Goodbye Mother by Reinaldo Arenas - Research Paper Example

The short story opens with the death of the personas mother. The mother is portrayed as a powerful figure that has overall authority over her children. He recalls how the mother was strict and looked after them with an iron fist. The mother is symbolic of the country, Cuba. They loved their country, but with the revolution, it is constantly changing from the beautiful place they once knew to an ugly, terrible state “haven’t you notice the smell, the flies……?” The country is now ruled by dictators, and all the good things are slowly dying (Arenas, pg.316). They have been replaced by beetles, flies, rats and maggots, which have been used metaphorically to refer to the oppressors.

Since the coming of the Cuban revolution to power, the people have been oppressed. After the collapse of their motherland, the citizens display their loyalty to their country by choosing to die for it. He is gives a detailed description of the disgraceful behavior of the oppressors by using the flies and maggots to give a vivid a picture. After days of decomposition, the bodies have a started to rot and maggots have invaded it. It displays the rot in the revolution and how the oppressors are devouring the countries resources and mistreating the citizens.

After the death of the mother, the sisters stab themselves to death as a sign of solidarity. This signifies the collapse of the pillars of the country. The social and economic aspects of the community are all eroded “watch how we gracefully glide over the field and garden doomed….” During the revolution era, the country experiences so many calamities (Arenas, pg.316). Cuba suffered massive abuse of power and mistreatment by the dictators. In the Short story, flies have been used metaphorically to compare them to the behaviors and style of leadership employed by the dictators.

The dictators have executed and massacred the martyrs, and the young adolescent boys shot in the firing squad. They are