Marquex, one of these days

Research Paper

Marquez, “One of These Days”

Gabriel Garica Marquez wrote “One of These Days” directly about the relationship between middle class and politicians. Marquez wrote this short story to try to tell his readers the reality of power and revenge among people. “One of These Days” would inspire those who are interested to learn more about politicians and how they handle their power, whether they take advantage of their power or not. The story relates to disadvantages and advantages between middle class and politicians.

In the story “One of These Days”, Marquez begins with a poor town dentist who is polishing false teeth when the mayor calls him threatening to shoot him if he does not fix his sore tooth. The mayor had been suffering from a five day severely sore tooth ache. So, the mayor finally wins by getting the dentist to fix his tooth. The Mayor arrives to the dentist’s office with his left cheek clean-shaved and a five day old beard on the other cheek with a swollen tooth. The dentist examines the mayor’s tooth without anesthesia and makes the mayor suffer even more. The dentist had made the mayor suffer for almost a week and suffer even more when he examines him without anesthesia. The dentist finally got his revenge by making the mayor suffer.

The dentist states his reason for making the mayor suffer by saying, “Now you will pay for our twenty dead men.” The mayor got up after the dentist removed his tooth and failed to understand his torture of the five previous nights and the examination without anesthesia from the dentist. The mayor told the dentist to send the bill, and the dentist asked “to you or to the town?” The mayor told the dentist, “It’s the same damn thing.” In the end of the story, the mayor wins by using his political power. The mayor refers him and the town as the “same thing” that his power extends beyond himself. The mayor sees no wrong in what he has done to the past to the dentist or what the dentist is trying to tell him. The mayor only sees himself as winning as the better man in the end.

“The title “One of These Days” refers to the dentist learning something new about his own power. The dentist tells himself that hurting the mayor will affirm his own power for revenge or political resistance. His trea...

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...s about war and soldiers. His grandfather, the Colonel, had pounded Civil war stories onto Gabriel’s mind when he was a little boy. His grandparents was such an great influence Gabriel’s success. “One of these Days” is a battle between forces and power. It’s good for readers to understand the disadvantages and advantages of political power used today in the United States.

Work Cited:

Collected Stories:

Volume 124 pp. 68(1); Copyright Time Inc. 1984. Reviewed by Paul Gray.

The New Yorker:

Volume 61 Issue 13 pp. 118-125; reviewed by John Updike.

Latin American Writers: George R. McMurray

Volume 3 pp 1329-1346; Copyright 1989 Charles Scribner’s Sons; The Scribner Writers Series

Contemporary Literary Criticism: Gale Literature Resource Database

Dictionary of Literary Biography: Volume 113: Modern Latin American Fiction Writers, First Series. A Bruccoli Clark Layman Book. Edit by Williams Luis, Vanderbilt University. The Gale Group, 1992 pp. 168-182.

The Modern World: Gabriel Garica Marquez Homepage.

The Bedford Introduction to Literature: Michael Meyer