The Royal Hunt Of The Sun: The Conquest Of Peru By Spain

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The Royal Hunt of the Sun

The Royal Hunt of the Sun is a story mainly based on the conquest of
Peru by Spain. Along the way it explores many different sub-themes and ideas. Questions are raised about faith, friendship, leadership, greed and two distinctively different ways of life. The two main characters exhibit conflicting views on all the issues.

The overthrow of the Peruvian Empire is a phenomenal story as it demonstrates the vulnerability of a society that considered itself almost indestructible. It showed how focused a civilisation can be on one leader, and how simply it can collapse when this leadership is removed. Pizarro recognised this and that is how his small army of almost two hundred conquered a nation of millions. …show more content…

"Three thousand of my servants they killed in the square.
Three thousand, without arms. I will avenge them." (page 60) This lack of complete agreement between them in due course caused a lingering doubt in both of their minds. This inevitably affected their friendship. Until Pizarro met Atahuallpa he had lost faith in conventional religion which had made him feel that life, as we know it, was pointless. He exclaimed "^I^m going to die! And the thought of that dark has for years rotted everything for me, all simple joy in life." (page 63)
Atahuallpa introduced him to the Inca religion, "^Believe in me. I will give a word and fill you with joy. For you I will do a great thing. I will swallow death and spit it out of me." (page 75) In the first instance Pizarro found this concept very attractive as it showed him direction and justified the killing of his friend. However when Atahuallpa failed to rise from the dead Pizarro^s faith was destroyed.

Atahuallpa was a strong leader but because his disciples viewed him as deity he had an added advantage. Conversely, Pizarro had to deal with greed, uproar, division and many other adversities. In the end the
Inca civilisation was disadvantaged by the intense worship of …show more content…

It is about the clash of two thriving cultures, involving religious misunderstanding and cultural mistrust. Of even greater significance is the complicated friendship which forms between two extraordinary leaders, undermined by the greed and human frailty of the populace. The contradictions contained in this friendship are summed up in the plays tragic climax when following Atahuallpa^s violent death
Pizarro is left alone with the body and he cries out in anguish:
Cheat! You^ve cheated me! Cheat^ ^You have no eyes for me now,
Atahuallpa; they are dusty balls of amber I can tap on. You have no peace for me, Atahuallpa; the birds still scream in your forest. You have no joy for me, Atahuallpa, my boy; the only joy is in death. I lived between two hates; I die between two darks; blind eyes and a blind sky^ (page 78) Finally Old
Martin concluded: So fell Peru. We gave her greed, hunger and the cross: three gifts for the civilized life. The family groups that sang on the terraces are gone. In their place slaves shuffle underground and they don^t sing there. Peru is a silent country, frozen in avarice. So fell Spain, gorged with gold; distended; now

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