The Underdogs by Azuela and the Mexican Revolution
This paper examines how Mariano Azuela's novel The Underdogs (Los de Abajo) engages with the historiographical debate over the Mexican Revolution of 1910—whether it was a politically motivated uprising or merely chaotic violence. Drawing on the novel's three-part thematic structure, the paper traces Azuela's personal journey from romanticized optimism through firsthand combat experience to ultimate disillusionment with the revolution's corrupt realities. It analyzes the protagonist Demetrio Macias as an idealized Native American hero who embodies political utopia, and situates the novel within its broader social context of illiteracy, racial stratification, and class inequality in early twentieth-century Mexico.
- Introduction: The Revolution and Its Debate: Historiographical debate framing the novel's central question
- Azuela's Journey Into the Revolution: Azuela's firsthand experience with Villa's armies
- Disillusionment and Thematic Structure: Three-phase arc from idealism to disillusionment
- Demetrio Macias as Revolutionary Ideal: Protagonist as idealized Native American hero
- The Underdogs as Social and Political Commentary: Race, class, and the failure of revolutionary idealism
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What makes this paper effective
- Grounds literary analysis in historical context, connecting the novel's themes directly to documented social conditions such as the 1910 census data on illiteracy and racial demographics.
- Uses a clear three-phase framework to trace Azuela's intellectual and emotional development, giving the argument an organized progression from idealism to disillusionment.
- Treats the protagonist Demetrio Macias not merely as a character study but as a symbol of political utopia, elevating the analysis from plot summary to thematic interpretation.
Key academic technique demonstrated
The paper effectively practices historicized literary criticism by reading the novel as both a fictional work and a primary historical document. It positions Azuela's biography — his role as a doctor, his exile, his time with Villa's forces — as essential context for interpreting the novel's themes, demonstrating how an author's lived experience shapes narrative meaning.
Structure breakdown
The paper opens by posing the central historiographical debate, then situates the novel within that debate. It moves through Azuela's personal journey into the revolution, outlines the novel's three-part thematic structure around disillusionment, analyzes the protagonist as an idealized figure, and closes with the novel's broader commentary on race, class, and the failure of political idealism in Mexico.
Introduction: The Revolution and Its Debate
The Mexican Revolution has always been debated by historians. Some label it a fiesta de balas — a party of bullets — with minimal political aims or ideologies. Others have not dismissed the revolution so readily, noting that although most conflicts were centered in the provinces of the Mexican countryside, the revolution's leaders were politically driven and adopted clear political ideologies. How does the novel The Underdogs treat this issue? Which side does it take?
The historiographical reality of the Mexican Revolution of 1910 has been deeply shaped by novelists like Mariano Azuela. It was novels like The Underdogs that captured the essence of the revolution. The commotion that followed the fall of Porfirio Díaz defined the Mexican nation in a new light. Although this was not the first time the oppressed Latin American masses rose against the ruling elite, it would prove to be the most effective such uprising. The novel focuses on five locations of conflict — Jalisco, Durango, Zacatecas, Aguas Calientes, and Nayarit — during the ten-year period of the Mexican Revolution, from 1913 to 1915, narrating events through the perspective, victories, and losses of Demetrio Macias and his men.
Mexico is a land that has always been torn by conflict, with the first rebellions led by indigenous peoples against forced European rule. Given long-standing disappointment with elite governance, exclusionary political policies, and the slow pace of reform, the revolution became the final breaking point for the economically and ethnically marginalized masses of Latin America.
The novel is in essence a record of the revolution — one that precedes any journalistic or graphic reporting of modern wars. The Underdogs is considered "Pictures and Scenes of the Present Revolution," a truthful depiction of the events of the revolution. The novel narrates events that were being discussed and published in the pages of the Spanish-language El Paso del Norte, in El Paso, Texas. It was first published in serial (folletín) form in 1915 (Robe, 15).
Azuela's Journey Into the Revolution
Azuela undertook a year-long journey that led him into the thick of the Mexican Revolution. He drifted from one conflict to another, witnessing the defeats and the strategic yet horrific retreats of Villa's armies to their northern base. Azuela, a doctor by profession, treated the wounded and experienced the revolution firsthand as a supporter and traveler with the military leader Julián Medina, a loyal follower of Pancho Villa. The content of Los de Abajo (The Underdogs) is drawn directly from this period of documentation and lived experience.
From the writer's perspective, U.S. support of the enemy, the constant retreats, and the surrounding circumstances made the situation grim for the revolution. This was the setting for his greatest novel, The Underdogs. The novel is considered one of Mexico's founding fictions; nonetheless, it gives an accurate account of the revolution's proceedings. Azuela was ultimately forced into exile in El Paso, Texas in 1915, during Huerta's brief period of military dominance, and it was there that he wrote the novel. The Underdogs even contributed to the image and struggle of the revolution — a revolution that Azuela himself considered a failure.
Disillusionment and Thematic Structure
Disillusionment with the revolution and its corrupt agendas is a crucial thematic component of The Underdogs, one that is prominent in a three-part narrative arrangement reflecting the writer's own development and intellectual experiences. Azuela's growth can be clearly outlined in the following three phases:
First, Azuela's original romanticized optimism about the revolutionary cause. He served as chief of political affairs in Lagos de Moreno, his hometown, under President Francisco I. Madero, and became a committed supporter of the Constitutionalist cause. Second, the sobering experience of being involved in actual combat and witnessing death and destruction up close. Third, disillusionment and a sense of foreboding when confronted with the political truth and the self-serving motivations behind the revolution — including the competing agendas of figures such as Villa, Zapata, Obregón, and Carranza.
Azuela weaves the story around his loss of faith by depicting a practical betrayal in the novel that also represents his own mistaken optimism and intellectual naivety. The novel points toward a lost and hopeless revolutionary whose fight for others leaves him adrift in an abyss of despair, with no hope for change.
The Underdogs speaks of a socially just, idealistic hero who stands on principles of equality and against the oppression of the weak. However, when he faces the world, reality strikes him full force, dimming the light of his idealism and his dream of freedom. This reality points toward the harsh facts of the era: nearly 15 million Mexicans during the revolution were illiterate, according to the Census of 1910. With 40% of the population being indigenous, this was fundamentally a fight of the lower classes against the ruling elite and their injustices. Even the writer himself was something of a rarity — part of the 20% of "white Mexicans of European lineage," an educated criollo doctor who nonetheless felt a deep affinity for the lower classes (Robe, 24).
References
Azuela, M. (2008). The underdogs: A novel of the Mexican revolution. United Kingdom: Penguin Publishers.
Robe, S. L. (1979). Azuela and the Mexican underdogs (Vol. 48). University of California Press.
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