The mountains, ravines, and trees are presented with grand beauty and also a haunting sense of foreboding.
There, federal soldiers come upon the fugitives at breakfast, and Demetrio runs off. He returns with a gun, however, to prevent the wild and lawless soldiers from raping his wife. Being no killer, Demetrio lets them go free, only to have them come back with reinforcements and burn his fields.
Demetrio then joins a band of sixty sharpshooting rebel outlaws and helps them to drive off twice that many soldiers. During the fighting, two of the rebels are killed, and Demetrio is shot in the leg. For two weeks, the outlaws remain hidden in a native village, looked after by Indians who hate the government.
An attractive young woman named Camila is his nurse. One day, the pseudointellectual Luis Cervantes blunders into the village and explains that he has deserted the government forces because his commanding officer assigned him to menial duty. Accepted eventually as a revolutionist, Cervantes then urges the rebels to join the great revolutionary leaders of Mexico.
Camila falls in love with him. He flatters Demetrio by telling the Indian that he is more than a common rebel, that he is a tool of destiny to win back the rights of the people.
Demetrio plans a surprise attack on one of the towns along their march, but an Indian guide betrays the scheme, and the federales are prepared to resist. A friendly citizen shows the rebels a back way into the town, however, and the garrison is overwhelmed.
The rebels find and stab the treacherous guard and kill the federal soldiers who survived the attack. Failing to take Zacatecas, the rebels are forced to retreat, discarding their booty along the road. During the next battle, Cervantes and Solis, an idealist, take refuge in a place where they think they will be safe.
While they discuss the significance of the revolution, Solis is struck and killed by a stray bullet. While drinking and boasting in a tavern after the battle, Demetrio meets Whitey Margarito, a vicious soldier, and La Pintada, a prostitute with whom Demetrio goes looking for a hotel room.
Her insistence that, as a general, he should occupy a house of his own makes him decide to commandeer a fine residence. During the ransacking, Cervantes finds a valuable diamond ring and the soldiers tear the pictures from books in the library.
Cervantes, having collected much loot, suggests that he and Demetrio hide it in case they are forced to leave the country. Demetrio wishes to share it with the others. Still an idealist, he believes the rebel cause will triumph.
Cervantes promises to get Camila for his leader, as Demetrio still wants her above all. Cervantes goes to the village and persuades Camila to return with him. The next morning, La Pintada discovers Camila and offers to help her escape.
She has found that she likes Demetrio, and she decides to stay with him and the rebel army. Later, when kindhearted Camila persuades Demetrio to return ten bushels of confiscated corn to a starving villager, Whitey gives the man ten lashes instead.
When Demetrio, siding with Camila, orders La Pintada away from the camp, she becomes enraged and stabs Camila. When Demetrio and his men reach Aguascalientes, they find Villa and Venustiano Carranza, once allies, fighting each other.Next year marks the centennial of the publication of Mariano Azuela's "The Underdogs," often said to be "the greatest novel" of the Mexican Revolution of 20 November It may be, though it isn't a sweeping and detailed account of that fierce but doomed uprising/5.
Culture of Mexico - history, people, clothing, traditions, women, beliefs, food, customs, family Ma-Ni. The words "exploitation," "inequality," and "resistance" bind together attitudes and actions that encapsulate much of Latin America's economic, social, and .
The Underdogs a Novel of the Mexican Revolution Themes Mariano Azuela This Study Guide consists of approximately 38 pages of chapter summaries, quotes, character analysis, themes, and more - everything you need to sharpen your knowledge of The Underdogs a Novel of the Mexican Revolution.
Latin American literature - The 20th century: Eventually the innovations of Modernismo became routine, and poets began to look elsewhere for ways to be original. The next important artistic movement in Latin America was the avant-garde, or the vanguardia, as it is known in Spanish.
This movement reflected several European movements, especially Surrealism. The Underdogs follows the rise and fall of Demetrio Macias and his band of rebels during the Mexican Revolution of the early nineteen hundreds. The novel charts Demetrio's rise from farmer to general of the northern rebel army, and his subsequent decline and the deterioration of his army.
Demetrio.