Father Benito Hummingbird Character Analysis

A never ending struggle for survival when everything is taken away finding what is left to care for. Father Benito captured the essence of Hummingbird and the conquered fate she endured. In the end Father Benito the same priest who heard from the beginning to the end respected and with his recordings on paper the memory of Hummingbird's song will never die as his thoughts fade into the night with a final thought, “His question was answered when he reminded himself that he had captured her word on paper and that her song would live on in Anahuac forever” (Limon 217). The final though of this book validated all that Hummingbird wanted which was her story to be heard. An emotional story griped with enticing character development by Father Benito …show more content…
Hummingbird who is apart of the Mexica people indigenous to Mexico who are known as rulers of the Aztec empire documented in history as corrupted sorcerers by Father Benito's account. Indication that all history recorded by the Spaniard men who were the conquerors was in fact wrong according to Hummingbird and her side as the conquered. Sharing intimate details of her life and the ‘true story’ of the Aztec people the read and myself found significant evidence to support why Hummingbird is deserving of Sympathy. Imagine all that you had taken away and your land or home desecrated by foreign men claiming right to your land and body.From the text we have a brief explanation from Hummingbird entailing what the Spaniards desecrated.“Our temples,palaces, marketplaces, meeting halls, schools and libraries, out thoroughfares and gardens and squares,all destroyed in a brief time.Our trade routes, goods, and products were laid in the mud and trampled by the feet of beasts in the time taken to hear a clap of hands. Our crafts and art, all of which took countless families and immeasurable time to perfect were scorned, defiled, and made to disappear by your captains in a few passing of the moon” (Limon 86). Explaining the destruction of the Aztecs once beautiful city to rubble and at the hands of the Spaniards Hummingbird explains the …show more content…
Hummingbird being a female had faced many sexual exploits and discrimination as a women continuously advanced by countless men who had thought of her less than them. Although an argument can be raised that she was continuously ‘advanced’ towards some of these men. But the right to a woman's body and or self entirely is should not be dismissed. The relationship Hummingbird had formed with Tetla whom which she had been forced to fornicated with as part of being a concubine was non consensual. Hummingbird finally refused his sexual advance, and set Tetla off into rage, resulting in him beating her. Stated in the moment when this happened the Narrator's description of the event presumed she was going to die stating, “She thought that it was over, that she was about to die, but it wasn’t, because Tetla chose not to kill her Instead he battered her. His blows fell on her like rocks. His fists hammered at her head,face,body,anywhere they found a spot. He threw her off the bed, stomped his feet on her shoulders and butticks. His fingers coiled themselves around her hair, and he dragged her around the room. Then he picked her up like a snack of maize and threw her against the wall, bouncing her back and forth, smashing her face against any surface that he could find. Tetla did that and many other things over and again, and he did it silently, without uttering a word or sound”(Limon 52).