Spanish Rule over Indians in the Caribbean

Clarify the Climax

The story “Guanina” comes to a violent climax with the native Indians attacking Sotomayor and his friends, all of whom are killed. But also many of the attackers are killed as well. It is an ambush.

What strikes me about this story, however, is the fact that Sotomayor was warned of the coming attack by his love interest, Guanina, a native herself but one who was in love with the Spanish lord. The people, though, had fallen out of love with him and the others, and they resented their enslavement and wanted vengeance. Vengeance they had, but in so doing they also lost the precious love of Guanina.

What I see in the climax is this: the tragic ending to what could have been a new beginning for everyone. The Spaniard and the natives could have had a happy relationship with one another, but greed, arrogance, and violent passions won out over sense and fraternity. Anger, pride, and frustration got the better of the men on both sides.

However, the two lovers were buried together and their love was memorialized by nature itself: “upon this humble tomb, red wild poppies and sweet-smelling white lilies sprouted spontaneously—Nature herself offering on the altar of simple love, soul of the world, mysterious breeze, divine breath and eternal joy of pure souls.” This ending is not anticipated as the main story is one of violence and ferocity. However, it does not feel tacked on to me: rather, I see it as the clarification of the chaotic climax of death that precedes it: what makes these two peoples so great—the natives and the Spaniards—is not their anger, greed, or vices but rather their ability to love. Thus, it is actually a fitting ending because it represents the “intense love” that existed and exists underneath it all.

If only that intense love had blossomed and spread out in all directions, this Spaniard and his love might have come to a different end. The problem here appears to be that the people were not as in love with one another as Sotomayor was in love with Guanina and vice versa. Sotomayor mistreated them by working them so badly in the mines; he did not treat his Guanina the same way. Likewise, the people revolted with violence and perhaps there could have been a better, more peaceful way to deal with the oppression they felt. At any rate, the love Sotomayor had for Guanina should have materialized in a more social way so as to be pleasing to everyone and to all. Yet because there was a sense of hubris and arrogance, life and love were both lost.