09/21/21

Satire, Sarcasm, Sea of Poverty

This piece by Naranjo (a short story) contained many, many literary devices that lent to its effectiveness as what is ultimately an educational short story with a huge moral tilt. I believe the “genre” (if we are using that term) would be a satire, as it makes fun of the monetary agencies such as the IMF and EEC, as well as Costa Rica’s own delusional leaders. Naranjo effectively uses sarcasm to make her points, lending to the satirical tone, as in the lines about levying a tax on air: “ten colones per breath would be a small price to pay.” (151)

Above all, the literary device that I picked up on was metaphor. It was administered in small doses, such as, “sea of poverty,” (150). But metaphor manifests itself in a much bigger way, too, from the concept of Miss Underdeveloped, to the “fat cows” representing international lending. In honesty, I had a bit of difficulty understanding what the idea of Miss Underdeveloped represented, and I’m hoping that a colleague can help me out with this!! (Perhaps in the comments).

The back-and-forth between such metaphor and reality (between the conceptual and the specific) throughout the story had the effect of making me stop and think in the middle of the text, especially because it was done so abruptly between modes (see page 152: the “lean cows” seem to come out of nowhere)! For me, this definitely broke up the flow of the reading and was a bit frustrating, but perhaps this was the intention – to make the reader stop and be an active participant in decoding the metaphor so as to understand it better. I am wondering if the inclusion of such rich metaphor so seamlessly/casually in the text makes this piece an example of magical realism, or whether it’s just metaphor?

09/20/21

Cruel reality through history

I personally found “And We Sold the Rain” by Carmen Naranjo as a reflection of what Latin America has suffered through   years since the Spanish conquerors came to colonize the region. The short story reflects the economic struggles, corruption, inequality, selfishness, cynicism and inferiority . As well as a clear dominance from superior countries. The story touches these themes quite smoothly and makes the reader understand that countries like Costa Rica are not progressing because of their rulers, ignorance and submission to powerful countries. Therefore, I believe the story portrays common scenarios that Latin America keeps facing and has not stopped, and who knows when it will stop. Repetitive factors keep running in this region and it is not letting these countries to grow and be economically independent. Since the Spanish conquest, one can see that Latinos were and still are suppressed, and considered inferior because their countries are tagged as underdeveloped . And dominant countries want it that way, in order to have more advantage and control over these countries. Moreover, through history, one can learn that Latin America lacks development, good life quality, economic efficiency, strong government, education,  among other factors. Meaning that history has taught us that Latin America has struggled since ancient times due to the supremacy of the dominant countries that do not want this region to grow. In addition to this, at the end of the story, things seem to be improving; however another issue takes place and ruins everything. And this is what I mean by repetitive patrons that are blocking Latinos to keep growing unless someone decides to break the toxic circle of submission and fight for a change. In conclusion, the short story from my point of view, portrays the previous and current struggles that Latin America faces that started to take place since the Spanish conquest until the present day. Latinos are tied to dominant countries and will continue like that until someone decides to break the chains.

09/20/21

SCARCITY IS THE MOTHER OF STRATEGIES

Throughout the reading we are constantly reminded about how the country is in debt and how the poor in comparison to the members of the government are described as  “rats” and their quality of life is unmatched. From the beginning to end we are shown that the situation goes from bad to worse, starting with several debts that not even global organizations want to support or help until the dissolution of the country. It discusses topics of scarcity, social classes, incapacity (government), inequality, corruption, etc.

I found it confusing whether the realness of the so-called “cows” was true or just a metaphor, or maybe what it meant is that everyone puts themselves out to help but at the end they are just words. Maybe the cows highlight corruption as a topic, because as we all know they never send them cause the country next door would probably steal them.

Then the rain starts, making what was worse into a horrible situation, but here comes the “brilliant” or what i like to call “what did you do before coming up with that, next time i’ll go with u”, idea. Different circumstances brought the last person to do something unthinkable but what at that time someone else demanded. They created a strategy, first send a woman that fitted the top beauty standards as seller to the possible buyer, second only tell him about the “good” and how it was always green, a paradise in other words, incredibly sell the idea. 

IT WORKED!!! yeah I know (i couldn’t believe it either), but as we know something awful had to happen, the rain magically stopped and things got bad again, people started seeking their “same past life” but in another place, the country issues start to look a lot like in the first one and after finishing the story I thought to myself how blind I was, that i didn’t know from the very beginning that the city that “bought” the rain was indeed that neighbour.

 

09/17/21

Old Horrors Through New Eyes

Arturo Arias’ “Guatemala 1954: Funeral for a Bird” examines a devastated mid-coup Guatemala through the perspective of Maximo Sanchez. Maximo, not yet five, lives in a world full of violence and despair, but also full of colour, freedom, and new discoveries. As we follow him we see that in his eyes, the dead bodies and puddles of blood lining the streets are only obstacles in the way of his next adventure.

