"George Washington Gomez"

Paper Summary:

This paper explains that the Mexican revolutionaries of the novel fight to preserve their cultural integrity against impingement by Anglos seeking to profit off the Mexican land with a rapaciousness paralleling the British colonizers to the American colonies, hence, the designation of the novel's protagonist as an ironically named George Washington Gomez. The author points out that the greatest internal and external crisis of the novel occurs when Gualinto kills the revolutionary and prison escapee, Lupe Garda, symbolically killing his seditionist father, his own identity, and the integrity of the community, showing how the Anglo encroachment of law and education has fully impinged upon Gualinto's mind. The paper relates that author Americo Paredes makes parallels throughout his book with the counter-revolutionary actions of the protagonist and that of earlier revolutionary periods of internal division in American history; for example, a man is noted as having a "John Brown beard," tying the initial description to the earlier American era of anti-slavery revolts in America, such as John Brown's raid upon Harper's Ferry.

From the Paper:

"During the height of the military crisis, Gualinto must continually wrestle with his own values and beliefs. He has returned to his community after higher education, law school and the military, all ideologies that have taught him that his people's ways are inferior to white ways. One of the earliest examples of Gualinto verbally expressing his sense of self-hatred occurs in the context of a discussion over money for college, as Gualinto rants against his father, calling him an "ignorant Mexican," even though the boy is of his father's own nation, flesh, and blood, a Mexican himself."

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• Analytical Essay # 133765 : "George Washington on Slavery"

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