Underdogs In El Cid By El Caid

An underdog is a person or a group of people whose chances of succeeding in a particular situation appear to be very low but usually succeed anyway. Humans have a natural instinct to support the underdog because they feel that they can relate, and the archetype has littered the media throughout time, appearing everywhere from biblical texts to comic books. El Cid is an underdog himself, and, despite being centuries old, is no exception to people’s love of underdogs. In fact, he is so relatable to the people of Spain that his beliefs in regards to minorities were successfully used to support both the Inquisition and the Fascist regime. The perception of the monarchy as incompetent because of their mistreatment of El Cid within the text positions him as an underdog, and this position encourages the reader to …show more content…
The reader is already rooting for the underdog main character when the two Jews step onto the scene, and so they care far more about El Cid succeeding than Raguel and Vidas getting a fair deal. He may have tricked them by giving the men trunks full of sand for a lot of money, but the reader mainly feels happy that El Cid now has money for his journey rather than angry that the Jews were cheated. This neglect of the Jews feelings reappears briefly in the second canto when they beg Minaya to get El Cid to repay them. He tells Raguel and Vidas, “You’ll be well paid for the favor you did him” (The Song of the Cid 103). However, they are never mentioned again throughout the second half of the epic, and even though this neglect was perpetuated by Minaya and not El Cid himself, he still never pays them back. El Cid’s position as an underdog establishes him as relatable and reliable to the reader and encourages them to overlook his crimes against the two Jews in the epic, Raguel and