Deep Rivers
Rivers: A Reflection of History
Deep Rivers can be seen as an allegory for historical conflicts in South America. The novel can be seen as a symbolic narrative of not only the problems that Indians faced in Peruvian society, but also Jose Argueda’s childhood and his struggle to find his identity. Deep Rivers is beneficial to the reader because it is a first hand account of the problems that Indians faced in Peru, thus allowing the reader to make a deeper connection to the novel and understand what was going on at that date and time. Through the narrator of the novel one begins to truly understand the injustice that Native Americans faced and understand how the author (Arguedas) viewed this dilemma. The book intricately works in symbolism, and if the reader can grasp the symbolism, they can truly grasp the novel.
Jose Maria Arguedas was born in 1911 in Peru’s south-central highlands, an area in which the culture of the Quechua Indians has remained vital despite the Spanish Conquest and exploitation of the native peoples. Though Arguedas’s family belonged to the white Hispanic upper class, they were poor. His mother died when Arguedas was two years old, and his father, an itinerant lawyer, whose clients were mostly Indians and mestizos, remarried shortly thereafter. According to Arguedas, his stepmother and her family hated him and often sent him to the Indian kitchen of the household, where he was welcomed and loved by the Indian servants and where he learned the Quechua language. For the rest of his life, Arguedas felt an attachment to the Quechua, and that helped shape his work. (Portocarrero)
Deep Rivers is a novel about a young man, Ernesto, in Peruvian Andean society in the 1920s. Apart from the pressures of growing up, Ernesto must come to terms with the antagonism between the dominant white society to which he belongs racially, and the Quechua society in which he was raised. Though it isn’t stated in the book, Ernesto is a character obviously based
Deep Rivers can be seen as an allegory for historical conflicts in South America. The novel can be seen as a symbolic narrative of not only the problems that Indians faced in Peruvian society, but also Jose Argueda’s childhood and his struggle to find his identity. Deep Rivers is beneficial to the reader because it is a first hand account of the problems that Indians faced in Peru, thus allowing the reader to make a deeper connection to the novel and understand what was going on at that date and time. Through the narrator of the novel one begins to truly understand the injustice that Native Americans faced and understand how the author (Arguedas) viewed this dilemma. The book intricately works in symbolism, and if the reader can grasp the symbolism, they can truly grasp the novel.
Jose Maria Arguedas was born in 1911 in Peru’s south-central highlands, an area in which the culture of the Quechua Indians has remained vital despite the Spanish Conquest and exploitation of the native peoples. Though Arguedas’s family belonged to the white Hispanic upper class, they were poor. His mother died when Arguedas was two years old, and his father, an itinerant lawyer, whose clients were mostly Indians and mestizos, remarried shortly thereafter. According to Arguedas, his stepmother and her family hated him and often sent him to the Indian kitchen of the household, where he was welcomed and loved by the Indian servants and where he learned the Quechua language. For the rest of his life, Arguedas felt an attachment to the Quechua, and that helped shape his work. (Portocarrero)
Deep Rivers is a novel about a young man, Ernesto, in Peruvian Andean society in the 1920s. Apart from the pressures of growing up, Ernesto must come to terms with the antagonism between the dominant white society to which he belongs racially, and the Quechua society in which he was raised. Though it isn’t stated in the book, Ernesto is a character obviously based
Cited: Jacobs, James. "Tupac Amaru, The Life, Times, and Execution of the Last Inca ." Andes Web Ring (2010): n. pag. Web. 4 May 2010. . "Quechua Culture." N.p., 8/24/2002. Web. 4 May 2010. . Portocarrero, Gonzalo. "Jose Arguedas." 10/4/2010: n. pag. Web. 4 May 2010. . Seligmann, Linda. "Culture and Violence in Historical Perspective." Civil War in Peru. (2003): 117-119. Print.