José María Arguedas novel Yawar Fiesta focuses on a bullfighting event that happens in the festival. He shows the conflict between the landowners and the communities through his characters, and how the mistis and the mesitzo appear to learn closer towards Spanish influence and disregard the Indians. What I liked about this novel is that the characters descriptions and and certain comments makes them feel real, in the sense that José María Arguedas based his characters off of real people he knew or encountered. His ability to understand different languages must have also allowed him to gather more inspiration in writing the book, take bits of his own life and placing it into the story. The question is though, what parts did he actually experience and does his input himself at all into any of the characters?

In the ending of Part 2, I feel that there is a foreshadowing of the importance of the bull. I believe that the children crying as their bulls are being taken away represents how the Indians had something they loved dearly taken away and used  by the Spanish to which they are never seen again. In the novel there is no mention if they bulls are returned to their owners after they breed. The calves of the bulls are then shipped to a foreign land (Spain?). In a sense this could also represent how the the Indians are loosing their children. The symbolism of the bull is further shown in depth near the end of the story. The people of the town carefully chose a strong bull to fight and scare the matador away, allowing them to carryout out their traditional bullfight. The bull may not only represent their resilience (in which the bull lived till the end), but their style of bullfighting. The major remarks with pride of how this somewhat violent bull fight is what the people of the town are proud of, symbolizing that they will not bow down to Spanish influence. I was curious to see if the town of Puquio still has bullfighting, and they do. Bullfighting was banned in the surrounding countries but not Peru. Apparently some places in Peru have bullfights where an Andean Condor is strapped to the back of the bull to “pluck its eyes out”. I read in an article that the condor represent the Indians while the bull represent Spanish control.

I found one particular comment rather interesting, “That’s true, Senior Subprefect! The Yankees did well to exterminate the redskins.” This shows that José María Arguedas was aware of Americans (but to what extent?), and by using this particular comment also presents us with the idea that “extermination” would refer to how there was still a desire to rid the Indians in the Peru despite their dwindling numbers and already suppressed culture.