Alebrijes by Donna Barba Higuera stars Leandro, Gabi, and the people of Pocatel who are stuck in their abhorrently soul-crushing town, where the higher classes step on the cascabels. The book is set to point out the blatant flaws in not only enslaving lower classes but also keeping ethnic groups lower than others based on preconceived notions fueled by stereotypes by putting Leandro in a place where he is shown the flaws and is forced to act for the sake of the Cascabels. The government is oppressive, and violent, and uses propaganda to scare the people into determining the worst of two evils. Either stay in the town of Pocatel and live the cramped life of poverty and oppression, or face the outer walls of the town and deal with the “Wyrms” …show more content…
Leandro, at one point in the book, goes against the older alebrijes to help regrow the plants in La Cuna. This ends in the older Alebrijes (Selah, Rose, Ezra) yelling at the other animals, ripping up the fields to destroy the plants. After Leandro and the other animals convince the older citizens of the group of hiding alebrijes to help, with the support of the older Alebrijes, the plants returned to their former livelihood. This eventually helped out in the Cascabel people's eventual arrival to La Cuna because before, the land was a ruined wasteland, but with the help of planting seeds and refarming plants, Leandro made La Cuna habitable to humans. This also helps Leandro by Selah inviting him to spy on the city and help destroy the dystopian city from the inside out. Quotes that support my claim are on page 225 when Leandro is fretting about the plan and the alebrijes wrath, saying “So, what if we were caught?”. This is justified because earlier in the book the older alebrijes, such as Selah and Ezra said that they would tear the hummingbird version of Leandro apart if he disobeyed …show more content…
We have something most others don’t. Speed and stealth and stealth”. This shares with the audience that Leandro will be let in on a plan in the near future, and will probably help out in taking down the evil regime in Pocatel since Selah, Rose, and Ezra’s whole goal is to take down Pocatel. The warning Alebrijes gives to the reader is to not create such a suppressive environment, and that revolt will always happen when injustice occurs. The entire book is about how exiled children work together using their terrible city’s technology against them, literally fighting against their propaganda (The Wyrms) to defeat the imperator and his followers. As stated before, lies and minor disobedience by even a child lead them to be swiftly exiled. On page 21, the Director (A lower governmental role) states “Lying is also punishable by banishment”, showing the government's cruelty towards the lower class. With such a claustrophobic environment, uproar is bound to happen. The children, the cascabels, and the people who see issues in the system all fight against the upper government by the end of the story, and eventually, all leave. The true cruelty is shown in this book on page 269, when the importer says to a worker who found out a huge discovery “Nathanial Barrett, your service is
It is the small victories along the way that keep pushing Alvarado to not giving up on her dreams. The first is her children and her aspirations to give them a better life. The idea that if she works hard and stands up for what is right, then her children and future generations will prosper from it. Despite it ultimately cutting her off, the church is also a driving force. Once Alvarado got involved with the church, it gave her the ability to surround herself with other motivated individuals. She used the community she gained from the church to continue fighting for what she believed was right. Finally the support she received from lawyers and doctors gave her hope that it was not just the campesinos that were striving for a more equal life, but it was also people from other social classes. In some of Alvarado’s closing words, “I used to think you has to be poor to be part of this struggle. But there are people in Honduras who aren’t poor, yet they’re on out side. They’re well-educated people – doctors, lawyers, teachers, engineers – who identify with the poor (145).” Elvia Alvarado continues to strive for equality for the campesinos because she keeps hope that there are people on her side. There are people in Honduras, there are people in Europe, and there are even people in America, who she believes
Klein, throughout various accounts of U.S. involvement overseas, explains that the U.S. commonly engages in a practice of ‘shock therapy.’ The U.S. brings bloodshed and warfare to foreign nations in order to restructure their economies and governments to serve U.S. interests. In the case of Chile, Klein argues that the U.S., in the midst of Cold War paranoia, wanted to maintain its political and economic hegemony in South America. Washington accordingly whipped the Chilean army into an anti-Allende, anti-communist frenzy, bringing about the bloodshed of ‘the Caravan of Death’ as well as the years of tyrannical military dictatorship. Also significant was the fact that the neoliberal economics implemented in Chile were taught to Chilean economists of the junta by Americans at the University of Chicago.
The movie La Jaula de Oro, is a life story of a journey of three kids from Guatemala to the United States. In the movie there are three kids Sara, Samuel, and Juan, they first embark on the journey through Mexico. When they first arrive to Chiapas, the kids put on a play to collect money for food, after the play Sara befriends this boy named Chauk. Who is an indigenous boy from Tzotzil, and also plans to get to America, and convinces them to come join the group. This group of kids is put through a lot during the film, it’s a very interesting journey for 4 kids to experience. This film shows the struggles and difficulties immigrants succumb and sheds some light into the harsh realities of what people don’t think about when they hear the word
Desert Blood, a book by Alicia Gaspar De Alba, is considered to be a mystery novel that covers a seventeen year crime wave. Specifically, the author has focused on the Juarez femicides issue whereby femicide is defined as the murder of females just because they are women. However, in this case, the Juarez victims are the poor and young Mexican females that were murdered because they were poor. The protagonist of this story is Ivon Villa, a professor that focuses on women studies while the antagonists are Silvia Pasquel, Natalia Stregnard and Zabaleta. This paper will therefore focus on the plot summary and analysis of the novelwhile pinpointing the main parts of the story.
