Latin American Boom

verdad,” and maybe it was so. -Tar Baby, page 167 Son is told this shortly after killing a fish by applying brute force, “holding the tail down with his knee, bash[ing] with his fist the snapper’s head” (Tar Baby 167). The attribution of “certainly American” (“cierto Americano”) to Son seems to be in large part because of the brutality associated with his killing of the fish, as being similar to that of America’s treatment of the…

Women across Latin America have been mistreated as a result of gender roles. Gender roles are created to organize a social hierarchy or norms between men and women. Women are often placed in a non authoritative position under men and are discriminated against as a result of these norms. In certain countries gender roles have created a serious problem between men and women. Gender roles in Latin America have undermined female education, and this has affected their involvement in labor and…

Chronicle of a Death Foretold Introduction Gabriel Garcia Marquez published the novel ‘Chronicle of a Death Foretold ' in the year 1981. The novel uses the form of pseudo-journalistic reconstruction. In the book, Marquez uses an anonymous narrator to talk about a murder that was committed by two brothers. The book brings out the concept of honor as the theme and also the concept of magical realism as a motif. Honor is the main subject of topic in the book. The book focuses on the actions of…

Growing up in Jamaica, an island where the majority of the population is of African descent, I never truly understood the controversies surrounding race and racial identity, simply because I never confronted it. For me, race and racial identity were just foreign concepts that, although I had read about at great length and while watching the international news, heard many accounts of various encounters with these concepts, these concepts never materialized fully in my daily life. Therefore, as a…

then the histography might suggest, also seems to lose its strength in conjunction with this patriarchal structure. However, Nicholas Robins provides an easy to read narrative about the marriage life in the Colonial Andes, giving Gender studies, Latin American studies or the interested reader an insight into this social…

Latin Literature is one which incorporated ‘magical realism’ in their works often, along with the ‘fantastic’ which in simple terms is the used of supernatural elements in their works is such a subtle manner that they might otherwise be deemed impossible to happen, yet are able to happen at the same time. An example can be taken from A Very Old Man With Enormous Wings by Garcia Marquez, where he incorporated the use of a fallen angel and a girl who turned into a spider, and while it seems almost…

trading system. The Philippines was the first country outside Mesoamerica that plants and grows cacao. It became more popular to the country and also to the other parts of the world. As stated by the Cacao Manual published by the Inter-American Institute of American Sciences, the fruit of the cacao tree is botanically a drupe but commonly referred to as a pod. Some pods are as long as 32cm and others as short as 10cm. The shape ranges from oval to a somewhat cylindrical form. Young pods are…

creating and expressing a community’s sense of identity. Through each, members are able to pass on traditions, make political statements, and express themselves. The tango and salsa styles of music and dance are prime examples of mobilities in Latin American music that help foster a sense of identity among the smaller communities, although each required international attention before earning recognition from its home country. Each style of music is a special hybrid of all kinds of influences,…

Native Americans and European settlers were not immune to these diseases. So that made them unprepared to fight the diseases. Most of these diseases brought to America were highly contagious. The smallpox was the deadliest. More Native Americans died from small pox than the deaths by the black death. Smallpox killed tens of thousands of Indians in the New World. Nearly all of…

Reputation; what significance does this one word have that a Spanish proverb states, “He who has lost his reputation is a dead man among the living”? According to the townspeople in theocratic Salem, an individual was to become prestigious and sacrifice everything for a good name. There was no such thing as private moralities, instead, a person’s reputation was a public matter showcased for the town to judge and discern. Nothing is more unimaginable than having to lose an influential position.…