The Tattooed Soldier: A Tussle between Good, Evil and Justice - Essay Example

?Your The Tattooed Soldier: A Tussle between Good, Evil and Justice Hector Tobar’s The Tattooed Soldier is a heartfelt narration of tragedy and revenge. Written in the wake of Guatemala’s Civil War, Los Angeles riots, and migration, the story portrays the real picture of the poverty stricken and depressed lives of immigrants in Los Angeles. The story of The Tattooed Soldiers revolves around a young man Antonio Bernal, and an ex-army sergeant Guillermo Longoria. Both of the characters belonged to Guatemala, but they had migrated to Los Angeles. The lives of Antonio and Guillermo coincide when Guillermo kills Antonio’s family in Guatemala. Guillermo may appear to be the culprit and Antonio as victim, but the author has justified the actions and circumstances of both characters. This paper analyses the story in terms of the tussle between evil and good, and human need for justice and concludes that the story is a just sequence of human emotions and reactions to the circumstances. While Antonio was the victim of Guillermo’s brutal action, Guillermo was also drafted into the Guatemalan arm forcefully. It seems that the author believes in human as a pure creature and circumstances as the real decision maker. He stresses that circumstances can make a good human being do things which are not justified. For instance, Antonio says at a point that “With a gun anyone could be a killer. Guns were very democratic instruments. They did not discriminate. With guns the weak became strong, the frightened brave. Anyone who held one became invincible” (Tobar 269). Antonio used to live in Guatemala along with his family when one day his wife and infant son were brutally murdered by Guillermo Longoria, the tattooed soldier. The unusual tattoo was the only thing Antonio could remember about the killer and his identity as it is said that, “It was an American tattoo… (got from) a place called Tattoo Fayetteville: a jaguar with sleek yellow pelt and fierce eyes, sharp and resplendent, its mouth open, exposing a pink tongue rendered with such skill that you could almost see the saliva glistening” (240-241). Dejected Antonio pursues his “electric idea” (Tobar 41) to escape misery in Guatemala. He migrates to Los Angeles expecting to live a better life, but to his despair, unfortunate conditions like poverty and homelessness welcomes him in a big city like LA as well. On the other hand, Guillermo seemed to be living a much more assimilated life despite the horrific crime he had inflicted upon Antonio’s family back in Guatemala. It is because he justifies the murders as “the municipal day of vendettas” (Tobar 284). Tobar’s narrative remarkably link these two Guatemalans by a particular Jaguar tattoo as he says, “the tattoo was key to everything” (164).One day, trying his best to live a peaceful life in the city, Antonio finds Guillermo in a park playing chess. He recognizes the tattoo of jaguar Battalion of the Guatemalan Army which was “synonymous with the terror the army spread through the countryside” (163). Haunted by the ill-fated memories of his family, he plans to take justice into his own hands. Antonio decides to study his enemy carefully before taking action. Longoria, who was living as an ex-soldier, seemed unaware that he was being stalked. Antonio’s first encounter with Guillermo failed when he used a broad pipe to harm Guillermo while he was playing chess. Guillermo escapes the attack in utter confusion with a broken arm. Antonio’s failed attempt leads him to quickly execute another attack, this time with a 22 caliber handgun. The second attack proves to be successful and Antonio kills his enemy and avenges the death of his family (Tobar 258). Tobar associated the contrasting lives of two Guatemalans who are living as immigrants in the city of Los Angeles, one is living success due to his past associations and the other living misery for the same, the only difference is the point of their association. Tobar shows both sides of the coin to his readers, the criminal and the victim and how a victim compelled by the circumstances, can transform into a criminal. Guillermo’s faith on power of authority and his forced induction into the army transforms him into a killer. Guillermo was a small peasant as “his life revolved around the soil, the cycle of rain and harvest” (33).However, forced to join the Guatemala army and after doing “terrible, violent things... (he was) never the same again” (63-63). Antonio and Guillermo have been equally justified for their actions; one was forced by his profession to kill while the other was compelled by his irreversible loss. Although justice didn’t deal with Guillermo’s actions, it was also against law to kill Guillermo. Antonio could have taken the matter into courts, irrespective of the fact that such matters rarely see justice in real world. In this novel, Tobar has sketched LA riots 1992 scenario by remarkably wrapping it into a grueling story of love, anger, hatred, class, evil, justice, and revenge. The story portrays the real picture of LA and miserable lives of immigrants who shifted there in the 1980’s through his main protagonist, Antonio and Guillermo. The story is a just consequence of events, associated emotions, and reactions to those events in human life. It teaches several ethical lessons, such as, the victory of good over evil; the concept and need of justice; and the real passage to the cultivation of a crime. It urges its readers to observe human instincts and actions in different dimensions while deeply inspiring them for the betterment of immigrants and their betterment.   Work Cited Tobar, Hector. The Tattooed Soldier. New York: Penguin, 1998.Print. Read More