Thursday, January 28, 2010

The Robin Hood Bad Boy of California?!

Almost immediately after I starting reading Yellow Bird's "Joaquin Murrieta" I started thinking about Robin Hood. True, Robin Hood didn't kill all the people that Joaquin Murrieta is killing, but the two are extremely similar. Not only are they both in the minority of their times, they are representing an entire group of people behind them. For Robin Hood, this is the poor and for Joaquin Murrieta this is the bandits behind him.
I think that "Joaquin Murrieta" is a very refreshing book to read. I feel like all the books I read feature the main character as the good guy who defeats the bad guy and ends up with the happy ending. Life, however, is not always like that. Joaquin Murrieta, though containing Robin Hood-like qualities, is not a good guy. He's a bad boy character who is on a killing spree in order to find another sense of justice. I can't think of another book that I've read that represents the bad guy in good light. It's just so different to almost be on the side of the antagonist. I guess he's just an interesting oxymoran. . a villainous protagonist.
Joaquin Murrieta has a sad story. He lived in harmony with Americans until one day he was kicked off his land, his wife was raped, his brother was killed, and he was tortured. He was driven to kill any American he comes in contact with because he lost faith in the justice system that so many of us believe in. In a way, I understand why Joaquin Murrieta is killing so many. . . he has been to the darkest place that a person could go to and saw that "justice" was not what justice should be. He has to go through killing in order to find what justice really is. Though the killing part is kind of harsh and extreme (and I don't agree with it at all), he has been on a journey and been through things that hopefully no one else in class has been through. We don't know how he would act in that situation either.
I just got to thinking about "The Blithedale Romance" and Zenobia. I find it interesting how Zenobia kills herself because a man decided he did not love her while Joaquin Murrieta's wife was raped and brother was killed and yet killing himself never crossed his mind, at least not in the book. You would almost think that the opposite would happen: that Joaquin Murrieta would kill himself and Zenobia would go a little psycho and maybe kill Hollingsworth or even Priscilla out of revenge. Different authors and different genres I guess.
I'm interested to see what happens next in "Joaquin Murrieta". . . and I'm interested to see what happens to our villainous protagonist as the story goes on.

2 comments:

  1. I think you make some really good points. But after talking about the Robin Hood idea in class and reading your blog I'm still a bit confused as to why Joaquin Murieta is a Robin Hood figure and think it's a bit of a stretch. Didn't Robin Hood steal from the rich and give to the poor and when did he kill innocent people? To me Murieta is just killing needlessly and often times it is entirely innocent people.

    Natalie Bryant

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  2. Sarah, that's an interesting point about the difference between Murieta and Zenobia. Zenobia sees that her culture will continue to misunderstand her, and she kills herself; Murieta sees the same thing and tries to kill the culture, so to speak.

    Natalie, we can talk more about the Robin Hood parallel on Tuesday.

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