1) What is Marti's attitude toward the United States and/or Europe?
2) Why does Marti constantly use the rhetorical device known as antithesis (i.e. two opposing ideas)?
3) Do you think Marti was successful in his initial request to create new ideas? Why or why not?
4) Marti refers to Latin America as a woman, while depicting "her neighbor" as a man. What effect does this have on the image of Latin America at this time?
Diego Rivera, Pan-American Unity
Diego Rivera, Pan-American Unity
I am not sure if he was successful, as they do not outline Central America's future progress (& I am not so in tune with global affairs), however, he does state that initially Hispanoamericans tried imitation, then hate, then "Almost unknowingly..love". Which seems a much more natural way of living to me. In the trenches of ideas vs. stone suggestion.
ReplyDeleteWhen he says, "The nations arise and salute one another. "What are we like? they ask, and begin telling each other what they are like" (294). Certainly seems like some success.
Never having a chance to consider and explore who they were, borrowing from conquering nations from the start, finally through a peaceful and observational standpoint, they have given themselves a chance to consider, who they are and who they want to become.
His idea being that "America...inherited from its...colonizer...imported forms and ideas that have.. [a] lack of local reality...The continent, deformed by three centuries of a rule that denied man the right to exercise his reason" (292).
With less guesswork and more attention to detail both past and present, Hispanoamerica finally took the time out to exercise a more natural reason rather than "The university taught reason of the few imposed upong the rustic reason of others" (292)
In response to question four, I think that by portraying Latin America as female, Marti is placing her in the role a respectable woman who is being forced to ward off the advances of those who do not know her character. She is a woman who must make it known to her "viral" neighbors that she is someone who must be considered and respected and not someone who can be treated forcefully. She must be fearful of other nations' "disdain" and must make herself known as respectable. By imagining Latin American as a woman Marti is placing a spotlight on the fact that Latin America needs to prove itself respectable else other nations will "demand intimate relations with [it]" (295).
ReplyDeleteMarti sees Europe/the United States as gaudy and overly obsessed with material possessions. Furthermore he sees them as unfit to rule Latin American countries because they are not native to the land and thus are not equipped to properly lead the people and make decisions in their best interests. He uses antithesis to juxtapose the native Latin Americans to the white man corrupting their country and values. He wants to make a clear distinction between the natural, native men of the country and the imperialist North Americans and Europeans before the latter culture entirely consumes the former culture and eliminates the distinction. He wants a return to the native culture and a value placed on that rather than the frivolous European/North American culture, as exhibited by the line "We wore epaulets and judge's robes , in countries that came into the world wearing rope sandals and Indian headbands" (293). He thinks the educational system should place greater value on the history of the land and not European history: "Our own Greece is preferable to the Greece that is not ours; we need it more" (291). He is trying to point out that the Americas have a very distinct culture of their own of which they should be proud and cherish. He wants to assert the existence of this culture in contrast to the European/North American one now before it is too late and all that future generations of the Americas will know of is European/North American history, wearing European/North American clothing and having European/North American values and traditions, with the native mestizo culture completely extinct from these lands.
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