February 24

 This week we read The Underdogs by Mariano Azuela. I thought it was a very interesting read and gave me a new perspective on those who fought in the revolution. We are taught about a few revolutions in grade school but they normally leave out the gruesome side of the revolution. We mostly learn a sugarcoated and simpler version of what happened during these revolutions. However, Azuela writes about the “heroes” in a more realistic way with all their flaws and the cruel actions that make them less than heroes. It reminds me of some of the things about other revolutions that I learned about that are also not as pretty. I remember while I was learning about the American revolution we looked at a drawing from that time. The image showed a man covered in feathers with men around him forcing him to drink something. With this picture, we learned about how the American rebels would tar and feather soldiers as a way of protesting the taxes. To explain, when someone is being tarred and feathered, extremely hot tar was poured on them and then feathers would be dumped on the drying tar. This is a disturbing thing to imagine especially since we are taught that the Americans were the noble ones fighting against the "cruel" British. 

Comments

  1. Joseph GreendykFebruary 25, 2022 at 8:30 PM

    Hi Victoria! I definitely agree that we didn't get the full story about revolutions in grade school. In fact, at my school the Mexican Revolution was only mentioned and described in passing, and little to no emphasis was placed on it. I think grade schools tend to focus on the more "famous" revolutions like the French Revolution, and even then they definitely gloss over the gory details.

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  2. Professor StarkMarch 3, 2022 at 7:37 AM

    Thank you, Victoria, for the blog. What you wrote about tarring and feathering someone was interesting, as I was unfamiliar with this process. I was left wanting to read more about how this senseless cruelty is depicted in the novel, especially toward the end as Demetrio's personality and character are different from the beginning of the novel.

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