The Power And The Glory

Matthew Restall, a Professor of Latin American History, Women’s Studies, and Anthropology at Pennsylvania State University. He also serves the Director of the university’s Latin Studies. Throughout “Seven Myths of the Spanish Conquest,” he discusses many false truths that have been passed down through history. For instance, he discusses, “The Myth of Exceptional Men.” “The Myth of Spanish Army,” and “The Myth of Completion.” For the sake of time, I will discuss three myths that correlate with class lectures and serve as the topic of this paper, “The Myth of Exceptional Men,” “The Myth of the King’s Army,” and the “Myth of the White Conquistador.” It should be noted that Restall speaks to his audience assuring us that his “...his purpose is not to degenerate this technique of historical writing completely...Nor do I mean to create a narrative in which individual action is utterly subordinated to the larger structural forces and causes of social change.” (4). He states that his intentions are to react to more than just the works of Columbus, Pizzaro, and Cortez.

Ramon Gutierrez’s When Jesus Came, The Corn Mothers Went Away is an exploration of the merging of Spanish, Franciscan and Pueblo Indian cultures throughout Spain's “frontier” in its colonial American empire before Anglo contact. Gutierrez builds a foundation for his analysis by discussing Pueblo Indian life prior to outside contact, Franciscan theology, and the class structure of Spanish communities in each of its respective book sections. He examines meanings of the cultural interactions of gift exchange, ownership, trade, sexual rights, labor, kinship, social status, religious beliefs, and honor among many others using marriage as a window. His interpretation of the complex cultural meanings of marriage illustrates the ways in which the

For decades, the history of Latin America has been shrouded in a cover of Spanish glory and myth that misleads and complicates the views of historians everywhere. Myths such as the relationship between natives and conquistadors, and the individuality of the conquistadors themselves stand as only a few examples of how this history may have become broken and distorted. However, in Seven Myths of the Spanish Conquest Matthew Restall goes to great lengths to dispel these myths and provide a more accurate history of Latin American, in a readable and enjoyable book.

     The author of Mexican Lives, Judith Adler Hellman, grapples with the United States’ economic relationship with their neighbors to the south, Mexico. It also considers, through many interviews, the affairs of one nation. It is a work held to high esteem by many critics, who view this work as an essential part in truly understanding and capturing Mexico’s history. In Mexican Lives, Hellman presents us with a cast from all walks of life. This enables a reader to get more than one perspective, which tends to be bias. It also gives a more inclusive view of the nation of Mexico as a whole. Dealing with rebel activity, free trade, assassinations and their transition into the modern age, it justly

The legacy and impact of the Spanish conquest is continually discussed and analyzed. The struggle in finding native identities while also acknowledging Spanish heritage is a continuing process in Latin America. Modern film and art, such as Salvador Carrasco’s La Otra Conquista and Diego Rivera’s mural the arrival of Cortés speak about the conquest and its effects on Mexico identity. The film challenges myths about the conquest by arguing against the greatness of Cortés, showing power in native agency, and Spanish dependency on interpreters. The mural upholds myths of the conquest like the black legend, minimizes

Throughout “The True History of The Conquest of New Spain,” Diaz criticizes Nuhuatl religions through his denouncing tone and use of repetitions. His repetitions of “cursed,” such as the “cursed idols” (149) and “cursed temples” (149), and of

The story illustrates the overlapping influences of women’s status and roles in Mexican culture, and the social institutions of family, religion, economics, education, and politics. In addition, issues of physical and mental/emotional health, social deviance and crime, and social and personal identity are

The Crusades were a bloody war that the church deemed holy and necessary for salvation of the knights soul. The Crusades are a highly controversial and very dark stain on the Catholic church and Hierarchies past. The war was brought to the church from there Roman allies who they had tense dealings with. The where seeking aid in the fight against the muslim turks. The church decreed there act holy and justified. The people who were under the churches thumb had no objections to the slaughter that their beloved God had suposably justified.

As it stands people in a general consensus seem to vilify Chillingworth as one of the only negative characters throughout the anti-transcendentalist novel, The Scarlet Letter, by Nathaniel Hawthorne. However, this is not necessarily the case and the evils of Chillingworth had been merely just additions to his persona that were added throughout his life. Namely, this transformation from a decent and loving husband to a sadistic man who only cares about finding the other adulterer to something and making his life a living hell, and then to something no one would expect, and this was all caused by one particular instance.

When first comparing the story of Hamlet to Vertigo there doesn’t seem to be many plot points that tie the two together. However the way the leading men treat the women in their lives is one aspect that is evident similarly in both stories. Both Hamlet and Scottie are harsh to the women they seem to love or have loved. In the story of Hamlet it is never evident of whether he had truly ever loved Ophelia.

Gonzalez also explains how he feels like there have been many ‘macroevents’ and ‘macroformations’ that are going on now in the 20th century, which can be tied back to the 16th century and the Protestant Reformation. He talks about how history has shaped where the Hispanic culture is today, and how that ties into how they view theology and the Word.

In Juan Rulfo’s Pedro Páramo, various forms of oppressive behavior are manifested in the town of Comala – these range from the simple, readily apparent abuse of power to keep a population in line, as Pedro Páramo, having complete control over Comala, regularly does, to the very sinister use of religion as a means of reinforcing the patriarchal ideal held by contemporary Mexican society. In describing the oppression of society-at-large, Rulfo shows the sinister relationship that exists between power and the corruption of one’s moral standards through Pedro Páramo and Father Rentería.

In Graham Greene's The Power and the Glory, setting is essential in understanding the spiritual conquest of the main character. The story takes place in post-revolution Mexico of the nineteen-thirties, where Catholicism has been banned. The government has shut down all of the churches and established anti-Catholic laws, jealous of the rising power of the church, and nervous of the corrupt ways in which the church has been dealing with sin. The main character, a nameless "whiskey priest," hopelessly roams the desolate plains of southern Mexico, on the run from the law, as the only priest left who has not denounced his fatherhood. The surrounding communities in southern Mexico refuse to

“The moment I understood her hatred, my family had not been personally hurt by Trujillo just as before losing my baby. Jesus had not taken anything away from me. There was the Perozos, not a man left in that family and Martinez Reyna and his wife murdered in their bed and thousands of Haitians murdered at the border. Making the river they say still red. I had heard but not believed. How could our all loving father let us suffer? I looked up challenging him and the two faces merged” (Alvarez 53).

Women of Latin American culture have incessantly ensued the potent gender roles that have become a social construction of their society over innumerable decades. The profound author of Insurgent Mexico, John Reed, imparts his experiences with the revolutionary leaders of the Mexican Revolution, like Pancho Villa, and was able to witness their culture and more specifically the roles these Mexican women were forced to render by their chauvinistic counterparts. This period of revolution, started to grant women new mantles usually reserved only for men, like participating in fighting for the success of the revolution; any preeminent changes would soon approach, but in the meantime Mexican society run by men enjoyed the regulated traditional