63 pages • 2 hours read
Américo ParedesGeorge Washington Gómez: A Mexicotexan Novel
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1990A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Summary
Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Character Analysis
Themes
Symbols & Motifs
Important Quotes
Essay Topics
Part 2, Chapters 9-12Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Part 2: “Jonesville-on-the-Grande”
Part 2, Chapter 9 Summary
Feliciano crosses into Morelos and visits Don Santos’ impressive house, and Don Santos tells his story to Feliciano. He was born to a creole Mexican father and a Black mother. After a household betrayal led to the death of his mother, Don Santos’ father sent him away. He then traveled to Texas, where he joined the sediciosos with Feliciano and Lupe. While there, his father and brothers were killed in Mexico by villistas, supporters of Mexican president Venustiano Carranza. After the sedicioso cause fell apart, Lupe and Don Santos returned to Mexico and joined the carrancistas, also supporters of Carranza, and became colonels. Eventually, a lawyer located Don Santos and informed him that he is the primary heir in his father’s will.
Don Santos tells Feliciano of his intention to smuggle desired but overly expensive goods across the border and asks his old comrade to help. Feliciano feels morally conflicted by this, but eventually agrees. He then talks to Don Santos about his dream of one day renting land and starting a farm.
After leaving Morelos, Feliciano recalls the events of his life without pride. He bemoans that this new endeavor in smuggling will add up to just one more shameful act, but he admits to himself that he will soon need money to fund Guálinto’s education.
Part 2, Chapter 10 Summary
The family hosts a local friend named Don Pancho for dinner. Guálinto spends most of the evening with his sisters, Carmen and Maruca. Carmen is the eldest and brightest student of the girls; Maruca, the middle child, does poorly in school and is more capricious. The two attempt to convince Guálinto to leave the adults’ party and go play at a neighbor’s house, but Guálinto changes his mind on the way and coerces them into turning back.
Hiding in the bushes, the children eavesdrop on the adults, who are telling ghost stories on the porch. Don Pancho tells a story of how God avenged a murdered wife on her drunkard husband. Feliciano recalls being terrified as a child of a feral man who appeared on the chapparal only under a full moon and would moan into the night. Don Pancho then gets through most of a local tale of “the woman in white,” but ends up terrifying Guálinto, who bursts from the bushes and begs him to stop.
María scolds Guálinto for eavesdropping, but Feliciano comes to his defense and carries the boy inside to bed. Despite his uncle’s reassurances, Guálinto is too scared to sleep, and the rain falls on him as he lies under the open window.
Part 2, Chapter 11 Summary
The next day, Guálinto is ill. Feliciano is convinced it is just a cold from the rain, but María believes it is “fright sickness” and sends for Doña Simonita, a local healer. When the woman arrives, Guálinto is initially frightened of her scarred face. Doña Simonita reveals to him that she was scarred and blinded as a child by smallpox.
Doña Simonita also terrifies Guálinto by claiming to be cursed with seeing the deaths of others before they happen. She eventually gives him a strange, hallucinatory medicine and prays with him until he falls asleep.
Part 2, Chapter 12 Summary
Guálinto feels better later in the day while he is tended to by Feliciano and asks for the first time about his father, Gumersindo, and how he died. Feliciano responds, “Your father died of his heart, Guálinto. His heart was too big and it killed him” (101). They then discuss the Mexican Revolution and los sediciosos, and Guálinto declares that he will kill all the rinches when he grows up. Feliciano does not encourage this mentality, but he doesn’t discourage it, either.
Their conversation shifts to Santa Claus. Feliciano recalls how he received nothing from Santa as a child, while Gumersindo, who grew up amongst the wealthier gentry in Mexico, received many gifts from the Three Wise Kings. Guálinto eventually deduces that Santa is a “Gringo,” but cannot understand how anyone could be a good person and a “Gringo” at the same time. Feliciano dodges explaining how this could be possible, still haunted by his hatred.
Part 2, Chapters 9-12 Analysis
Feliciano’s reunion with Don Santos de la Vega, formerly “El Negro,” in Chapter 9 foreshadows one possible future for Guálinto growing up in an antagonistically bicultural society. Due to his Black heritage and illegitimate birth, Don Santos is an outcast even in his own family:
People on the hacienda used to say that the African blood had been distilled in my veins. Nothing of criollo or Indian in me. My half-brothers didn’t like me, of course. As far back as I can remember, they did all they could to make me miserable. They were the ones who first called me El Negro when we were kids. Even the servants made fun of me. They called me negrito, as if they were being affectionate, but I could tell that they were laughing at me and really calling me ‘little black boy’ (77).
Don Santos implies that this isolation drove him to his nihilistic outlook on life, as shown when he admits to joining the carrancistas, allies of the same revolutionaries who killed his father and brothers. Feliciano disapproves of Don Santos’ methods; he is disheartened to be pulled into his scheme, but he relents to pay for Guálinto’s education. The fact that he does so illustrates that Feliciano is not as different from his old comrade as he might like to believe, but his strained conscience also shows that he is at least aware of his wrongdoings, and may some day be able to take responsibility for them.
Paredes illustrates a further oppositional force within the local culture and the family in how Guálinto is treated upon falling ill. While Feliciano leans on more Westernized ideas of illness and treatment, María insists on using folk medicine to help her son, calling on Doña Simonita. While it is unclear what medicine she uses to treat Guálinto, its hallucinogenic properties and her prayers imply a religious/spiritual origin. The discussion between Feliciano and María underlines the difference of opinions they share in how much stock to place on religion itself: María trusts it as an ultimate source of moral guidance and healing, while the atheistic Feliciano finds it harmful and does not believe Doña Simonita will help at all. This difference of opinion in Guálinto’s two primary parent figures is important to note as the novel progresses.
In their final conversation in Chapter 12, Guálinto and Feliciano encounter a conundrum when they discuss the “Gringo”-ness of Santa Claus. Each of them carries a certain enmity (on Guálinto’s part) or downright hatred (Feliciano) for “Gringos,” but Guálinto believes Santa Claus to be an omnibenevolent figure, an ideal Feliciano does not contest. Even still, when Guálinto asks how Santa can be both “Gringo” and a good person, Feliciano is still too full of hate to reason the question out with his nephew. This difficulty exploring nuances as a result of long-festering hatred will result in a severe breakdown in communication between the two.
