Fray Gomez's Scorpion Analysis

Ricardo Palma struck a chord with me as I read his short story, Fray Gomez’s Scorpion. Throughout the text, Palma was—in simple terms—hilarious. The example I will be focusing on comes from Palma’s description of the first miracle performed by Fray Gomez. In just one small section, I can find three instances of unexpected humor coming from the author.
The first occurrence happens at the very beginning of the short story. At the very beginning of telling this tale, Palma begins with the words “Once upon a time.” What could be more cliché for telling a story than “Once upon a time”? That in itself is humorous, because it is as if Palma is trying to discredit himself from the get-go with this introduction that is more often used in fairy tales than by resected Latin American writers like himself.
Next, as Palma tries to give a quick biography of Fray Gomez, he says, “Fray Gomez performed miracles left and right in my land.” What a peculiar way of phrasing a religiously significant, Sainthood-worthy event—using the term “left and right” in the way a sports announcer would describe Stephen Curry,

the basketball player, when he drains 3-point shots “left and right” during his record-breaking 2015-2016. That’s what that reminds me of.
Lastly, during the actual description of the miracle, Palma starts to stray from the humor when he describes this poor man who fell off his horse near Fray Gomez’s commute to work that day. Palma describes the incident in gruesome detail: “The poor fellow lay there, stiff as a board, his head as full of holes as a sieve, and blood gushing from his mouth and nose.” This is shocking. Palma is giving this man no hope of survival. The fallen horseman lays motionless, “stiff,” so possibly paralyzed. “Head full of holes” indicates the man has cracked his skull in several places. “Blood gushing from his mouth and nose” speaks for itself. So how would this Fray Gomez possibly save the day this time? Palma enlightens us, “Fray Gomez walked calmly over to the fallen man, touched his mouth with the cord of his feet, pronounced three blessings over him, and without further doctoring or medication, the dying man got to his feet as though nothing had happened.” As though nothing happened? This man was on the verge of dying thirty seconds ago and now he simply gets up as if he simply tripped in front of a crowd? Yes, he did, because that is what Palma said happened and so it simply must be so, right? Wrong.
This juxtaposition is completely intentional in the form of satire, and that is what Palma was trying to go for.

Palmas, at this time, took the task of retelling a traditional religious tale with his own twist, and that twist allowed him to entertain as well as criticize his own material. Criticizing religious folklore with methods of “costumbrismo” was vital in teaching his Latin American audience to be able to find the humor and irony in what they absorb through literature, and that is especially important with religious text. In a time when social and political reform went hand in hand with Latin American writing, Palmas did not just want to entertain with this humorous and enthralling piece, he wanted his audience to learn to be able to challenge religion in literature, and finally and most importantly, within the government in order to form a more liberal, secular

state.