Week 2

This past week in Latin American Civilization we have been discussing Esteban Echevarria's "The Slaughterhouse" and Domingo Faustino Sarmiento's Facundo: Civilizacion y Barbarie. Both readings comment on Buenos Aires and the separation between Federalists and Unitarians in Argentina. After reading “The Slaughterhouse” I told my group about how I couldn’t help but draw comparisons between Echevarria’s short story and another short story I read in high school titled “The Lottery.” “The Lottery” follows the story of a small town where all citizens must participate in a lottery. Throughout the story it is unclear what winning the lottery means but it is made clear that town attendance is incredibly important. When the winner for the lottery is drawn, it turns out to be one of the characters whose life we had been following up until that point. The town leaders then state that the children should “go first” and the children being to throw rocks at the character. It then becomes clear that the “winner” of the lottery is stoned to death by the other townspeople. The lottery is about why we follow tradition but a parallel can be drawn between that short story and “The Slaughterhouse” in the blind willingness of the masses to commit atrocities and overlook brutal violence for seemingly unjustifiable reasons. “The Lottery” cites tradition as a reason for the townspeople’s’ brutality but “The Slaughterhouse” cites the political divide and the leaders of the Federalist party for the unprovoked violence of the masses. I think that both readings offer an interesting view on some of the ways in which humans justify their actions and both bring forward the question: what am I blindly following do to tradition or authority?