In the second chapter of the book, Lupito, a war veteran, has murdered the sheriff. The Sheriff's brother comes to Antonio's house to get his father. Antonio's reaction is to follow the two men to the bridge. There he hides in the darkness of the river bank, watching the assembly of angry men. He also sees Lupito off in the distance. A few of the men want to reason with Lupito and give him a chance to give himself up. The majority of the men see him as a savage animal and feel the only way to bring him to justice is to murder him. Narciso, the town drunk, tries to call on Lupito to come out and talk out the situation. Antonio sees Lupito struggling in the distance, trying to decide his fate. He decides to open fire, not to shoot anyone, but to draw the fire of the other men. His plan works, and Antonio sees Lupito fall to the ground and crawl to the bank in front of him. He sees the life leave Lupito. Then runs home in horror.
This section gave me a mixture of emotion. I felt the anger of Chavez. I would likely also be blinded with rage if someone had murdered my brother. My first reaction would also be to hunt down the “animal” that had taken away my family from me. Just thinking about it brings tears of fury, because I am very close to my family. Especially with my brother.
On the other hand, I can understand why there was sympathy for Lupito. I have seen close relatives and friends suffer from mental disorders. They are in a different world than ours. Their reality is not the same as ours. Most people are not understanding. They only take into account the destructive things the person does, not the fact that they have mental health issues. Only Antonio saw that Lupito shot off his gun in surrender. The other men thought he was trying to shoot at him and harm them. Only few people see the suffering that people with mental illness have, or they choose to ignore it. Or, like in this case, they are blinded by rage.
A quote that stuck out to me was, “I saw Lupito's tense body shake. A low, sad mournful cry tore itself from his throat and mixed into the lapping sound of the waters of the river. His head shook slowly, and I guess he must have been thinking and fighting between surrendering or remaining free, and hunted” (Anaya 21). The image in this quote felt very familiar. Like I said before, I have close relatives that struggle with mental illness. It reminded me of the lost look in my family member's eyes. The tears rolling down his cheeks. His leg shaking restlessly. His chest heaving from the sobs. I'm thankful he has not surrendered like Lupito, but I know the struggle of his mental illness takes a heavy toll on him.
Very nice opening paragraph with a good transition to your own feelings about the text. The summary is succinct and useful to the rest of your post.
ReplyDeleteThe third paragraph gets choppy. Try varying the different sentences in each paragraph by length and construction to create more depth.
I would like to see you develop your connections to this in more detail for your next assignments.