Tag Archives: guatemala

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.

09/14/21

Birds, Rings, Coups, and Children

“Maximo could walk in any direction unless the streets were blocked by corpses or fallen walls. That was called freedom.” (pg. 2) In Funeral for a Bird, Arturo Arias captures the harsh reality of the U.S.-backed coup in Guatemala that overthrew Arbenz in 1954. By speaking through the eyes of a child, Arias is able to use a slightly dissociated voice of a child who can’t comprehend the true gravity of the situation. The violent reality is communicated bluntly, from the smell of decomposing bodies to the cockroaches that live inside the corpses. For Maximo, “fallen walls” are as common as corpses, revealing the depth and extent of violence in his town. Arturo adds the phrase “That was called freedom” to seemingly critique the United States’ role in the mass death of civilians. The passive voice seems to indicate that freedom was something promised or explained to those experiencing violence.  While the coup of 1954 was often outwardly branded as a quest for freedom and rejection of communism, the true motivating factors were largely economic. Arbenz pushed for land reform and land redistribution, two policies that threatened American interests. Arias shows the reader what American brought “freedom” really looks like and it looks like death and suffering.

In Maximo’s worldview, corpses are a fact of life and so commonplace that the death of a bird holds more weight for his child self. As bombs likely killed many birds or drove them away from the area, the single dead bird represents something beautiful and foreign to the children, a reminder of the past. Arias also shows how desensitized the children are through their interaction with the bird and its funeral. Children are careful to not step on the bird, yet when Maximo trips on a corpse he kicks it. The genre and narrative voice make this piece so powerful; the reader is forced to consider the enduring impact viewing this violence would have on a child.

09/14/21

Arturo Arias’ Funeral for a Nation

Arturo Arias’ “Guatemala 1954-Funeral for a Bird” develops under a context where Guatemala is again deprived of sovereignty and self-determination. Guatemala is a majority working-class and Indigenous nation, two continuously marginalized identities by upper-class and Western societies. But hope this marginalization would end seemed plausible with Jacobo Árbenz’s rise to power. Unlike most Guatemalan leaders before 1951, Árbenz sought to grant power to historically ignored national communities. Guatemala followed a pattern of “Caudillo” rule, defined by militant and strict governmental policies prioritizing foreign and upper-class interests at the expense of the rest of the nation. Hence, once Árbenz ambitiously began to reform inequalities in the country, Guatemalans saw political and economic representation as a growing reality. Specifically regarding land redistribution, as land ownership provided a great deal of autonomy and liberation. Yet, this working-class and Indigenous re-claim of power quickly threatened U.S. interests, and by 1954, Árbenz, a symbol of hope, was deposed, and upper class and foreign companies usurped power.

With this context in mind, Arias’ story seems to be an ode to the death of a dream that was close to realizing before foreign intervention and greed destroyed it. In the story, Maximo, the protagonist, and the other kids are holding a funeral for a bird. But I would like to believe the bird symbolizes Guatemala or Árbenz’s reforms, and in reality, they are having a funeral for Guatemala’s lost hope towards a more equitable society. The boys’ intense emotions are perhaps how Arias wanted to reflect that Guatemalan future life is again succumbed to living under the same exploitative conditions they have been living in since the institution of colonialism. Thus, the “bird’s” funeral is emotional because it represents the burial of a free Guatemala, where working-class and Indigenous sovereignty were plausible and where those who worked the land owned the land.

09/13/21

Through a Child’s Eyes

For this weeks’ blog post I want to engage with Arturo Arias’s short story, Funeral for a Bird.

What initially struck me was that in the story, the children do not seem fazed about the corpses in the streets; yet all are sad – “one of the littlest boys started to cry” (Arias 52) – about a single, tiny, seemingly insignificant creature, even amidst the rubble and remnants of human life. Arias juxtaposes Máximo’s tenderness toward this bird with his impartial, even annoyed, attitude toward the corpses – for example, when he trips over a “headless body,” and in a “fit of anger, kicked the corpse” (Arias 51). I think that Arias intended to make the reader uncomfortable with this inversion; normally, one would express more empathy and concern with the death of humans than birds. I would be interested to know if Máximo’s “disrespect” toward the corpses, and simultaneous care for the bird, made anybody else feel “discomfort” when reading. Arias also may be expressing how violence and death are seen through the eyes of a child who doesn’t yet understand the world.

On this note, I noticed right away that Arias’s writing had a “childlike” quality. He used short, quick sentences that mimic a child’s way of speaking, as well as simpler language – no words are floral or complicated. I think that Arias is allowing the reader inside Máximo’s head, to perhaps understand violence as a child with little experience of the world might. This technique reminds me of the novel Room by Emma Donoghue, in which a boy named Jack acts as the narrator of the book. At first this way of writing, to me, was scattered and slightly irritating to read but in both Donoghue and Arias’s works, it has the effect of bringing the reader into the mind and experiences of a child.