The Mexican Revolution was intended to drag the common man from the poverty of lower class society in Mexico, and bestow upon them an equal portion of land and wealth in order to equilibrate the economic and social status in the nation. The ecomienda system allowed a few patrons to hold all of the wealth in a certain area and exert complete control over a city and the people that lived within it. The Revolution was intended to redistribute the land and power to the lower and middle classes, but this was not the case once the fighting ceased. The lower classes moved to urban areas in order to find work and pay while the rural towns that were under the control of one person became a ghost of what they once were. Juan Rulfo lived in Mexico while these events were taking place and wrote Pedro Paramo just after the conclusion of the Mexican Revolution. Juan Rulfo saw the shortcomings of the Revolution and, through the characters of Pedro Paramo, Susana San Juan, and Juan Preciado, critiqued the failures of the Revolution to precipitate the change that it initially promised.
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...
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...sted prior to the Mexican Revolution. Susana San Juan is Rulfo’s acknowledgement that the Revolution did provide an opportunity for the lower and middle classes to better them self through urbanization, but Juan Preciado details Rulfo’s insight towards those that chose to remain within the ghost towns that the conflict created. Rulfo uses these characters in combination to reveal the shortcomings of the Revolution, mainly its failures to lift the entire middle and lower class out of poverty. He believes that all that the Revolution accomplished was to provide an escape for these groups of people, not the redistribution of land that was initially envisioned.
Works Cited
Rulfo, Juan. Pedro Paramo. Trans. Margaret S. Peden. New York: Grove, 1994. Juan Rulfo Pedro Paramo. Cal Lutheran. Web. 8 Jan. 2014. .
Judas at the Jockey Club, written by William H. Beezley, is used as a tool for those observing Mexico’s history during the Porfirian Era. This supplemental text addresses the social and political issues that were prominent during the Porfirian Era under the dictatorship of Porfirio Diaz; whose goal was to lead the modernization of Mexico. Porfirio Diaz was the president of Mexico in 1876; he made a false promise to resign in the Creelman interview in 1908 but did not officially resign until 1911. Beezley displays an analysis of the segregation between the common people and how they attempted to deal with an oppressive government. Judas at the Jockey Club is important to this Latin American course because of the extensive background Beezley provides to shed light on the tensions that allowed the socioeconomic gap to exist.
...e live seem to be too dangerous for them to fell happy. However, they are against the evil and violence, ignorance and lie. Corchado is quite unsure about the future of Mexico, but he also sees that these people are strong willed and they have chance to make some change in the way they live. He doesn’t pay attention to politics, instead of that he relies solely on people, their courage and strong will. We should all be so strong enough to change, what we want to change, and preserve what we need to preserve. Alfredo Corchado showed us the example of how brave hearted a person should be and how much we should all love our motherland. After reading this book, you won’t remain ignorant about Mexico and the journalism in general.
Teja, Jesus F. De La. A Revolution Remembered: The Memoirs and Selected Correspondence of Juan N. Seguin. Austin: State House Press, 1991.
In Peter Winn's Weavers of Revolution, a factory in Santiago, Chile fights for their independence against the Chilean government of the 1970's. While this rebellion is going on, presidential elections are taking place and Salvador Allende is the presidential candidate which represents the common people. The relation between Allende and the people he represents is a unique one because at first this class, the working class, helps and supports Allende to become president, but then both parties realize their different plans for the future and the working class actually contributes to the downfall of Allende's presidency.
The author of Mexican Lives, Judith Adler Hellman, grapples with the United States’ economic relationship with their neighbors to the south, Mexico. It also considers, through many interviews, the affairs of one nation. It is a work held to high esteem by many critics, who view this work as an essential part in truly understanding and capturing Mexico’s history. In Mexican Lives, Hellman presents us with a cast from all walks of life. This enables a reader to get more than one perspective, which tends to be bias. It also gives a more inclusive view of the nation of Mexico as a whole. Dealing with rebel activity, free trade, assassinations and their transition into the modern age, it justly captures a Mexico in its true light.
