In Hector Tobar´s The Tattooed Soldier, we are introduced to the main antagonist, Longoria. He is an ex-Guatemalan soldier who works for an international shipping company. Throughout the story, we come to learn that he served under the military unit Jaguar, a special ops unit that is known to strike fear into the hearts of the native Guatemalan guerrillas. Longoria sees himself as a honorable soldier who feels “pride in his work” (246), while in contrast, Antonio, a man whose family was killed by Longoria, views him as the man who kills in cold blood. He is quite ruthless at times as seen when “he swung his arm in a broad arc and slapper her across the face”, her being an old woman who happened to find out about his Jaguar past.(165). His actions such as this one are due to his intense military experience that transformed him from a farm bumpkin to a hardened soldier. …show more content…
Antonio observes that “He takes out his trash every morning”(262), mostly because of his obsession for order and cleanliness. He lives alone in a small apartment and is quite happy about it as he always wanted a neat living space all to his own like the one he had in Carolina. Longoria is quite short being “five feet four inches tall”(62), and has a trademark tattoo of the Jaguar which is “synonymous with terror in the army.”(168). However, looks can be deceiving as post-military Longoria does not hesitate to shoot Antonio while thinking “Good bye, you son of a bitch.”(214). He never lost the edge and instinct of the soldier. Nevertheless, even the scariest of jaguars have humanity. Shortly after the near death experience, Antonio loses his composure and lashes out at his girlfriend, Reginalda, with his pent up frustration. She then tells him “Why don’t you leave me alone if you hate
Antonio’s mother, Maria Márez, says that "growing into manhood is a sin" because she believes that the pure quality that is bestowed on to children from god is lost when a boy becomes a man. She fears that Antonio will lose his pureness, so she constantly urges him to become a priest because she believe that God is the only one to “save” him from the destructive ways of manhood.
Downtown Los Angeles is one of the busiest commercial centers in the United States. However, the city holds two groups of people in different economic level-the homeless and the working class. Hector Tobar frequently includes the landscape of the setting in downtown Los Angeles in The Tattooed Soldier. The novel is about two immigrants from Guatemala who have moved to Los Angeles. The protagonist, Antonio, takes a revenge on the antagonist, Longoria because he murdered Antonio's wife and son when he was a Guatemalan soldier. Tobar applies a number of metaphors to connect the buildings and freeways in downtown to Antonio's position in the city. Buildings, freeways, and shadows are metaphors for Antonio's economic and social status.
It is no secret that the United States has a history of economic and political interventions in countries around the world, especially in Latin America. By comparing the lives of the characters in Tobar’s novel, The Tattooed Soldier, to events that occurred in Latin American history, this paper will focus specifically on how U.S. imperialism, political and economic interventions in the central American countries of Guatemala and El Salvador forced many to flee and immigrate to the United states. Where the newly immigrated Central Americans faced lives of hardships and poverty compared to other Latin communities such as the Cubans who had an easier migration due to their acquisition of the refuge status.
John Sayles' Men With Guns (Hombres Armados). In Men with Guns, John Sayles depicts a feudal economic system in an agricultural South American setting. Using the travels of Dr. Fuentes, a concerned doctor from the city, to reveal numerous aspects of peasant life, Sayles shows the economic whirlwind in which these peasants are caught. Men With Guns demonstrates how the feudal economic system operates by revealing the economic and political power the rich plantation owners possess and lord over their lessers.
Evil is omnipresent, but it cannot be clearly perceived without an unbiased understanding of its intent and motivation. In “The Tattooed Soldier”, this sense of evil is depicted in the two main characters, Antonio Bernal and Guillermo Longoria. The book is set in the late 20th century era of Los Angeles, where the city is in a state of riot and utter chaos. The story focuses on Antonio, a political refugee from a dictated Guatemala, and Longoria, a former member of the Guatemalan death squad. They came to Los Angeles from the same country, but their beliefs and actions differ severely. When their paths cross, Antonio is struck with fear, because he recognizes Longoria as the tattooed soldier who killed his family. The encounter triggers a flashback
Years passed and Antonio moved to Los Angeles, but his life was a struggle there because he had nothing left, everything was taken away from him and he wanted to start and build up his life again but it was not easy. Until one day when he was walking through MacArthur Park he notices someone, “The shaved head, the tattoo of the yellow panther. The soldier from San Cristobal right here in MacArthur Park.” For Antonio this was a miracle at first and could not believe that the same person, who once killed his family back from where they lived, is now on the streets of Los Angeles. With time Antonio followed the man and stalked him to know about him and made it his mission to get revenge and kill the man who killed his family. Towards the end of The Tattooed Soldier, Antonio does exactly that and feels accomplished for having done that because Longoria is no longer on the streets. There are two important deaths that happen in this book and they both connect to mark making. The one of Elena is for the reason that she was part of the guerillas trying to go against the government and when they found out who she was, they went after her and killed her for that. So the mark that she was trying to make is what led to her death. For Longoria, it is more of a literal mark because once Antonio saw the tattoo on his arm and his shaved head, he knew right away who Longoria was because that is something he never forgot. Thus it led him to plot out a way
Author Mariano Azuela's novel of the Mexican revolution, The Underdogs, conveys a fictional representation of the revolution and the effects it had on the Mexican men and women who lived during that time. The revolutionary rebels were composed of different men grouped together to form small militias against the Federalists, in turn sending them on journeys to various towns, for long periods of time. Intense fighting claimed the lives of many, leaving women and children behind to fend for themselves. Towns were devastated forcing their entire populations to seek refuge elsewhere. The revolution destroyed families across Mexico, leaving mothers grieving for their abducted daughters, wives for their absent husbands, and soldiers for their murdered friends. The novel's accurate depiction also establishes some of the reasons why many joined the revolution, revealing that often, those who joined were escaping their lives to fight for an unknown cause.
