Discuss the proposition: "Lazarillo had no choice but to become what he became" - Coursework Example

Lazarillo de Tormes and the swindler Lázarillo is a boy of humble origins from Salamanca. He is given birth inthe miller in a village near Salamanca. His father had been killed in a war when he was still a child. His mother subsequently moved to Salamanca and she started a relationship with a black stable-man who later becomes Lazarillos stepfather. This relationship grew and produces a half brother of Lazarillo and suddenly it ended when the stepfather was whipped and basted with hot fat for theft.

Lazarillo mother lashed and ordered not to have any further contact with her husband.  It became so difficult for her to take care for Lazarillo. She thought what to do but she made up her mind to hand over Lazarillo to a blind man to serve as his guide. Luckily her son did not reject his mother suggestion since he had no other option but to go to the blind man home and stayed with him. One day the blind man told Lazarillo to put his head close to a stone bull and listen for an unusual sound of the stone bull that still stands at one end of the Roman Bridge over the River Tormes.

Innocently Lazarillo did as he had been told and immediately his head was smashed against the bull by the blind man. Lazarillo felt a lot of pain from that incidence onwards the relationship between Lazarillo and his master became a battle of wits in which the blind man had emerged victorious to the final battle.The Lazarillo’s main concern at this stage is only to survive by ensuring that he gets enough to eat. This is by using all the tricks that he could to outwit the blind man by stealing from his wine jar, eating more than his share of grapes, replacing a juicy sausage with a turnip but unlucky Lazarillo was always met on each occasion.

In the wine episode, Lazarillo ended up by having the wine jar smashed on his face where he didn’t suffer physically but after the grape incident he learn a valuable lesson on deception and the sausage incident ended with the blind man stuffing his nose down and he thought to throws it up all over his master. Even if Lazarillo had suffered enough in the hands of the blind man, he was determined to move on and pay back revenge to the blind. Lazarillo later tricked the blind man, on a rainy day where they were crossing a village square and he persuaded the blind man to take a running jump to avoid a wide gutter.

The blind man ended up been half dead on the ground after crashing into a stone pillar. In the second chance he meets a priest who is the epitome of avarice. His main concern was to search for food. Now he faced a formidable all-seeing adversary whose eyes was described as dancing in their sockets as if they was mercury. He suffered great hunger while his master had plenty, he thought of running away but he was held back because he felt too weak and feared that he could be fleeing to jumping from the frying pan into the fire.

He then plans to be trickier and to teach the priest a lesson from what he had learnt from the first master. He embarked on a battle of wits with the priest where he centered on an attempt to steal eucharis bread from a chest of the priest that he kept locked. Lazarillo persuaded a passing tinker to make priest a key for the chest. He then offered one of the loaves inside as payment and then helped himself to get one.  When the priest next opened the chest he suspected that some bread was missing and he counted the remaining loaves.

  Lazarillo then found himself in a quandary of how he could take any bread without the priest noticing that it is missing. He started by nibbling morsels hoping that the priest would conclude that mice have in through the little cracks in the chest. The priest subsequently boarded up the cracks.  Lazarillo then drilled a hole in the chest with a knife while his master was asleep. The priest later borrowed a mousetrap and cheese from his neighbors. Lazarillo took the cheese and some bread as well.

The priest asked the neighbors for advice and one remarks to use because of a snake in the house.  From then on the priest hardly slept and the resorted to raid the chest during the day while his master is at church.  Lazarillo always tricked the priest and got food to eat. He became a thief due to his stealing habits. It was Lazarillo pain of been tricked by the blind man in the bull stone where his head was smashed made him to misguide the blind man to the stone pillar. Lazarillo was the source of dead of the blind man, so he became a killer.

Through the pain he felt of staying hungry and smashing of his head in the stone bull he had no choice but to do what he did to the blind man and priest.