What a relief. I have to say that so far I really prefer El Senor Presidente. I really like the narrative style as we get the prospective of numerous characters as to what is going on. However as it jumps from character to character I get a bit confused.

I loved the description of Dona Venjamon. From the instant that I read her name I laughed and I love the way the narrator describes her as, “a woman of colossal build, who required two seats in the tram (one for each buttock) and more than eight yards of material for her dress (53).” I really thought this description was hysterical and well written.

The book really makes clear the corruption that exists in this country. Security men are paid off so the men can pass by to kidnap the young girl as if it were nothing (68). Angel face simply gives the man 100 pesos, and “his objections were at once overcome” (68).
Asturias portrays all the corruption as everyday occurrences and part of life in this country, which demonstrates the corrupt nature of this place. He inserts these details so simply that it is clear they are everyday occurrences.

I find it interesting that thus far the “president” plays a very small role in the plot. While it is clear that the actions of the characters were set out by him, he plays a small vocal role in the plot thus far. The little bit we have read of his direct presence such as on page 35-36 he is clearly a powerful dictator who is not fazed by the unjust death of one of its citizens and has no problem having the death be reframed in order to make himself look good to the public eye. His personal interests are clearly his first priority.


tag: span312

I have to say that I was hoping to find the second half of “Facundo” a bit easier to read but I instead have found it hard to get through. I really have had to make myself sit to read it. It is chock full of fact, details, and statistics that become tedious for me as a reader.

One thing I find very interesting though is the way in which the narrator continues to be caught up in comparing barbarism and civilization while he tells Facundo’s story. This obsession with the civilized Europe is really interesting. One thing I find interesting is Sarmiento’s view that Spain is not as civilized as the rest of Europe. I can see it in the sense that he looks negatively on Spain as the Spanish conquered his country, but I haven’t thought of them as close to ‘barbaric Africa’ and disconnected from the rest of Europe.

Sarmiento idealizes the rest of Europe especially France. Mostly he marks Argentina as completely oppsite of Europe. Although he seems quite proud of Buenos Aires and this pride can be seen in the way in which he speaks about it as cultured and ‘civilized’. He boasts of the abundance of English, French, German, and Italian last names, never mentioning the Spanish names that are most likely equally if not more, prolific. His pride for Buenos Aires is also notable. He writes just 3 pages about Cordoba and 8 pages about Buenos Aires. Buenos Aires, he praises, was as advanced if not more as the rest of Europe. He notes, “Buenos Aires professed and believed everything that the learned European believed and professed” (123). This battle for Sarmiento to connect his country is never ending.


tag: span312

Facundo 1-5

The first five chapters of “Facundo” present a very interesting introduction to the book and the country of Argentina. He creates an introduction to the geography of Argentina, which is the first hint for me that his target audience is foreigners. He is does not seem to be directing this book towards Argentines who live there, and most definitely not to the gauchos who he criticizes and boxes into a category of horseback riding hooligans.
I cannot help but be struck by the binaries that he creates between urban and rural- city and country. On page 51 Sarmiento paints a vivid picture of a the native town as “the disgraceful reverse side of the coin,” with dirty children and this idea of filth everywhere, which is in stark contrast to the modern, clean ‘European’ urban world of Buenos Aires that he describes. Why is Sarmiento painting this picture of his country in stark difference? - Depicting the vast majority of his land as savage and just a small part as civilized. I think this is in great part to attract the ‘civilized’ reader, be it from France or any other part of Europe. He strives to create connections and perhaps erase some misconceptions that most have of the Americas as being purely barbaric and uncivilized, by creating this image of the urban city. By marking these stark differences between rural and urban, he complies that this barbaric nature exists, but only in the country and attempts to attract the foreign audience to his home.
Today, I think that many of these same preconceptions still hold for urban and rural peoples of all over the Americas. This idea of savage and cultured is very prominent. We can see the dichotomy existing in comparing the so-called ‘developed world’ to the ‘developing world’ as well as from urban to rural. I personally am from a really small town (less than 1000) and people are constantly asking me how I go shopping, how do I survive in the city, why I came all this way to go to school, and the list goes on. There are thousands of stereotypes about people from the country, and in fact that of always being on horseback (page 73) even still exists (to a certain degree).



tag: span312