Last week, we looked into the writing of Esteban Echeverría in the Slaughter house. I was very confused by the story
and its meaning. I picked up the sarcasm against the federalist, but what threw
me off was I sensed an overall theme of just the chaos of the politics of
Argentina, including the unitaritans because of the metaphor of the bull. I saw
the bull as a representation of the unitarians and in the story, the bull, in
all its chaos, killed an innocent child. This caused me to think of how
although he did use it to show the calluousness of the federalist, he also did
this to show the effect that politics has taken because of their mass hysteria
on each other. Obviously it was still shown that the federalist were in much
worse light, this scene did confuse me when trying to decide if Esteban
Echeverría was just showing the terrible side of federalist, or the overall
disaster of Argentina's politics.
Stephanie: I think this is a valid question. I also find it ironic that Echeverría would choose a fiery animal as analogous to the Unitarian, who is supposed to embody civilization. These contradictions do not lend themselves to an easy interpretation, but I think this is a good thing. Ambiguity requires that the reader collaborates with the author in the construction of meaning.
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