Los gallinazos sin plumas
Los gallinazos sin plumas
Los gallinazos sin plumas; is a story written by the Peruvian short-story writer and novelist Julio Ramón Ribeyro that appeared in his first book of short stories of the same name (1955); it also appears in La palabra del mudo, which is a compilation of stories written between 1955 and 1977.
It is the author's best known short story and one of the milestones in the development of urban realism narrative in Peru. [1]
It deals in a surprisingly crude way with the poverty and exploitation suffered by many children in Latin America.
Composition
This story, which heads the collection of the same name, was written in Paris in 1954, being the last of that series that the author finished writing. At the time, the author had the impression that it was his best story, as we read in his memoirs, dated October 5 of that year:
I have the impression that "The featherless hens" is the best story I have written so far. In front of me, in the Petit Cluny café where I was writing, there was a mirror. I caught myself grimacing with anger, disgust, cold, according to the course of what I was writing. The waiters looked at me. The anecdote of Flaubert feeling the taste of arsenic when Madame Bovary was dying seems to me to be true. The creative power resides, I believe, in the capacity to be impressed by imaginary stimuli.
The collection came out in 1955, in Lima, being the first book published by Ribeyro and with which he began his literary career.
Argument
The author tells the story of brothers Efraín and Enrique, two children exploited by a heartless grandfather, Don Santos, old and lame (with a wooden leg), who forces them to rummage through garbage cans in search of food for his pig.
Both children get sick but the grandfather insists on making them work. Enrique takes over all the work and brings home a dog to keep his brother, who was in a more delicate condition, company. But the grandfather takes advantage of Enrique's absence to kill the dog and feed it to the pig. Enrique, returning to the house, discovers the remains of the dog and argues with his grandfather; the latter slips, his wooden leg breaks and falls into the pigsty, and due to his limp he cannot get up.
Then the two brothers run away from that place hearing from afar the grandfather's screams. The story ends by suggesting that the grandfather becomes a victim of his own pig. [2]
Characters
Don Santos, a crippled old man who uses a wooden leg. He is tyrannical and ill-tempered, and forces his grandchildren to go to the streets to collect food for his pig, which he fattens to sell. He is not interested in the health and good nutrition of his grandchildren, whom he sends out into the streets barefoot and exposed to all kinds of dangers and diseases. His only interest is profit. He is the typical representative of the capitalist oppressor who cares nothing for the health and welfare of his workers. He constantly idealizes hard and tireless work, and firmly believes that only those who work in this way are worthy of food; in other words, he has ideas typical of an incipient mentality. His death, understood as a victim of his own pig, gives an end of macabre irony to the story.
The brothers Efraín and Enrique, grandsons of Don Santos to whom they owe obedience in exchange for a very poor shelter and a miserable meal. They are the "featherless hens", because just like those carrion-eating birds, they scavenge in the garbage dumps in search of food. When they are unable to do their job, the grandfather punishes them by beating them and depriving them of food. Both end up getting sick, but even so, Don Santos insists that they continue working, in accordance with the inhuman practices rooted in the world dominated by savage capitalism. But both brothers join forces together to escape from this oppression and achieve their goal, while the grandfather ends up horribly under the jaws of his own pig.
The pig Pascual, an animal that Don Santos is obsessed with fattening (fattening) to sell. He is insatiable; every day he demands more food, but when he does not receive it, he begins to go mad. He is a representation of the consumer society.
The dog Pedro, a small, small, mangy and mangy dog, is adopted as a pet by the brothers. They teach him to carry stones in his mouth. He ends up being beaten to death by his grandfather, and his body is thrown as food for the pig. The affection the brothers feel for this little animal contrasts with the old man's attitude towards his own grandchildren.
The "city" is compared to another monster, always waking up early.
Interpretation and message
This play can be read as an expressionist parable: Don Santos embodies the ruthless exploiter, who has no scruples in usufructuring the labor of his grandchildren, in exchange for a miserable meal and a precarious roof. He is only interested in fattening his pig, rather than the food and health of his grandchildren, since the former will bring him profit, since the animal already has a buyer, a man "with blood on his hands". The grandfather's only driving force is profit. On the other hand, the grandchildren represent the exploited proletarian, and practice among themselves high values such as solidarity and fraternity.
For this very reason they agree and complement each other to flee from that hell of life, while leaving the grandfather at the mercy of the very monster he has raised, the pig Pascual, thus ending the story with a halo of macabre irony. however, it is also understood that the children will henceforth have to fend for themselves and survive in another equally painful reality, which is life in the city. The story is an implicit critique of the poverty and exploitation suffered by many children in Latin America, and in that sense it is still relevant today.