Analysis of "The Crows are in Mourning"
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ScribdTranslationsAnalysis of "The Crows are in Mourning"
Translated by
ScribdTranslationsAnalysis 'The Crows are in Mourning'
Final project.
Becerril Suárez Josafat.
"The crows are in mourning," a work written by Hugo Argüelles tells the story
of a stereotype of the typical Mexican family, regarding the inheritance of a father who
he worked his whole life and built a fortune, but when he lies on his deathbed
death of two of her children only wait for the moment to catch the oldest
part at the time of the distribution, the other of his sons is the only one who
worried about him, however it turns out he is not the biological son of Don Lacho (who is the
father of them all).
The title "The crows are in mourning" reflects much of the plot of the story,
because really the crows are the children of Don Lacho. Why do the children
are represented in a crow? For these scavenger characteristics, since the
Don Lacho's biological children are only waiting for his death to
to collect their inheritance, not only the children but also their wives
(Piedad and María) since they manipulate them in such a way that they only seek the part of
the inheritance that "belongs" to them.
The work is divided into three acts, through which we can get to know
better for each of the characters. I believe that Don Lacho is the character
most importantly, however, I believe that the central theme of the story is all the
family, since each character has certain prominence at times.
The priest is also a character that we need to analyze more thoroughly, since
at first it seems to take a back seat, but when the climax arrives
from the work, the priest keeps the secret about who is not the son of Don Lacho and is
when this character has more weight, also at a certain moment one arrives
he is interested in María, one of the wives of Don's sons
Lacho; we can see that in reality no one is ever completely trustworthy.
The wives of Gelasio and Mateo are not good people, as they only
They blackmail their husbands to hurry up the funeral, even though Mr. Lacho
he had not died. María especially has some kind of grudge against Mr. Lacho
ya que el la tomaba por una mujer “fácil” y por eso mismo no les permitió casarse
even though they already had a child together.
The way Argüelles approaches the subject of death is with a very humorous tone.
acid, because Don Lacho has not died yet and even his children along with their
wives have obtained their death certificate and are planning everything for
advance his funeral. What caught our attention is the naturalness with which it
they handle the characters, as it is completely normal for them to plan death
from someone in that way. At some point, they invite the neighbors to the
funeral even though his father has not died, they arrive and then realize
that they are just waiting for your death and are showing indignation.
Death in this work is treated as a more normal theme, without so many complexities.
and perhaps because of the society we live in, we have the concept of death
as the opposite of life and we have, to some extent, a certain fear of it.
For this reason, it seems strange or uncommon to us that a person's own children
they see the death of their father this way, because we are used to the fact that the
people feel sad, refuse to accept that they are about to pass away and even
they do everything possible to save their father's life; not here, it is totally the
On the contrary, all of his close relatives show no feelings for the
imminent death and they seek to hasten all matters regarding the funeral to arrive at
process of the distribution of their goods, all under the pretext that they had too much
I work in the field and they couldn't wait that long.
We could say that it delves into black humor due to this handling of the themes.
more sensitive issues in society such as death and we could even include among
these topics the topic of religion and the priests, because at a certain moment they
alludes to the fact that the priest feels attracted to one of Don Lacho's daughters-in-law,
feel the discomfort in the scene.
The outcome of the story begins when Mr. Lacho wants to talk to the priest.
to tell a secret and have it kept until everyone agrees on it
listen to it; it turns out that of his three children, one of them is not biologically his
and therefore will not have the right to inheritance.
Piedad and María immediately show concern and their worst comes to light.
part, as they seek to hurry and find out who is not the son of Mr. Lacho
to divide the inheritance among fewer people so that each one gets a larger share
they were almost certain that Enrique was not the biological son of don
Good.
However, I believe that the ending of the work is the most realistic and sets aside the
cliché and the stereotype of the happy ending for good people; well, it turns out that
the whole family finds out that Enrique (the brother who was not interested and who
he worked in good faith with Mr. Lacho) he is not his biological son and therefore does not
is well received by the rest of the family, as they were only
interested in keeping the part of the inheritance that was theirs.
Just after Don Lacho dies is when this is revealed to them, which is why
Enrique shows serious anger towards him and locks himself where he was.
As really no one feels sad or heartbroken about the death of Don
Lacho, they hire a group of indigenous people to cry at the funeral. What for?
the degree of dark humor leads us to accept that the family
Does Mr. Lacho hire someone to cry and feel bad at his funeral? It's illogical.
to think that a family could become so indifferent to the death of
someone so close to them.
Inclusive, the group of indigenous people (it is worth noting that the family is
took advantage of them because they were drunk) they feel so bad about themselves that
they decide not to charge the family for being at the funeral. I mean, really everyone is
show witnesses for the death of the father of the family, except for the one himself.
family.
However, let us not overlook that as the work unfolds
it is revealed to us that Mr. Lacho is not the best person in the world, since in all
his life was that of a crooked man, a usurer who based his fortune on deceiving
people and for which he instilled that feeling in his children, where only
they were looking to obtain a material good and felt no sentimental attachment to anything
out of money.
At the end of the plot, the village gang takes Don Lacho to bury him and he
they accompany their sons (Gelasio and Mateo only) along with their wives, who because of
inside they felt extremely happy and relieved that everything had been resolved
that way, better than they expected, since at first they were looking to divide
the 30 thousand in three parts and it ended up being divided only into two.
Enrique ends up leaving with his wife and the priest's family towards the city
from Mexico and that is where the story ends.
We can see that the story really sets aside the typical ending for the
stories; although from the very beginning we can sense that it is not an ordinary work, already
that the theme of death is taken so lightly and without stereotypes. The ending me
It seems very realistic, since Don Lacho decides to leave nothing to the only one.
a person who was loyal to him, but this same person (Enrique) does not create a fuss nor
seeks to obtain a part of the inheritance by any means, simply takes it.
with courage but distances himself from what he believed was his family and realizes that they all are
They were the most interested and unscrupulous people I knew.
It is until that moment when the title of the work makes sense to us and we understand
because the crows are in mourning.