How Cándido's Past Reflects His Character

Cándido is both a very basic archetype and complex character. You read the book and see that he is the stereotypical, naïve Mexican immigrant wishing for the American Dream only to be rudely awaken and realize that it is just a dream. Then you begin to see the complexity of his character and how he is a Mexican immigrant but he is so much more than that. Cándido is a highly emotional man who is shaped by his past and let's it control who he is today. Now he is in America trying to push past his failures, and start a new better life for him and América. But can he because according to the Matthew Effect he cannot, as Gladwell says “It is those who are successful, in other words, who are most likely to be given the kinds of special opportunities that lead to further success”.

From the beginning of his childhood to his present time time in America, he has faced many hardships that have left him with all sorts of feelings and in some cases trauma. How he handles these feelings directly relates to who he is as a person and his relationships with the people and things around him. Cándido has been shown to have major abandonment issues proven throughout the story as a result of losing his mother at a young age. Children who have abandonment issues because of losing a parent before they are old enough to know it is not their fault share the same belief as Cándido. Children with those beliefs will cause them to have a very low self esteem and the mentality that they are unworthy of being loved. These people also tend to make and have attachments to other people around them to ensure that they will have some kind of support system. This is very obvious connection to make when dissecting Cándido's character. Being only six at the time of her death, Cándido could not help but to blame himself for his mother's passing. He grew up with that belief system in which he is constantly blaming himself and still is blaming himself as an adult. He found pride in the attachments to the people of Tepoztlán because they treated him with much respect after sent his hard earned money back to his family in Mexico and he made a romantic relationship with América. Cándido's previous wife being unfaithful to him did not help his already damaged mental state. The lies and betrayal caused Cándido to add another person to his list of people that abandoned him.

After searching for Teófilo Augadulce, the man who Resurreción had cheated with for a week, Cándido attempted to win back his honor and gain his revenge but lost in the brawl against the sancho. This only added insult to injury and when the townspeople who had witnessed the fight turned away from Cándido it rubbed salt in the wound. The most obvious way that Cándido shows how this affects him is through the way he views himself and his life. He has a very negative outlook on life and treats the people around him, namely América, poorly when she tries to work in his place to keep them alive. Part of why he was so upset by his wife providing for him while he could not is his protective nature wanting to América safe from the men at the exchange but part of it is also it was just how he was raised to believe in machismo and that he should be the one to provide for his family. Cándido's belief in old fashioned values stems from his Mexican cultural heritage and is a major factor in why he does and believes certain things. “Cultural legacies are powerful forces. They have deep roots and long lives. . . and they play such a great role in directing attitudes and behavior that we cannot make sense of our world without them”.

Mexico has a patriarchal society meaning men hold almost all the power in politics as well as social and property ownership. A patriarchal society raises men and women to have very well defined gender roles. The men are supposed to display their masculinity and dominance while leading as the head of their household. Cándido shows how upset he is by América working when he is laying on the floor of the canyon thinking of himself being useless because he is resting while his wife works to provide for them. This is not uncommon among all men but it has a larger effect on those from cultures that give more power to men an giving equal power among men and women. It effects Cándido in particular because he promised América the American dream but was unable to give it to her. As mentioned before, another defining characteristic that Cándido has because of his childhood trauma is his overly negative and angry view on life. Throughout the chapters he describes his life as miserable, describing how it seems as though the universe is working against him. He feels as though nothing has worked out for him thus far and how his dreams of his future with America in a big house with their unborn child will always be just a dream. He also appears to be bad a concealing and controlling his temper. When América returned from the labor exchange and found their camp trashed, she and Cándido got into a heated argument and he struck her across the face. Later when Cándido's wounds had mostly healed and they went to the labor exchange together, his face revealed how angry he was that other men were chosen for jobs despite him being there first. The anger pent up within Cándido controls him at times and leads him to make decisions that he regrets.

In Gladwell's Outliers, the example of a plane crash is given to describe how it is not one mistake that causes a plane to crash, because “The typical accident involves seven consecutive human errors”. Small failures and errors that do not seem to have any major effect on their own can combine to make one huge, catastrophic failure. This can be compared to Cándido's life easily. We see at the beginning of his life the first failure is his mother's death and how he reacted to it. Then it moves to his wife's infidelity and his reaction to it, being that he ran away and became an alcoholic trying to cross the border and failed repeatedly. When he did recover he tried again for months with América and when they did get to cross it was an extremely unpleasant experience. Since arriving they have had more failures such as poor living conditions and wages, which only worsened after Cándido was hit by a car. Gladwell says that only seven failures are needed and Cándido had accumulate many over the years. Based on this pattern and the idea of the Matthew Effect, one can only expect life to get worse for Cándido.