Foreshadowing In Three Dirges
Foreshadowing In "Three Dirges"
A sense of ominous foreboding permeates the woeful passage from "Three Dirges." The conflict is immediately apparent
: "Don Lazaro, you've got five boys in Comitan teaching the campesinos how to read. That's subversive. That's communist. So tonight, you have to kill them." Don Lazaro, the mayor of the war torn village, San Martin Comitan, seems to have no choice but to carry out this heartless command. His response is indicative of a desperate man searching for answers, yet already resigned to carrying out the task at hand. "What can I say? --you tell me!" cries an anguished Don Lazaro to the villagers. Is he pleading for their understanding, or asking for a miraculous solution that would alter the path that lay before him? It is this uncertainty that, when coupled with melancholy foreshadowing, leaves the reader at a suspenseful crossroad; suspecting that events are transpiring, but doubtful as to the outcome.
The element of foreshadowing is exemplified early in the passage with the visual description of the Indian skyrocket. Was the skyrocket, with its orange and yellow star-burst and streaking gray tail, a warning? Perhaps the skyrocket was a portend of a horrendous attrocity about to occur. Certainly, the resounding echo and brilliance of the skyrocket would alert the villagers to impending danger. In a land already rocked by its internal strife, such a sight in the still darkened sky would send shockwaves of fear and panic throughout the small community. The reader, too, must ponder the implication of this apparent
signal of peril.
If the skyrocket failed to capture the attention of everyone in the village, the mission bells foreshadowed an unknown evil that was threatening the villlage. Was the entire population of San Martin Comitan under attack? The mission bells were easily recognizable to parishoners; moreover they were a welcome tolling beckonning the faithful to worship. But this...
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