In the reading "El Hoyo" the author Mario Suárez deeply describes the city that he lives in which is Tucson, Arizona. In Tucson, Arizona there is a city known as El Hoyo meaning "the hole" in English; El Hoyo is the exact city where Suárez lived. Suárez conveys to the readers that El Hoyo was not the most beautiful place but it had many advantages to those who resided there. He describes a few advantages of the city such as it being a place to get away from bill collectors, hide from the authorities, receive help and a place of celebration. It was a home for Chicanos from all walk of life. The city has its ups and downs but the passion within environment remained the same. Each family was different, came from all sorts of backgrounds and moved to El Hoyo for different reasons. Although different circumstances brought them together it was one thing every person had in common; they were all Chicanos. That realization alone held El Hoyo and its people together.
Every nation has its cultures, and every culture has its people. Like a clay figure, the people of a culture are inevitably shaped by what makes that culture unique and where it will lead them in a world composed of many different ones. The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros and In The Time Of The Butterflies by Julia Alvarez present two contrasting cultures, one that is depicted through a poor Latino neighborhood in Chicago, and the other on a viciously dictated Spanish island. The roles of men and women along with the importance of an organized church bring with it the image of the residing living condition of the culture, and whether its for the better or worse, the people existing in that culture are a mirror reflection of what that culture is. The vivid expressions of gender roles and the influences of religion in the two extravagantly differing cultural societies in The House on Mango and In The Time Of The Butterflies precisely shaped what became of the characters’ personality and characteristics in their struggling efforts to work their way toward goals and dreams.
The Case of Amontallido 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.
...appear, many undetected rebels will begin to feel alienated and hopeless. It is difficult for them to hope to succeed in an area where so many before them have failed.
Dictatorial leaders would enforce living arrangements of children being taken away from their families because these leaders would want to have a powerful country or society. At a young age these children are being taken away to learn and get ready for a career they will have in the future with no choice about it. The dictatorial leaders like absolute power and always aim for achieving their goals. In Anthem everyone’s career is chosen by the council. The coun...
Cry, the Beloved Country by Alan Paton and Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe both encompass many different aspects of the effects political unrest conveys on society. An entire society does not change easily, and uprooting customs all at once, and replacing them with something unlike customs previously established, does not resonate well with the members of that society. Although an individual can willingly change with little hesitancy, that one person does not represent the whole. On the other hand, when others are introduced to new customs, the transition overwhelms them. The tensions of societal change that the characters of Cry, the Beloved Country and Things Fall Apart confront consist of so-called crimes committed, the environmental circumstances, and their willingness and unwillingness to abide by the new rules.
Maria Alejandrina Cervantes is a rare dominant female in the novel who by society’s standard should be marginalized due to her career and gender but she refuses to conform and chooses to go against her society. She is shown to be headstrong and fiercely protective of her friends and always accepting others. Through his use of situational irony and characterization, Gabriel Garcia Marquez portrays the town’s madam, Maria Alejandrina Cervantes, as a contradictory character and her fight against her society’s restricting beliefs.
To begin with the story “The Censors” by Luisa Valenzuela was written to depict an event that was happening in the world at the time. In which was the time when Argentina overthrew the government in 1976. The new government was strict and killed thirteen to fifteen thousand innocent without even giving them the chance because the government feared that the poor would eventually try to overthrow the government. With that in mind, the main character in our story Juan begins with a conflicting that he is facing internally. Juan was worried about whether or not the letter he sent to Marina would make it to her house safely or would they become a victim to the government. So he decides to become one of the working men for the censors so that he would get his letter back
Maus I by Art Speigleman presents the story of Vladeck's life before and during the beginning of the Holocaust. Vladeck begins the story by explaining how he met Anja, falls in love, and gets married to her, despite effort from his past girlfriend to break them up. Vladeck gets drafted into the war and is taken to a prison camp where he later gets out to find his way home to Anja. Next, the Germans began to separate families and require them to use food coupons. This leads Vladeck to begin participating in illegal trading.
Machado de Assis' " The Posthumous Memoirs of Brás Cubas" provides an excellent reflection on societal attitudes towards manual labor in 19th-century Brazil. Through the life of its protagonist, Brás Cubas, the novel offers insights into the complex interplay between social status, productivity, and the disdain for physical work prevalent among the Brazilian elite. By analyzing key passages and finding context within the historical framework of Brazil's transition from colonialism to modernity, we can show and prove Machado de Assis' commentary on the perceptions of manual labor within the upper classes’ life and ideas about Brazilian society. Brás Cubas, a member of the Brazilian aristocracy, epitomizes the prevailing disdain towards manual
...ack to destroy Juan. Since he didn’t find the letter to be important, he acted carelessly and discarded it and was “one more victim of his devotion to his work” (Valenzuela 968). Although many people would not go as far as to essentially commit suicide through the government, Valenzuela is making the point that secrets are dangerous. At the same time, Valenzuela is showing the average person can always be corrupted and caught up in their government if said government is corrupt. The most innocent person will always be tainted and destroyed by an iniquitous government. Through Juan’s letter and actions, Valenzuela depicts the satirical theme of how anyone can be corrupted by a perverted government.