Author Question: From what point of view is the story told? Do you feel pity for JuvencioNava? What will be an ... (Read 136 times)

B · **on:** Jul 20, 2018

From what point of view is the story told? Do you feel pity for JuvencioNava?

What will be an ideal response?

Question 2

Why do the Gutres kill Espinosa? What do they hope to gain?

What will be an ideal response?

bubulittle310@msn.cn · **Reply #1 on:** Jul 20, 2018

Answer to Question 1

Until nearly the very end, the story seems to be told from a limited omniscient point of view, with everything portrayed as it is filtered through the consciousness of Juvencio Nava himself: his memories, his attitudes and motivations, and his feelings about himself and what is happening to him. The last three paragraphs describe events that take place after Juvencios death; references to the unspoken thoughts of his son, Justino, indicate that the son is now the point-of-view character (He cinched him up tight against the rigging so he wouldnt fall on the way. He put a sack over his head so he wouldnt give a bad impression. And then he prodded the donkey and they hurriedly left, in order to reach Palo de Venado still with time to arrange a wake for the dead man par. 69). In its totality, then, the story is narrated from the omniscient point of view.

We would imagine, and hope, that students will feel some degree of pity for Juvencio, no matter what he may have done to incur and perhaps even deserve his fate, if only because he is a fellow human being who is suffering the agony of imminent death. They may also pity him a little because of the triviality of the incident that has finally tripped him up after decades of successfully eluding capture and assuming he no longer had anything to worry about. It should be especially interesting to see to what degree that pity is compromised and undercut in your students minds by his past actions and his present cravenness, which extends even to a willingness to put his sons life at risk in a desperate effort to save his own.

Answer to Question 2

The Gutres kill Espinosa to achieve salvation. The father questions Espinosa quite explicitly on that point the morning before his execution. For obvious reasons, old Gutre is particularly anxious to know if the soldiers who executed Christ were also saved.