The Eagle and the Serpent by Martín Luis Guzmán

First published: 1928

Type of work: Novel

Type of plot: Autobiographical chronicle

Time of work: 1913-1915

Locale: Mexico and the United States

Principal Characters:

• The Narrator, possible Guzman himself
• Francisco Villa, a revolutionist and commander of the “Division of the North”
• Venustiano Carranza, the supreme chief of the Constitutionalist Army

Analysis

The Mexican Revolution, perhaps the only military movement that radically changed the position of a Latin American country after achieving its independence from Spain, affected the Mexican writers of those days in different ways. Some remained indifferent; others defended its motives and facts; a few engaged themselves actively in its vicissitudes. To no one can be attributed greater and more direct participation than that of Martin Luis Guzman. Executor, witness, chronicler, interpreter, critic, novelist, he embraced all the possible angles of relationship with the Mexican Revolution. For this reason, his work about the movement is the closest, most objective, and penetrating of all the literary productions written upon the subject.

Guzman authored three books—at the same time biography, history, and novel—about the Revolution: EL AGUILA Y LA SERPIENTE (THE EAGLE AND THE SERPENT, 1930), LA SOMBRA DEL CAUDILLO, and MEMORIAS DE PANCHO VILLA (MEMOIRS OF PANCHO VILLA). Of these, the nearest to a work of the creative imagination is the first, published in fascicles in 1926 and as a book in 1928.

The reasons why Guzman titled his book in such a way may be found in the origins of Mexican nationality. The Aztecs, the main indigenous ancestors of Mexico, had as a legendary core of their nomadic period the belief that they should found their capital city in a spot where they would find an eagle, devouring a serpent, perched upon a nopal. Guzman took these images and turned them into symbols for his book, to show the bipolarity of Mexican history, in constant conflict between repentant passions and an ascension of the spirit.

There is no better source to know the genesis and spirit of this book than the speech pronounced by the author at the time of his reception as a member of the Mexican Academy of the Language. Son of his time and his country, Guzman declared that from his earliest childhood, he was accustomed to beauty from having lived in Tacubaya, one of the most charming suburbs of Mexico City, near the Chapultepec Castle, scene of many decisive moments in Mexican history, and that this same environment imposed on him a feeling for history in all its grandeur. Some years later, when he embraced the cause of the Revolution, he had at his disposal raw historical material of the first quality, out of which he took the subject for his most representative books.

For a long time, Guzman hesitated to write about the Revolution. On one side, he had been the witness of ruthless crimes, usurpations, disloyalties; on another, he had seen in many participants of that movement a great spirit of service, purity of intention, and patriotic goals. This knowledge finally moved him to write about the Revolution, to transform into literary values those violent deeds against the dictatorship of Porfirio Diaz. He finally decided to embody what he had seen or done. He thought that if the chief leaders of the Revolution had not been as faulty as they were, the Revolution would not have been what it became.

To understand some pages of this book, the reader must take into account the fact that the revolutionary movement was not born from a set of ideas but erupted from instinctive forces, submitted to oppression for many centuries.

EL AGUILA Y LA SERPIENTE, a work that brings together literature and history, truth and fiction, is divided into two parts: “Esperanzas Revolucionarias” (“Revolutionary Hopes”) and “En la Hora del Triunfo” (“At the Hour of the Triumph”). In the first part, consisting of seven books, Guzman tells of his revolutionary adventures during the period preceding the peak of the fighting. In the second section, also of seven books, he tells of deeds that occurred during the most turbulent years of the conflict.

The book opens when Guzman, apparently the narrator of most of the work because of its strong autobiographical structure, escapes from Victoriano Huerta’s usurping government and sets sail, incognito, in flight from Veracruz to the United States, with the intention of reaching the northern Mexican states of Sonora or Coahuila and helping Venustiano Carranza in his fight against Huerta. Aboard ship, he meets four Mexicans, one of them a physician who shares his political views. They establish relations with a beautiful American woman who turns out to be a spy of the Huerta government. When this fact becomes known to Guzman and his associates, the physician, in order to get rid of her, pretends ardent love for the lady and proposes that they marry in Havana, the next stop on the voyage. The trick fails because the ship delays its departure in that port, after landing the Mexicans and the beautiful secret agent. Again aboard ship, the revolutionaries are afraid of being imprisoned upon their arrival in New York. Then the physician feigns intent to kill the spy, but the woman does not appear at any place when they go ashore. The reader grows perplexed over the fate of the woman, but the author does not add to what has already been told.

Guzman, unable to carry out his plan to contact Carranza, returns to Mexico City. Yet his enthusiasm for the Revolution causes him to embark again for Havana and later for New Orleans. After traveling to San Antonio, Texas, he meets there Jose Vasconcelos, a writer and the only great minister produced by the Revolution, according to Guzman. Finally, in Ciudad Juarez, the author meets Pancho Villa, who is for him the chief hero of the Revolution. The encounter is not as dramatic as could be expected, but an intimate, deep impression about Villa will remain with the writer. Later, he is introduced to Venustiano Carranza, first chief of the Constitutionalist Army; the first ideological collision with him ensues because Carranza had the viewpoint that good will is the primary virtue in leading men; Guzman believed in technique. The author met another revolutionary leader, Alvaro Obregon, whom he considers an impostor. Gradually, Guzman realizes that sooner or later deep disagreement will arise among the fighters. He thinks that at the very bottom everything could be reduced to the eternal dispute of the Mexicans who are always looking for power and the accomplishment of personal ambitions instead of great, disinterested aspirations.

A good number of episodes are intermingled in this part of the work. Perhaps they are the most interesting and representative material in the novel. Among them, “A Night in Culiacan,” “The Murdering Spider,” “A Race in the Darkness,” and “The Feast of the Bullets” emerge as masterpieces of suspense and narrative vigor. This part of the work ends when the author is again in Ciudad Juarez, under the influence of Villa, after a journey to New York.

The second part of the novel deals with the triumph of the Revolution as a group, but the schism between the leaders of the movement is inevitable, chiefly between Villa and Carranza. Guzman joins Villa because he thinks that, in spite of the revolutionist’s instinctiveness and moral blindness, he is the only possible leader who can give a democratic and impersonal character to the Revolution, in contrast to Carranza, who is too prone to oligarchy. The author arrives again at Veracruz, taken by American soldiers, and finally makes his way to Mexico City. Guzman exultantly writes now the most lyric pages he has ever composed. The sight of the city and the volcanoes, the inhalation of the thin air of the plateau, the bath of clarity, the perfect adequation of person and environment were some of the unforgettable impressions of the “rebel who returned,” as Guzman calls himself. He goes again to Chihuahua, meets Villa anew, and gets the impression that the legendary warrior could never exist if there were not a gun in the world. Villa and his pistol were a single thing; from his gun, all of his friendships and enmities were born. To combat now against Carranza, the writer goes to Mexico City again. For him, Carranzaism is synonymous with ambition, lack of ideals, systematic corruption, and theft. Imprisoned by Carranza’s orders, he is sent to Matamoros, but the Convention of Aguascalientes, a meeting of revolutionists in which was decided the way to future action of the movement, sets him free. Having been appointed Minister of War by President Roque Gonzalez Garza, Guzman rejects the post and is threatened with the penitentiary; but he escapes and goes to see Villa, who has been estranged by the Convention of Aguascalientes. The writer, caught between loyalty to the Convention and friendship toward Villa, expatriates himself to the United States.