This
short story describes a man, Rolf Carle, who desperately tries to help a girl
Azucena who is stuck in clay after a volcano eruption. The themes I predict is
this story are repressed memories, feminism, and corruption of society. Rolf
tries to help this Azucena for 3 days straight while his significant other
stays home and watches him on the television. She watches him from the
sidelines. Rolf even says that he comes to love this girl more than his life
partner, the narrator: “Rolf assured her that he loved her [Azucena] more than
he could ever love anyone, more than he loved his mother, more than his sister,
more than all the women who had slept in his arms, more than he loved me”
(Allende 366). Although Rolf does not seem to be close to the narrator even
though she loves him more than anything, Azucena helps his deal with his
repressed pain.
Rolf
lives through the lens of his camera, but when he meets Azucena, he associates
closely with her because he feels trapped in his life and memories like she is
trapped in the clay. He remembers the time his father beats him and his sister.
Allende also writes of an abusive husband in the other short story. This could
mean something about Allende’s life. Also, Rolf’s sister was retarded which
brought out even more hatred from his father. When Rolf is with her he
remembers all his painful memories and he hurts more than Azucena does.
Although Rolf looks courageous on the outside he suffers immensely which I
believe shows that he is actually not superior to his wife who waits for him.
In
addition, this story shows the corruption of government. Rolf believe all he
needs is a pump to help save Azucena’s life, but he cannot get a pump. At first
it may seem because the whole town is devastated from the tornado. Yet, the
town and government is not focused on saving Azucena, they are focused on
creating a story out of her. She is constantly on television and camera crews
come with new technology to record her: “More television and movie teams
arrived with spools of cable, tapes, film, videos, precision lenses, recorders,
sound consoles, lights, reflecting screen, auxiliary motors, cartons of
supplies, electricians, sound technicians, and cameraman” (Allende 361). All this
new technology comes to witness Azucena, yet the pump does not come. The town
clearly has enough money for the pump though if they are investing in all these
camera supplies. Also, the president comes to praise Azucena, but he does not
deliever a pump either. This shows that the town and government are focused on
the giving a media a good story rather than saving a life. This of course is
extremely hyperbolic, but that is how Allende gets her point across.
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