Point Of View
How does the authors point of view effect the story?
The Forest
The forest is described as a dangerous place and uses imagery such as "Hunters told of narrow escapes from boars and mountain lions that prowled on the other side of the arroyo." This gives the impression that the forest is a terrifying place filled with deadly animals that are always out to get you. He also speaks of a five foot rattlesnake that had been killed on the trails. He calls all of these "warnings for small boys, to be heeded until you became a man and learned to get along with the forest."
Walnut Tree
Ernesto describes the tree as "mighty" and describes its "battles" with the arroyo very dramatically as if he is amazed at the strength of the tree. Ernesto says that "The scars on the trunk of the mighty bole showed where the arroyo had bashed it during the storms of former years. But the nogal always won these battles. The arroyo, when the storms had passed, gave up and backed away, leaving around the trunk a small beach where the pond lapped gently on the gravel"
Pueblo
The pueblos are seen as the center of family and typical house life in Jalcocotan. Ernesto says; "On both sides of the street the doors were open. In the kitchens, the coals glowed in the adobe pretiles where the cooking was done, illuminated by the tin oil lamps, three inches round and two deep, the candiles that swung from the ceiling. Through the doors, opened to receive the returning toilers and to freshen the air inside the cottages, came the sounds and sights of the street at sundown. There was the soft clapping of the woman patting the ration of tortillas for the evening meal. The smokey light from the wicks of then candiles flickering through the doorways cast wobbling shadows on the threshold as people moved about. The air outside was a blend of the familiar smells of supper time-tortillas baking, beans boiling, chile roasting, coffee steaming, kerosene stenching." This describes how everyone had a similar house life at the end of the day.