Week 6

In honors this week we have been reading The Underdogs by Mariano Azuela. It tells the story of the Mexican Revolution from the rebel side. Mariano actually fought on the rebel side so even though the story is fictional, there is still some credibility in the events and behaviors of the men. For today we had to read part two of the book. I felt like a lot of this section focused on women. Here, we are introduced to a couple of new characters. The one who stands out to me the most is a woman named Pintada. The relations between Pintada and the men are different than that of other women. She still isn’t as respected as the men but she definitely holds her own. During one of the loots of this section we are also introduced to two young girls who seem to be almost like prizes for the men and they are not given names. Not only is Pintada given a name she fights and loots with the men and they help her when Macías drunkenly attacks her. I think this is interesting because we recently talked about the role of women in the revolution in Professor Stark’s portion of the class and even though we talked about them having very active roles it seemed so unbelievable to me as women had always been treated as inferior in history.  Seeing Pintada almost be treated as one of the men was very interesting to me.

              Another interesting aspect of Pintada is her loyalty (to some degree) to other women. She tried to help the girl the Cervantes had taken and offered to help Camila get home. That being said that loyalty was nothing compared to her loyalty for the man she loved, Guero Margarito. If anything about him was called into question she would quickly abandon any other ties. In the end, we see how much she meant to him as he agrees with Macías when he wants to send her away and refers to the relief that he has when she was gone. I think this provides an interesting look at the relationship between men and women at the time. Women could be seen as strong but they were next to nothing to the men as can be seen in this instance, Macías’s multiple affairs, and how quickly he got over the death of Camila.