6. Love, Edgar F. “Negro Resistance to Spanish Rule in Colonial Mexico.” The Journal of Negro History 52, no. 2 (1967): 89-103.
The Russian and Mexican revolution’s differed in the ideas they adopted but they were similar in the way they met their goals and started their uprisings. The Russian revolution was made with the goal to create an egalitarian government that was based off of Karl Marx’s socialism principles. In short, t...
Although Pancho Villa is known to be a rebel and a bandit, he wasn’t born into a life of crime. Due to an awful circumstance, in which a wealthy man attempted to rape his young sister, Pancho Villa killed the transgressor. Pancho Villa had no choice but to change his name, hide in the mountains, and live as an outlaw. Over the years he gained the public’s attention for being sneaky and cunning towards the wealthy, and generous amongst the poor. His popularity as a modern day Robin Hood caught the attention of Francisco Madero who promised change to the lower class if they fought alongside him. Azuela recounts some of the problems the poor people faced “…Government people who've declared war to the death on us, on all the poor.”(p7). Many soldiers were w...
These letters reveal how the rebellions were able to weaken the Spanish empire and they display how they aided the destabilization of the Spanish government and the faith the people had in it. They also offer the indigenous view of the functions of colonial Andean society. The native Andean society created a structure in these reducción towns that had an immense role in constructing the opposition to colonial rule. The Andean communities were able to maintain their own traditions and community organization while they adopted the structures thrust upon them by the colonial
A question arises whether they felt “coerced” to use the court system because the judicial system was the only avenue, other than violence, in trying to right perceived wrongs. A careful examination of “Scandal at the Church: José de Alfaro Accuses Doña Theresa Bravo and Others of Insulting and Beating His Castiza Wife, Josefa Cadena (Mexico, 1782),” illustrates the surprising role of an elite court system as an equalizer within a socially-stratified society. More specifically to this case, the court acted as a vehicle to restore honour in an attack from an upper class society member to someone in a class lower. The chapter chronicled a criminal proceeding initiated by the plaintiff because of the injury and insult inflicted upon his wife by the defendant and her family. The physical injuries inflicted on José de
In this way, George – no longer Guánlito – has politically and culturally betrayed his people, and “is not is not the tragic hero who has died in defense of his people” (Mendoza 148). In conclusion, through its plot, characterization, and rhetorical devices such as tone, George Washington Gomez is an anti-corrido. However, it must be said that perhaps in its purpose as an anti-corrido, the novel is a corrido. In telling the story of Guánlito, the anti-hero of the Mexicotexans, perhaps Paredes is singing the readers his own border ballad, an ironic, cautionary tale to the Chicanos to remember who they are and where they came from and to resist, always, as a corrido hero would.
As mentioned previously war time creates hardships and sometimes those hardships are difficult to recover from. The outcome of the Mexican Revolution included millions of peasants being killed. Marentes describes peasants as hard-working, highly skilled agricultural labors. With the loss of so many peasants the harvest became scarce and many were lacking work. The Mexican government was unable to replenish resources and improve the way of life in Mexico causing ...
The history of political instability in Mexico and its need for revolution is very complex and dates back to the colonization of Mexico by the Spaniards in the 1500s. However, many aspects of the social situation of Mexico when the Revolution broke out can be attributed to the thirty-year dictatorship of President Porfrio Diaz, prior to 1911. The Revolution began in November of 1910 in an effort to overthrow the Diaz dictatorship. Under the Diaz presidency, a small minority of people, primarily relatives and friends, were in ...
Parallels of Latin American Culture in Pedro Paramo and No One Writes to the Colonel
de la Cruz, Juana Ines. "Hombres Necios." A Sor Juana Anthology. Ed.Alan S. Trueblood. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard UP, 1988.