The People

My Message and A Celebration of the Monster chart two different perspectives of the masses and of uprisings. My Message sees the hope and the power within the people, which are necessary to Perón's cause and her movement. Evita Perón does not back away from stating that she hopes to move people to act: “I want to incite the people. I want to ignite them with the fire of my heart.” (30). In her eyes, the people are an important part of the nation and her cause. She relies on the people, on the masses, and she even critiques those who do not join the fight. In My Message, the people are seen as influential and good in the way they provide to the fight, by giving a reason and a cause to fight for. The people, not the elites, deserve to be heard and listened, at least in this text, and this view of the people as good and reliable contrasts with the way that A Celebration of the Monster portrays the people (or the masses).

In A Celebration of the Monster, Jorge Luis Borges follows the perspective of this young man as he joins the fight in support of “the Monster”. In this text, Borges looks at the people critically and appears to be arguing that they are incapable of thinking independently. At the end of the text, a person is killed for no reason, and yet the young men believe that they have done a service to “the Monster” and to the public. The young men sing and chant, believing and following blindly to a cause that seems to value, and encourage, violence and chaos. Borges appears to be that people are easily swayed and convinced, which would mean that the people are not trustworthy because they are reliant on other people to tell them what to think. This text then questions the strength in movements by the people and the integrity of the masses.


A Celebration of the Monster and My Message provide contrasting views of the characteristics of large groups of people, and as a result raise questions regarding how to see “the people”. From one side it seems that the general people can do a lot of good, but from another it seems they can only do bad. After reading these texts, there is no decisive person or group to trust, and so the challenge becomes in deciding whether to follow the whims of the people or the whims of those in power.

Comments

  1. Jon16 January 2017 at 23:43

    Hi Gabriela. I think you will have to change the theme of your blog, I'm afraid. As your text is white, when it comes through to the course website, whose background is also white, it ends up invisible. I'm sorry about the bother!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Unknown18 January 2017 at 23:42

    Your response to both texts was very helpful in my own understanding of the authors. You shed light on the dichotomized perspectives that both Peron and Borges put forward.

    ReplyDelete

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