The Main Themes Of An Autobiography Book Of Rigoberta Menchu
Rigoberta Menchu is an Indian woman who lived a hard life, she saw her brother Petrocinio burned alive, and her father was killed and her mother was kidnapped, tortured, raped and murdered. This book had three themes.
Firstly, the power of language; Several of Rigoberta sibling chose to fight for the poor farmer's rights, by joining a guerilla group. But Rigoberta knows that she couldn’t fight if she joined them. So she decided to fight to combine letter to be words that she could tell her story by. She knows that her journal would play an influent role in making a change in the Guatemalan society. Rigoberta reviled what she wanted people to know about her and the Guatemalan community. She learned oratory from the Bible when she was young, she is fully attentive to the emotions that she wants her audience to feel. Moreover, when she noticed that she want to make a change so she went to learn the Spanish language.
Secondly, the coast of progress maybe not a positive feature for her and her community. The Indians in her town responded by fighting. They also celebrate by ancestors and eldest, past glories in tribes celebrations. When the landowners wanted to take the lands of the citizens as if it is progress, Rigoberta and her friends took care of building traps. Rigoberta wins with the freedom to continue her studies and to live her life out of Altiplano. She made her own choices and give up on motherhood and marriage. This also made it easier for her to go to the United Nations and Human rights.
Lastly, the virtue of Handwork. Rigoberta and her friends were always working on handicrafts with honesty. In the time she was eight years, Rigoberta trained her fingers to catch beans from the trees and not dropping it, and also trained her back to be able to hold a heavy bag of coffee beans. She is so proud of herself because although she is young and weak she can do adults work. Wealthy people didn’t respect poor people basic needs and their way of living. Rigoberta became a house made for wealthy people. She does all that she should do, even weird stuff. Sometimes she doesn’t do something, she just stays free. But when she noticed that she will be free she gets to move from handcrafts into working for the CUC and passing out handouts, plus discussing her cause with interested people. Clearly, Rigoberta thinks that work is so important.
Conclusion
“I’m still keeping my Indian identity a secret. I’m still keeping secret what I think no one should know. Not even anthropologists or intellectuals, no matter how many books they have, can find out all our secrets. ’ Rigoberta’s last words to the anthropologists. She told them her story in a great way and she was honest, but there are some information she did not reveal all information about her identity. Which gives her the final authority and make people consensus about what is held back in her story. I this is an interesting book, it supposed to be Rigoberta Menchu's autobiography but my standard form of an autobiography is that it should be written honestly, yet this is nothing but a bunch of lies that ruined the story.
Few years after the book came out, a professor from Stanford University called Dr. David Stoll was planning to write a book about Guatemalan history because he had was interested in their culture. He was shocked to find that Rigoberta was dishonest and had lies in the whole book. For instance, she allege that her other brother passed away because of the lack of food when she was still young. But Dr. Stoll and The New York Times newspaper found that the brother that she claimed died of starvation never existed. Moreover, she also claimed that she never went to school, but she received free education in middle-school by Roman Catholic nuns. I am truly disappointed after reading The New York Times report, after knowing those lies I don’t consider this book as an autobiography, its fiction book.
