The Representation of the Mexican Revolution
1/27/17
The Mexican Revolution greatly influenced the artistic styles of Jose Clemente Orozco, Diego Rivera, and David Siqueiros. Although Rivera’s and Siqueiros’ artwork expresses a hopeful message directly to the viewer, Orozco utilized symbolism to show the negative effect of the Mexican Revolution on the Mexicans: it caused supporters of the revolution to lose their optimism when fighting for their rights. Similarly, author Mariano Azuela harnessed the identity of the Mexican Revolution in the form of the main character, Demetrio Macias. Both Orozco and Azuela portrayed the despair and hopelessness of the revolutionary fighters to expose the irony of the revolutionary objective: freedom of corruption.
Orozco created his fresco mural Revolutionary Trinity from 1923 to 1924 (Figure 1). This specific mural became one of many of Orozco’s cynical portraits of the world, specifically the Mexican Revolution. In Revolutionary Trinity, the focus is on three men, two of whom are kneeling, facing forward or to the left. The man in the middle of the other men, has his face covered by a red Jacobin hat and tightly holds onto a rifle with both hands. He is blinded by the revolution, unknowingly falling into the trap of fighting only because other men are fighting. The man on the lower-right of the mural looks to the man on the left angrily, feeling helpless due to his hands being cut off. During the Mexican Revolution, many revolutionaries went back to their home with scars of the revolution while others did not return at all. The figure on the left of the mural is also in agony, asking for salvation from the cruelty of the revolution that was not foreseen (Rochfort 42). The mural may portray the revolutionaries as victims, but Orozco actually utilizes irony to show that the revolutionaries thought they were fighting for their rights, when they were actually focused on getting to the same level of the wealthy in Mexico. As the Mexican Revolution continued, the revolutionaries began to attack the wealthy, instead of fighting against the government’s oppression. They began fighting only for the valuables that they could get in return. This taints the Revolution as a continuation of corruption as there is no longer a single purpose to fight against the government. When the purpose of the revolutionaries become entangled and different from one another, chaos becomes prominent causing the loss of the revolution. Orozco’s symbolism in depicting the corruption of the revolutionaries in the Mexican Revolution through their blindness shows how one movement can become something dangerous in a society, even if it is for the good of the people.
Although Azuela’s novel The Underdogs was not as cynical as Orozco’s mural Revolutionary Trinity, Azuela does portray the revolution in the same light: the revolution only lead to more corruption among the people. Demetrio Macias, the main character of the novel, leaves his wife and son to fight in the revolution to go against the men that wanted to attack him. Demetrio states, “But I don’t want nothin’ other than that. I just want ‘em to leave me in peace so I can go back home” (Azuela 41). Demetrio is explaining to his comrades that he does not consider a greater purpose in fighting, he only fights to be left alone by the federals. As the conversation progresses, Luis Cervantes, one of Demetrio’s comrades, states, “Once the revolution comes to an end, everything will come to an end. And what a pity it will be for all those lives cut short, for all those widows and orphans, for all that spilled blood!” (Azuela 41). Cervantes influences the motivation of Demetrio to fight for a greater good- protecting the rights of the common people. But, Demetrio becomes hopeless once Mexicans no longer respect the revolutionaries because they become thieves and mistreat their own people. Demetrio is a symbolism of Mexico. At the beginning of the revolution, there is hopefulness in winning against the federales. The people respect the revolutionaries because they are fighting for the rights of the people. As the revolution progresses, the revolutionaries become aware of their “gift” from the wealthy. The fighters start stealing from the wealthy, believing that they deserve it because they were mistreated. As time goes by, the people become hopeless. The federales and the revolutionaries become corrupt against each other and one another. Demetrio dies in the end, symbolizing the failure of the Mexican Revolution.
Orozco and Azuela portray the revolutionaries as helpless and make the viewers or readers sympathize with the fighters. Although it may seem that Orozco and Azuela pity the fighters, they are actually expressing the irony in how the fighters desired freedom, but actually created a corrupt movement when most of the revolutionaries focused on becoming wealthy. They failed to keep their original purpose alive. This gave the Mexican revolutionaries an unfavorable reputation.
Sources Cited
Rochfort, Desmond. Mexican Muralists: Orozco, Rivera, and Siqueiros. California: Chronicle Books, 1993.
Azuela, Mariano. The Underdogs: A Novel of the Mexican Revolution. Penguin Classics, 2008.