hands a thin handkerchief, which she tore into ribbons, rolled into a ball, and flung from her. Once she stopped, and taking off her wedding ring, flung it upon the carpet. When she saw it lying there she stamped her heel upon it, striving to crush it. But her small boot heel did not make an indenture, not a mark upon the glittering circlet.
In a psychological perspective, the author’s life is linked with the behavior and motivations of characters in the story. The author’s name is Edgar Allan’s Poe who portrayed his self in his writing. The miserable life of Poe can be measured through “The Cask of Amontillado” in which character named “Montressor” showed indifferent feeling towards his victim. After burying Fortunado alive, Montressor felt bad after burying his victim alive but then he attributes the feeling of guilt to the damp catacombs. To the character and to the author, it seems that ghastly nature murder and the immoral approach of treachery is merely an element of reality. This story is a true representation of author’s anguish and torment nature.
When this story is viewed through Sigmund Freud’s “psychoanalytic lens” the novel reveals itself as much more than just another gory war novel. According to Sigmund Freud psychology there are three parts of the mind that control a person’s actions which are the id, ego, and superego. Psychoanalysis states that there are three parts of the human mind, both conscious and subconscious, that control a person’s actions. The Id, ego, and
In “The Fortune Teller,” the author, Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis, uses symbolism to prove to one that an affair is not worth a person’s life. He uses the letter to symbolize hate between Villela and Camillo regarding the affair. This very ambiguous letter has terrified Camillo and put an end to his life. The letter enhances the theme of the short story by showing the anger and hate that Villela now had for Camillo. This hate is a focal point in the short story that leads to ending the affair along with Camillo and Rita’s life. Ultimately, the affair caused a large amount of tension between the three. However, the author was successful in grabbing the reader’s attention with the letter as the turning point of the short story.
A lovely tranquil story of a child getting manipulated pushed onto the path of murder, caused by an all-knowing supernatural being. Taking place in the woods, the woods a desolate and hopeless void, as Goethe puts it, “a young girl would go into the wood as trustingly as Red Riding Hood to her granny's house but this light admits of no ambiguities and, here, she will be trapped in her own illusion because everything in the wood is exactly as it seems.” Although receiving a warning early on the child still enters the woods, the Erl-King lures them an irresistible temptation that draws them in. The child trusts the Erl-King and even goes into their house, as she puts it, “the room is musical and aromatic and there is always a wood fire crackling in the grate, a sweet, acrid smoke, a bright, glancing flame.” The Erl-King strips her of her clothing, “skin the rabbit,” making love to him.
Afterwards, the reader senses Elisa’s shame and her guilt. She was very distraught over the fact that she had given herself to another man. After the man in the wagon left, she ran inside and immediately took a bath, scrubbing herself raw in a vain hope of erasing all evidence of her front of them. Elisa sees that the man has thrown her chrysanthemums out of the wagon, but kept the red pot she had put them in. He took advantage of her and played her for a fool. Once again he got what he wanted and threw away what he did not need.
José Maria Eça de Queirós, though not worldly renowned, is arguably the greatest Portuguese novelist of his time. In 1877, he wrote a novel titled “The Tragedy of the Street of Flowers” (“The Tragedy”); however, it was not published until many years following his death. The novel is a tragic love story about a cocotte (prostitute) named Genoveva de Molineux and a lawyer named Vítor da Silva. The story follows the love between these two individuals which ultimately leads to the death of Genoveva. When first appearing in the orchestra audience in Lisbon, every man was attached to her beauty and wanted to know her. Vítor falls in love with Genoveva at first sight without previous knowledge that she is a high-class prostitute. However, the tragedy begins when Genoveva is told by Vítor’s uncle, Timóteo, that Vítor is her son. Unable to cope with what she had just learned, Genoveva commits suicide; neither herself nor Timóteo disclose the truth to Vítor. When asked about the novel, Eça had stated that it is a cruel story, one of the best he had yet written (at that time) and “a real literary and moral bombshell” (Queiroz, preface, ¶ 3-4). “...nineteenth century writers knew that incest in Greek Tragedy represented the protagonist’s hopeless fight against fate. Finding a close correspondence with contemporary Lisbon society, aimlessly debating political, economic and social problems, unable to control the nation’s destiny, does not require a great stretch of the imagination” (Ponte 79).
Life in Mexico was, before the Revolution, defined by the figure of the patron that held all of power in a certain area. Juan Preciado, who was born in an urban city outside of Comala, “came to Comala because [he] had been told that [his] father, a man named Pedro Paramo lived there” (1). He initially was unaware of the general dislike that his father was subjected to in that area of Mexico. Pedro was regarded as “[l]iving bile” (1) by the people that still inhabited Comala, a classification that Juan did not expect. This reveals that it was not known by those outside of the patron’s dominion of the cruel abuse that they levied upon their people. Pedro Paramo held...