Throughout the story, the focus is never on the death surrounding Maximo, or the atrocities that he is implied to have experienced, but rather on the simpler things that are within his understanding. His desire to learn the proper name for everything, his simultaneous revulsion and curiosity towards the worm-filled corpses, and his eagerness to participate in a burial of a dead bird all take the forefront of this narrative. Maximo’s attitude towards the human corpses is particularly jarring in contrast with his behaviour towards the death of the bird; his fervency to see this bird up close causes him to trip over a rotting corpse, and his only response is to kick the body in frustration, yet he treats the bird with utmost care during its burial.

It is not that Maximo is entirely blind to the events that are occurring around him—he realizes that the bombs may have to do with his father’s disappearance, and becomes frightened at the thought of them returning—but he cannot grasp reality the way a more mature person, such as the old man, could. At first glance this may seem to limit the narrative, but I believe it does the opposite: in confronting something already shocking through the eyes of an unknowing child, our own eyes are opened to the inescapable horrors that Guatemalans became accustomed to during this time.

09/17/21

Funeral of a childhood

The child lens that Arias adopts in this short story made me reflect a lot on the innocence of children and their way of thinking. I compared the text a lot to Room, which is a novel about a kidnapped mother and her son. Here too the five-year-old child is the one that narrates the very tough journey the two take to escape the mother’s kidnapper. It is through the view of a child that an author is able to “dumb down” a tough narrative and see it through a different set of eyes who are also trying to comprehend it. Not only are we learning along with the protagonists, but we get to see a different perspective on what they think of it.

The start of the text seems to be the most impactful in this sense, as it is where we first meet Maximo and his way of thinking. Although it’s told from a 3rd person’s perspective, we still get an insight into his thoughts, such as when he talks about the “poor little corpses” “filled with worms” who “deserved to die” (Arias 50). If an adult character were to say that these poor little corpses deserved to die, we would probably characterize them as a violent person with psycopathic tendencies. However, the context of this character allows for the reader to somewhat understand them and their thought-process. It’s not necessarily because Maximo wants them to be dead, but instead he feels like they deserve it because of their bad smell. It seems like a simple answer to the situation for Maximo, but as readers it allows us to reflect on what this character is surrounded by, and what his perception of death is in his war-filled upbringing.

 

09/16/21

Profit Over Progress?

A critique made in class about Dorfman and Mattelart’s essay, “How to Read Donald Duck,” is that their message doesn’t reach very far because Disney is a profit seeking corporation and they release content based on what the public wants to see. Even through paradigm shifts where society has (supposedly) become more progressive, profit still outweighs the ethical considerations of Disney’s themes and ideologies. My response is that Dorfman and Mattelart’s critiques are still warranted because Disney was essentially trying to capitalize on an entire nation’s common culture, so a critique on Disney is also a critique of the dominant ideology reflected in American society during the Cold War.

Considering anti-socialist sentiments during the Cold War, it comes as no surprise that Americans wanted to consume content that reflected their jingoistic views. Disney benefited from propagating such views even though it was socially irresponsible. However, if Disney released the Donald Duck comics in today’s political climate, that would be detrimental to their business model. If consumer behaviour/power drives the success of certain businesses, I think Disney “does care” about the opinions of their customers. Companies seeking profit and social progressivism doesn’t necessarily have to be at odds with each other.

Additionally, such paradigm shifts that made society (a little bit) less racist can be attributed to people like Dorfman and Mattelart who scrutinize the consequences of American imperialism and other aspects of capitalism, and their critiques are still relevant today. It is especially important to criticize Disney in particular because their content reaches young audiences which can shape long standing ideologies/cultures in the generations to come.

 

09/16/21

Confronting Realities

In class we spoke about the significance of the difference in the title of Aria’s work between the English and Spanish versions. The English version offers a prelude of “Guatemala 1954” giving the reader a direct context for the events of the short story. I believe the significance of this relates to the extent of American intervention in Latin America and the Guatemalan conflict expressed in the story.

I propose that the specifics of the setting of the story are made to call the people of English speaking countries directly to the content of the story, without any room for misinterpretation, and without offering space for denial of the content of this story. Far too often in American media, issues are offered in a palatable way. Offering the American audience a choice in whether they consume the media, or live in their ignorant bliss. This title does not offer that bliss. It directs the reader to a specific moment with a specific history. This call out could be more dangerous in the context of Spanish speaking and Latin American countries, so the addition of the pretext in the English version leads me to the conclusion, that it is there for a reason, and that reason is for the benefit of English readers. The critical nature of the texts leads me to the conclusion that the title offers a critical address to the interventional tactics, and forces its readers to confront the severity of their country’s actions, and further perpetuation of interventional ideals in American culture and legislation.

