Hispanic Literature - Book Report/Review Example

(Wikipedia Online, 2006) First in line was a story about a man and his harmonious relationship with his thirty seven wives and his children - also having the same number. All was well, food was provided and the wives did not quarrel but actually helped each other. That was until a troublesome tax collector required him to authenticate the existence of his children which he uses to cut down his tax obligations. He was able to devise a way to prove their existence and get back on the tax collector's impertinence.

What he did was to bring the children in the Treasury Department and made them to make such a ruckus that they would never doubt their authenticity again. The second story tells that of a man burned alive as he was pointed out as the source of a curse which is implied in the story to refer to a spread of a sexually transmitted disease. The disease caused the inhabitants of the town to raise their properties to the ground with some of them alighting themselves thereafter. The third story tells that of a couple haunted by a spirit which the woman attributes to her mother-in-law.

The story climaxes with their baby burned alive, the woman sent to a lunatic's asylum and the husband return to her mother's company. The last story also tells the story of a couple in two different versions. In the first one, the wife is depicted as a promiscuous woman. She cheats her husband and takes on firefighters to fulfill her insatiable sexual desires. She gets caught by the husband and is thrown out of the house literally. The second version, however, depicts the man as the sexually adventurous one.

According to this version, the man was a pedophile who preys on innocent young girls from the countryside. He made them participate in orgies which according to the story would put the infamous Roman Empire's orgies to shame. The wife discovers his husband's escapades thru the confessions of the couple's maid. The Eye-Openers story ends with the passengers' arrival and dispersal at the town plaza and the narrator's excitement to write down the whole experience.Thematic Analysis As was earlier stated, Vega was fond of the idea of feminism.

She shows this in the Eye-Openers through the experiences of the characters in the passengers' stories and the reactions of the passengers to the narratives. Take for example, the story regarding the man with many wives. This actually shows the dominance of men in a society where women do not figure very much. Women are treated as if they were only reproduction shells devoid of feelings and aspirations. They are treated as unimportant and disposable as shown in the story about haunting spirits.

Another example would be that of the story with two versions. In the first version, as told from a male perspective, it was the wife who was at fault. However, in the second version narrated from a female perspective, it turned out that the husband was also at fault. What Vega wanted us to realize is the society's tendency to look upon women as the ones to blame for the failings of society when in fact