Week 2: The Underdogs
by kenwardt
Having some prior knowledge on the Mexican Revolution, I think that the Underdogs portrays a real sense of what was going on at the time through this fictional story. Mariano Azuela’s writing is easy to follow and I enjoyed reading The Underdogs. At times it was quite graphic, but it really painted a picture of how things were going at that time.
Usually in history books, revolutions and wars are depicted through a more historical sense, just summing up the main occurrences and the results of that victory/defeat. With the Underdogs, Azuela shows us the real grit and grime through the eyes of men like Demetrio.
I enjoyed the wordplay of dogs throughout the text. After first week’s class, I have noticed many more instances where wordplay affects the story and makes it a lot more interesting. Demetrio states they’ll track him down like dogs (p.9) and “he’ll shoot you down like a dog!” (p.62). were just a couple examples. They also used the term dogs as human-like. On page 3 it goes “listen to the dog barking! It must be a human being.” Throughout the novel the similarities between dogs (underdogs) and humans were prevalent, as they were the “underdogs” in the revolution fighting against the oppressive government at the time. Near the end they also were hiding like dogs and “fleeting with tails between their legs” (p.120). The dog like instinct in them could be reminded of the feral behaviour they started to partake in and became so animalistic when they attacked others, basically becoming the feral animals they thought the government was, by killing Demetrio’s dog in the beginning.
In my previous course, I learned about Las Soldaderas and their roles in the Mexican Revolution. I enjoyed reading about War paint’s role in the underdogs, especially during that time period where women were rarely seen actively fighting in a revolution. These Soldaderas were fierce warriors and represented the women who wanted to fight alongside the men for the greater good. I found it interesting to see how Warpaint interacted with her allies but would have hoped to have read more about her personality and why she wanted to partake in the revolution in the first place, instead of just her romantic flings with her comrades. But that could be in part due to the time period the book was written at.
My question to you all is, do you think the female characters in this novel were well represented of women in the Revolution through the likes of Camila and Warpaint?
Hi!
I really like your comment on wordplay – of how ‘dogs’ was used and how this animalistic instinct seemed to drive the men to act ‘feral’ and just kill for the sake of seemingly nothing.
I had no background knowledge of the revolution, however. I found the novel to also really successfully convey the grime of the conflict, as well as the individuals making up the larger message, to give a more rounded and human picture of it beyond just the facts as told in history.
I’m not really sure how to answer your question as I’m unaware of how women (who served more domestic roles) were perceived in Mexico during that time, but taking a stab at it based on how women have always been treated and portrayed throughout history: seems accurate to me.
Hello, I really liked your input and comments. To answer your question. I think that the way women were portrayed in this novel is not a bad representation, I just think that it is an incomplete version. Incomplete in the sense that Mexico at that time was a very conservative place and women were mostly housewives and not soldiers. But it was refreshing to see women portrayed in any other way than isn’t to serve and tend to men.
Montserrat A