Please use categories or tags when writing your blog posts. Use categories to indicate the week (Week 3 or Week 10 etc.), and tags for key concepts or topics covered.
Advocates and Autocrats: Week 5 Reading
Posted by: feedwordpress
The position of caudillo, as Dawson describes, fills in the role traditionally occupied by the King of Spain as an intermediary between local elites and the marginalized groups of country and city. My impression is that a lot of the vitriol against the... read full post >>
The Center of the Federation
Posted by: feedwordpress
As a political activist, Esteban Echeverría grapples with the collision of barbarism and civilization in Latin America in his short story The Slaughterhouse. He was banished from Argentina for his devotion to the demise of the caudillo of Buenos Aires (where the story takes place), and wrote this piece while in exile. It clearly references the state […]
read full post >>
read full post >>The Slaughterhouse
Posted by: feedwordpress
The short story El Matadero (The Slaughterhouse) by Esteban Echeverria is a reflection of the caudillo period in the 19th century. El Matadero uses sarcasm and vivid imagery to convey his view points on the political systems of Buenos Aires during the dominance of Juan Manuel de Rosas. The story portrays the injustices, as a liberal view, imposed on the people of Buenos Aires by the church – which I believe represents Rosas and his ‘Holy Federation’. The story set in a time of Lent, a season of scarcity that the church imposed on the people of Rio de La Plata, restricting them of meat intake. The slaughterhouse is where the meat was produced and distributed through the caudillo. When the flood subsides there are 50 cattle that returned to the slaughter house which people of the town, in barbaric imagery, fought over the meat that returned to the town. Corruption is shown by the point that Echeverria makes that the gringos and the ‘Restorer’ had the first servings of meat and the rest was left for the proletariat. The bull, which is the last left of the returning cattle, is a compared to the Unitarian at the end of the story and represents the resistance of the Unitarian liberals. The author describes the rage of the bull and then immediately after describes the rage inside the Unitarian that they captured. This to me is an obvious linkage between the two and symbolizes the feelings of the Unitarians during the time of Juan Manual de Rosas. Something I found interesting in the story was the way in which the peole of the town were represented. There are two times were women were compared to “mythical harpies” and “ugly as the vigaros of legend” in the second description they were along side boys and in the first description they are compared with birds. This is interesting to me because I am not sure what the point of describing them in this way has to do with the main theme of the story? Perhaps I am missing something.
read full post >>The Slaughterhouse
Posted by: feedwordpress
The short story El Matadero (The Slaughterhouse) by Esteban Echeverria is a reflection of the caudillo period in the 19th century. El Matadero uses sarcasm and vivid imagery to convey his view points on the political systems of Buenos Air... read full post >>
The Slaughter House
Posted by: feedwordpress
This weeks reading of the Slaughterhouse was quite interesting. The author remarks upon the brutality of the Federalists in an almost satirical matter. He seems to tell the story from an almost sympathetic point of view at first glance. As the story pr... read full post >>
The Slaughter House
Posted by: feedwordpress
This weeks reading of the Slaughterhouse was quite interesting. The author remarks upon the brutality of the Federalists in an almost satirical matter. He seems to tell the story from an almost sympathetic point of view at first glance. As the story pr... read full post >>
"Slaughterhouse" as a Political Allegory and in Hindseight
Posted by: feedwordpress
It is made apparent that "The Slaughterhouse (El Matadero)" by Esteban Echeverría is a political allegory. The men of the slaughterhouse represent the federalists and Matasiete could be Rosas. The bull and the young man who is tortured represent Unita... read full post >>
week 5: The Slaughterhouse
Posted by: feedwordpress
The reading this week included a short story written by Esteban Echeverria called “The Slaughterhouse.” It is a brutal, graphic story in which the people of a province of Buenos Aires engage in the butchering of steers, and later, in the death of a innocent passerby. Echeverria describes his witness to this experience as, “a simulacrum in miniature of […] read full post >>
The Slaughter House
Posted by: feedwordpress
This weeks reading of the Slaughterhouse was quite interesting. The author remarks upon the brutality of the Federalists in an almost satirical matter. He seems to tell the story from an almost sympathetic point of view at first glance. As the story pr... read full post >>
"Slaughterhouse" as a Political Allegory and in Hindseight
Posted by: feedwordpress
It is made apparent that "The Slaughterhouse (El Matadero)" by Esteban Echeverría is a political allegory. The men of the slaughterhouse represent the federalists and Matasiete could be Rosas. The bull and the young man who is tortured represent Unita... read full post >>
