Mariano Azuela's the Underdogs

Mariano Azuela’s The Underdogs, is about a brotherhood of the Mexican people taking a journey with only one thing on their mind; revenge against Huerta and the Federales. In this story, we as the reader are confronted with characters, such as Demetrio Macias, who is destined to lead his people into the depths of retaining an incorrupt lifestyle and hopes to find peace from the effect of war. Although Demetrio is seen as one of the main characters in the novel, we are also briefly engaged in the other revolutionary forces under Pancho Villa, Carranza, Obregon, and by peasants under Zapata. These appositional forces gain strength against the Huerta government as well. The Underdogs almost symbolizes a Robin Hood story, in which, Demetrio and his peasant guerrilla forces revolt against a higher commanding army of the government, that relies on corrupting the lives of innocent people. After reading the novel, the appendix which follows, brought on a wide range of comparisons and contrasts between the fictional story and the real events of the Mexican Revolution. To begin, The Underdogs is depicted as a “circulatory novel” in which, Azuela suggests that Demetrio and his men never make any progress geographically, but instead are going around in circles. We can only assume that Azuela does this on purpose to make room for what he thinks is a literary connection between the story and the Revolution, in saying that the Revolution was ineffective and unsuccessful(p.93). Although this example does not really tie into a universal agreement with the effects on the Mexican Revolution, it is interesting to gain an understanding on where Azeula’s thoughts are within his novel. However, the debate arises when the topic of ‘ignorance and confusion’ is introduced. The appendix argues that Demetrio and his army do not obtain a revolutionary mind set when it comes to fighting the Federales. Instead, they have more of a personal response. For example, one of the rebellious peasants