final essay.

Rodrigo Grande Prof. Fonseca CAS 115 11/20/13 The instigated wars in Central America have ravaged the region and its people. The massive amount of dead and the sheer amount of destruction has left a scar on the land. However, something not as obvious to your everyday Joe has befallen this poor place. The distrust of the civilians toward their government. The tension between the people and the government is at a breaking point. Even to this day people cannot find it so easy to turn to their police. Why? The answer is simple; during the war the police was working in tandem with the right wing government and its troops abducting people. The abductions mainly lead to murders. The way the poor people were killed was gruesome to say the least. The victims were subject to: complete mutilation, torture, and massive machine gun sprees. It is apparent that the psyches of the civilian population have been far too damaged. Their ability to rely on the ones who are sworn to protect and serve is completely gone. With the police and government as a whole unable to protect them, it left the civilians susceptible to petty crimes and overall chaos to engulf their communities. As in, The Good Cripple, people like Juan Luis were kidnapped and held for ransom. Juan Luis in the novel represents the people of Guatemala in real life. The kidnappers were so desperate that they mutilated their victims in order to apply pressure and make the kidnapping much more serious than it already is. All this was because the governments of those countries left the majority, which almost always is the poor peasants, on their own. The poor are not bad people, the situations they were put in made them act the way they did. In the novel, Juan Luis’ father is in an abstract representation of the government. He shows no compassion for those he is responsible for, in this case Juan Luis. It is evident that he does not really trust or care for his son when he reads the ransom letter he receives. He sees it as some sort of scam on behalf of his son and does not do a thing to help him. Later on when he and Juan Luis’ girlfriend get his foot in the mail, he has to react. If he does not he faces backlash from his son’s girlfriend. This scenario represents on a different scale, what would happen to Guatemala on a world scale. The world leaders could have imposed sanctions or some other type of punishment for Guatemala’s cruel treatment of its people. The father feels extremely guilty that because of his greed and mistrust, his son has a prosthetic leg. So when the time comes and Juan Luis marries Ana Lucia, he does not protest. He owes him at the very least that bit of happiness. The father belongs to the small elite group of Guatemalan society. Most of the elite get their wealth from cooperating with foreign investors, which more often than not ends up being in the United States. This sheds much light on Juan Luis’ father’s secret bank account, which can very well be overseas. The actions of the government are heavily influenced by the US and are even financed by them. The way Juan Luis’ father acts is because of the people he surrounds himself with. Without that radical push, in the form of his sons severed foot, Juan Luis could have had a different ending all together. The father’s mistrust resembles something else as well. That mistrust resembles the mass paranoia that swept through the communities. He is paranoid that his own son is out to con him out of his money. The civilians were so paranoid, they though it was no longer safe to go outside or talk to too many people. One microscopic slip up, utterance of rebellion or irregular social conduct and you can end up dangling from a tree, with a noose around your neck set out in the park as a reminder to all that insurrection will not be tolerated. Another example of a larger implication can be that of Juan Luis’ various travels. Juan Luis does not feel that comfortable where ever he goes. He goes to Spain and then to Morocco but still cannot seem to settle down there. His fleeing Guatemala was to leave behind what has happened to him. However, he simply cannot. He walks everyday with a horrid limp. That limp is a permanent reminder of what happened to him. He cannot escape or forget what happened. His constant shifting is his attempts to forget what happened in Guatemala. One cannot forget being kidnapped; much less having a limb hacked off. The psychological and physical distress is too much to bear. Juan Luis cannot find peace wherever he goes. His burden lingers like a foul stench. It is not before long that Juan Luis ends up in Guatemala to face his demons, more to the point, Bunny. After the encounter Juan Luis goes on to have relations with his wife. For the most part one can say that Juan Luis is at ease or at least as close to peace as he can get. Juan Luis is a singular entity that resembles the people of Guatemala. They cannot travel as much as he can but they wish they could. They to want to leave Guatemala in the hopes of establishing themselves in a new place and try to pretend that all the chaos never happened. Perhaps that is a bit too extreme, but still… the things that occurred in Guatemala were that horrible. Trying to forget what happened by leaving is something many wanted to do, but few could, and fewer could actually pull it off. Juan Luis is proof of that. Another topic that is significant is Juan Luis and his going to whorehouses. Why would a married man go to a cathouse? Easy really, he is confused. He has no idea what to do about anything and is just too anxious. The best way to release that tension and stress is to well, have sex. The reason it seems that Juan Luis went to a whorehouse was because he does not want to talk about his problems. He is restricting himself. He, like most Latino men, does not vent their emotions. All he needs is some pointless sex with someone he has nothing to talk about or know for that matter. Juan Luis is at a point where he is just suffocating under all his deep-rooted problems. He is in a pitfall and only he can get himself out. His pride and fear cloud his judgment and impair his ability to make coherent decisions. He is gradually becoming like the man who sired him. Juan Luis, instead of his surroundings, is letting his restless and distressed mind corrupt him. He is letting his weak constitution guide him down a path filled with filthy and vile activity. The genetics are showing and he sadly inherited a weak spine from his father. Juan Luis emulates the emotions of the Guatemalan populous. They feel this way after being betrayed by the people they depend on. Without anyone to keep the peace, tension will remain high and hostilities will increase. Lastly, there is the fact that Juan Luis does not want to impregnate his wife. He does this at the end of the novel, by pulling out during sex with Ana Lucia. He does not want kids because he does not want to be the same father his father was. He just does not want a kid because he cannot ensure it will end up good. It is clear he knows that the home will be unstable and that the kid will not be subject to corruption. The child can be acquaintances with the wrong crowd. He does not want a kid to possibly end up a petty criminal like Bunny. The fact that he is unfit to raise and just have a child with his wife is reason enough and he knows it. He does not know how to be an effective father. Once more Juan Luis’ action speaks for the people but they on the contrary have no choice. The people need to raise more kids so they can work and ultimately use the combined money from everyone in the family to get by and manage to survive. However, all these kids working will eventually turn into tired and possibly hostile adults. Combine that with an economy that is slow to recover and you get a horde of angry peasants. After toiling their whole lives, peasants become aggravated and desperate. Some will ultimately become criminals to make ends meet. Other will become radical idealists. Lastly, a leader of the peasants will rise, who will most likely start another revolution. More Bunny’s will emerge and people will bare scars like his. Thus repeating the cycle of his life right before him. Juan Luis is utterly mortified at this realization. His own act of eradicating his genetics from flowing into a new generation is his own way of preventing another disaster not only for him but his country. In conclusion, Juan Luis ends up being an abstract representation of what the people desire to do and their fragile hearts with the incapacity to do it either because of circumstance or just the sheer inability to overcome such tragedy. The father is an indifferent bigot who cares less about his own son. He favors foreign big shots and their corporations. All he really cares about is money; his son is no more than a thorn in his side. Much like how peasants are to a government that is actually operated by the small group of the wealthy elite and their foreign allies.