Jorge Angel Orozco Velazco

A07106896

Literature - Week 1

Macario
Fragment
Bruno Traven
Macario was a woodcutter in that little village. Father of eleven ragged and hungry children, he did not
he desired wealth, nor would he exchange the well-built house for the hut he lived in with his family.
He had, for the past twenty years, a single wish. And this great wish was to be able to eat
alone, enjoying the peace in the depths of the forest and without being seen by its hungry
children, a whole roasted turkey.

He never managed to fill his stomach until satisfied. On the contrary, he always sat close to
to die of hunger. Despite this, every day of the year, without excluding Sundays and holidays,
he had to leave his home before dawn to go to the forest, from which he was returning to the
twilight with a load of firewood on my back. That load, which represented an entire day's worth of
I sold it for two reales... and sometimes for less.

Only during the rainy season, when I practically had no competition, and even better in the
significant days, such as All Souls' Day, when the demand was higher for
part of the candle makers and bakers, who baked all kinds of bread from
dead and sugar skulls, he managed to get up to three reales for his load of
firewood.

Three reales constituted a fortune for his wife, known in the village as 'The Woman of the'
Sad Eyes. She, more noticeably than her husband, gave the impression that she was going to
fade away from hunger.

1.- Why is it a literary work? It develops an unusual plot, whose chilling ending...
how exciting. It reflects the thoughts of the indigenous world, customs and traditions, it is a
story where Macariotene holds the power over death in his hands, through a gift he received
makes death.

2.- Describe in five lines what the context of the text is: It is in the viceroyalty of New Spain,
where a humble woodcutter of indigenous origin named Macario lives on the edge of misery with his
family. Due to his poverty, Macario has been obsessed for twenty years with being able to eat.
a whole roasted turkey, without anyone discovering that Macario suffers from some mental problem and that he does not
is fully aware of what is happening around him.
3.-RReflect on whether the text left you with any feelings: It seems to me that it is a story
with a very Mexican touch, which is good for our traditions. It is quite a read
entertaining, a human knows the way to overcome death which draws a lot of attention.