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...
In the first section of The Tattooed Soldier are introduced Antonio. Antonio is coming to Los Angeles to escape the Guatemalan government, and views Los Angeles as a place where...
Nevertheless, one of the most important imageries is the fact the rifle itself represents war; thus, the soldier takes so much care of the rifle because the rifle, or the war, once took great care of him by shaping him into the man he is today and, most importantly, by keeping him alive. Imagery, therefore, proves how Magnus delicately transmits information so that an appropriate characterization could take place, which informs the audience about the soldier’s character and, ultimately, the importance of war to the
In The Underdogs written by Mariano Azuela, we are introduced to a character that strongly symbolizes the fuel of the Mexican Revolution. Heroes like Demetrio Macias brought the Serrano’s hope of giving them what they felt they truly deserved. Although Demetrio Macias, the general (colonel) of a rebel army is hunting down the army of Pancho Villa, he seems to have the same ideals as the enemy. In addition to Demetrio Macias, we meet women like Camilla and War Paint who represent the different roles that women played during the Mexican Revolution.
The story uses many motifs, symbols and themes. First the motif is Antonio’s dreams. In the beginning of the book his dreams are about what he will become when he grows up; the choice between priest or a vaquero. Later on his dreams change to more important matters, such as family questions and his duty in life. The second motif regards Antonio’s family. He has many family members such
Although he is always trying to understand new beliefs, the Goddess, the Virgin Mary, remains in the most special part of Antonio’s heart. She represents Meeting the Goddess, as Antonio is now seeing her through mature eyes: “I fastened my eyes on the statue of the Virgin until I thought that I was looking at a real person, the mother of God, the last relief of all sinners” (Anaya 47). As he begins to discover the meaning in both his old and new beliefs, he begins to accept his spiritual questions. By understanding the fact that they cannot always be simply answered, he enters his Apotheosis and ascends as he achieves wisdom and self-acceptance.
...epresentative of the detrimental effect of silence and lack of expression on the mind and body. When joining the guerillas Huberto “learned the meaning of silence”. However, this lack of expression is demonstrated to lead to detrimental impact for both his mind and body. This can be seen clearly further through chapter seven where Huberto “stopped smiling (…) his expression cold”. This transformation symbolizes the corrosive impact of silence – as Huberto appears to lose his human qualities such as happiness and empathy following his silence. Evidently by contrasting the benefits of verbalization with the corrosive implications of silence Allende encourages the reader to align themselves with the traditions of verbalization commonly associated with the colonial Latin Americans., and to reject the oppressive silence shown to be imposed by the colonizing oligarchy.
En la breve historia Semejante a la noche, escrito por Alejo Carpentier en el año 1952, pasa veinticuatro horas en la vida de un joven soldado, a la vez que cuenta la esencia del ser humano tras tres mil años. Carpentier divide el relato entre cuatro secciones marcadas por números romanos a través de las cuales salta entre seis distintas épocas de guerra. Superficialmente es un relato sencillo de un joven soldado preparándose para embarcar en una gran expedición guerrera naval. Detrás de esta fachada, la narración del cuento es mucho más detallado y complejo. La voz narrativa salta entre seis soldados que narran el cuento desde tiempos históricos y lugares diferentes. Es posible identificar las cambias de perspectiva porque Carpentier deliberadamente menciona personajes, lugares, y hechos de fechas determinadas en la historia. Al resultado, el lector puede identificar la guerra de Troya, la conquista de las americanas por los españoles, las expediciones colonizadores de Francia, la Cuarta Cruzada, la Gran Guerra y la Segunda Guerra Mundial. Tras estas épocas, la narración del relato esencial sigue ininterrumpido para construir un sentido de metáfora entre las seis vidas. El título del texto, "Semejante a la noche" es una referencia al Canto I del la epopeya traducido al español por Alfonso Reyes. La elección de un título que tiene raíces en la Ilíada sirve para subrayar la continuidad y la universalidad temporal del cuento. La yuxtaposición de las historias y construcción de una coherente sirve para identificar las similitudes y la esencia del ser humano.