Lazarillo De Torme Analysis

The word choice throughout Lazarillo de Tormes offers the reader a better glance into the life of Lazaro and gives the opportunity to put themselves in the place of the character. Through the word choice and description of Lazaro’s starvation, the reader gives consent and feels empathy for the actions that Lazaro must use in order to survive. These actions often have to deal with hiding and concealing. The choice of worlds throughout the novella opens the reader up into the world that Lazaro is suffering in and the descriptions of the pain that Lazaro goes through brings images to the mind of what it must be like. This offers the reader a chance to experience to understand and accept why Lazaro behaves in the way that he does and why he chooses
to steal and act in a conniving way. Through the choice of words, the readers are given the opportunity to empathize with Lazaro and understand his reasons for hiding and concealing various things from each of his masters.
Lazaro receives many masters and each time is faced with the challenges of brutal living conditions and starvation. Under his first master, the blind man, Lazaro is given multiple opportunities to conceal the truth from the man since he has no sight. It is often difficult for Lazaro to achieve this acts of concealment and is beaten and often hungry. The blind man was wise and was able to reveal the truth, “He turned the jug over and over and round and round so many times that at last he discovered my little trick; but the crafty bugger didn’t say a word and I thought I’d got away with it” (Page 10). The words like trick and crafty often elude to the idea that a person is able to easily hide actions or things from others. Lazaro learns his craft of concealment from his first master, the blind man, because they are evenly compared. Lazaro “tricks” the blind man for a short period of time and drinks his wine but the old man is “crafty” and seeks his revenge. They are each able to hide things from each other but in the end are subjected to punishment from the other one. Although, they both know that they are hiding something, they often to lie to cover up their actions,
“‘Lazaro, you’ve been doing me. By God I swear you’ve been taking three grapes at a time.’ ‘I didn’t, you know,’ I said, ‘but what makes you think I did?’ The crafty old man replied: ‘You know how I spotted you were eating three grapes at a time? Because I was eating two at a time and you didn’t say anything!’” (Page 13)
The author chooses to use the word “crafty” to describe the blind man again.
This signifies that Lazaro is learning from his master about the tricks and ways to conceal and lie. Lazaro is admitting that he is even having trouble hiding things from this man even though he is blind. Lazaro takes the skills of hiding and concealment that he learned with this master and uses it as he moves on to his following masters.
Lazaro moves onto a master that he is able to keep secrets from and is able to practice the techniques of hiding that he had started to establish with his old master, the blind man. The author chooses to talk about Lazaro literally hiding something in his mouth and him being subjected to searches. Lazaro knows that his tricks aren’t going to work so now he has to become crafty in order to survive, “…as I hadn’t a pocket or patch in my clothes that he didn’t search regularly. Well, as I said, I put the key into my mouth before going to sleep and slept without fear that my employer might find it in his nightly searches” (Pages 26-27). The choice of the word search is often related to the idea of having something to hide. Lazaro has something that he wishes to conceal from his master, because he is stealing from him using this key. The description of the starvation and desperation that Lazaro is going through makes the reader feel as if Lazaro is justified for stealing from his master. Lazaro describes his situation with his masters so far as, “The first
kept me half-dead with hunger and this one has almost got me into the grace with it” (Page 21). The pain that Lazaro must be experiencing from this hunger makes the reader sympathize with him and understand why he acts the way that he acts.
Concealment and hiding is seen through many of Lazaro’s master but his fifth master displays concealment through his actions. The words that Lazaro uses to describe his master concealing what his indulgences really are shows that in order to live, they have to hide the truth. The readers are able to see this action, “When the pardoner saw me there, he put his finger to his lips to tell me to keep my mouth shut” (Page 55). This quote describes the image of quieting something. The finger over the mouth is a universal sign to keep quiet. The description is the literal sense of hiding and keeping the truth. Lazaro is so inclined to this lifestyle of trickery though that he is aware of the scam his master is performing, “Nobody spotted anything he had done except me” (Page 55). Lazaro knows that he needs to keep quiet in order to survive.
The choice of words allows the reader to be transported into the feelings that Lazaro would have been feeling as he was experiencing them.
Through the description of the pain that he was feeling from starvation, Lazaro’s actions of hiding and stealing was justified because the reader sympathized with him. Hiding and concealing was a major part of each of his masters and in order to survive, Lazaro needed to be tricky and figure out ways to survive off of the limited goods he was given to live off of. The certain words that were used like search and descriptions that were given that show concealment and hiding, helped showcase the importance of these actions during Lazaro’s
lifetime.