The title offers English readers space to confront the realities of their county’s international affairs, and extends the teachings of revolution to an American front.

09/16/21

Birds as a Symbol of Rotten Holiness

In class I made a brief comment on how the dead bird in Guatemala 1954- Funeral for a Bird made me think of the angel in Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings, and I wanted to use this blog post to delve further into that. For those who don’t know about Marquez’s story, in short it tells the tale of an “angel” who fell from the sky and crashed into the backyard of a random family. The angel is quite deformed and realistic-looking, and it endures quite the maltreatment from the locals who come to see it. This tale made me think of the bird from our short story, both because of the two links (an old man, and a feathered thing falling from the sky), and more importantly perhaps, because of the way it is treated.

In both stories, the thing that falls from the sky becomes part of a sort of ritual with the locals who find it. In Marquez’s story this is used to show that curiosity and carelessness seem to be some of the first reactions humans have towards the divine/unknown if they aren’t in the proper circumstances. In Arias’ story, it seems to me like the bird serves at first a quite different function – the funeral orchestrated by the children shows that humanity is still present even during despair, and that the ignorant still try and give proper respect and dignity to things they properly identify as deserving it. The old man, however, brings the story closer to Marquez’s by revealing how the children have lost touch with the proper ways of handling these things.

In both cases, there is something quite powerful being conveyed through humanity’s interaction with something that fell from the sky. On one hand, this interaction shows humanity’s distance from the divine because of its inability to understand and respect the things above it, but on the other hand, there is a certain, visceral closeness that is brought to attention through the corporeal detail present in both stories. Altogether, it leaves me a bit confounded as to what is being signified through these stories – I am filled with both a feeling of the “magical” in its positive aspects, and one of “otherness” and even derangement. Perhaps, this specific effect of the uncanny is what was intended, as it conveys a sense of horror when humanity is forced to deal with matters of the divine and death with which it should never have to deal with directly.

09/16/21

A detached reality

The short story “Guatemala 1954 – Funeral For a Bird” is an important reflection of the devastating years of the Guatemalan Revolution. Above all, this story appears to be one of loss; loss of life, innocence, family, and freedom. Arias alludes to extreme violence through the description of corpses and blood, but Maximo, our child narrator, never explicitly discusses any violent imagery creating a somber undertone and emphasizing the pervasive violence surrounding Maximo.  

Maximo suffers the loss of his family, “His mother had told him that his father had disappeared” (pg 50), he has no parental figure to shield him from witnessing these harsh realities. It seems that Maximo, therefore, finds comfort in rituals; his obsessiveness over naming what he sees and his dedication to providing a meaningful parting ceremony for the bird are both rituals that may be indicative of potential coping mechanisms. The death of a bird, and the effect its death has on Maximo, may be representative of all the things that Maximo has lost: his innocence, his childhood, and his family. By having a funeral for the bird Maximo may be gaining a sense of closure for these losses that he has been unable to deal with. Therefore while this story is clearly one of widespread loss, one could additionally argue that Arias tells a story of resilience and survival. Through Maximo’s rituals in this story, he is given a sense of control over his otherwise devastating and harsh reality. 

Maximo lists the names for several things in his reality, for example, “there were bodies all around him. These were called corpses” (pg 50). It seems that by reducing such atrocities down to a single word, Maximo creates a sense of detachment from the shocking imagery he witnesses; instead of being bloody dead human bodies with identities, they are simply ‘corpses’. This seems to act as commentary on the devastating number of people who lost their lives in the Guatemalan Revolution and how their lives and identities should not be reduced down to a statistic; they all deserved to be given a ceremony like the ceremony Maximo gave the bird. 

09/16/21

Rituals for the Dead

“When you lift the board, you must give three turns to the right and four to the left. Seven in all.This is to confuse the soul so that it can’t return to this life of misery”(p.56) 

This story shows the loss of many things, innocence, freedom and traditions. The children attempt to find a way to properly bury the bird, they bring items that they believe have importance in order to give the bird a proper funeral but they do not have the knowledge to correctly lay the bird to rest. The children have not been taught the rituals of death in their country because the people who are supposed to teach them are gone, either dead or disappeared, they have lost the context  around death and do not know the proper way to mourn. This also shows the loss of other traditions that do not involve death and the loss of entire cultures, many of the people killed in Guatemala were indigenous and with that comes the loss of rituals and traditions that are hundreds of years old. The old man tells Maximo the rituals that are supposed to take place so the soul does not return to the body, the conflict has been so bad that souls must escape in order to find peace. The only one who would be able to teach the children the correct way to have a funeral is the old man and they run away from him, they have been taught to fear people, not learn from them. This story shows the destruction of cities and lives but also ways of life that are lost due to conflict, these children will not be able to teach their own children the traditions and their culture due to the war.