Village By Estela Portillo Summary

Patriotism refers to an individual’s action and supportive attitudes to the motherland. It focuses on people’s spirit of sacrifice to defend the motherland independence and justice maintenance. The story of “Village” by Estela Portillo tells how a Mexican American soldier, Rico, fighting in the war, and when he received an order to destroy the village, his morals are not compromised. It could be seen that Rico is patriotic because he loves people, he has dauntless spirits in the face of danger and he is reason enough to make the right decision.

To begin with, Rico’s patriotism is reflected in his performance of protecting the village and villagers. In the story, the author uses some words to describing Rico’s psychological changes, such as “He had been cautioned”(177), “ The people didn’t matter”(177), and “how many of these villages had been bulldozed? ” (177). It illustrates that when Rico sees numerous villages have been brutally bulldozed by gunfire, he naturally thought of his hometown-Valverde, which looks same as Mai Cao. When he finds a

When the sergeant Keever ordered Rico to destroy the village, Rico keeps his reason and disobeyed. He knows the village is wrongly judged as the enemy. He knows it is a risk to stop the signal. He even knows he will lose his status in the military. Even so, his moral and reason tells him not to compromise. In order to protect the village, he turns the shot to another angle-the sergeant's arm. From here on, he is not a “soldier” in eyes of others. Just as Harry says, “You’re no soldier. You’ll never be a soldier” (182). However, he is “free inside” (182), and he is happy and satisfied with what he has done. No matter whether he was understood by comrades, he just does what he thought is right. It is shown that Rico’s faith of fighting for rightness reflects his patriotic spirit of making a justice and peaceful