The symbols in Chac Mool Free Essay Example, 1000 words

In the story Filbert loses his job because he is believed to have gone insane. For Fuentes, his job represents the influence of European-Christian-bourgeois civilization. â€Å"That influence [of the Chac Mool] frustrates Filbert, who because of it cannot keep his place in the bourgeois economic society† (Wheelock 1980, pp. 430-431). Thus a discourse of Mexican culture and identity is proffered via the character and experience of Filbert. There is also a decidedly psychological meaning and symbolism in the story’s many references to water which serve to both highlight the experiences of Filbert but surely also of Mexico itself. Water is often associated with the unconscious and death, whereas fire and light are associated with consciousness and life. This interpretation is most beholden to the work of Carl Jung. Water is the commonest symbol for the unconscious†¦water is earthly and tangible, it is also the fluid of the instinct-driven body†¦The unconscious is the psyche that reaches down from the daylight of mentally and morally lucid consciousness in the nervous system that for ages has been known as the ‘sympathetic’† (1990, p. We will write a custom essay sample on The symbols in Chac Mool or any topic specifically for you Only $17.96 $11.86/pageorder now 19). Water and the unconscious for that matter pertain to that which is innate and basic. In the course of life, the individual â€Å"lives life† and encounters fire or the conscious mind. In the story Filbert speaks of his youthful wishes and desires and how things ended up later in life. There paraded past me all the years of big dreams, of happy predictions, and also, all the omissions that impeded their realization†¦but the toy chest is being forgotten, and in the long run, who knows where they’ve come to rest, all the tin soldiers, the helmets, the wooden swords†¦The great payback for the adventure of youth must be death. (Fuentes, p.2) The dreams of his youth are related to the desires of his unconscious. Later before he died, Filbert thought of his youthful wishes and what â€Å"impeded their realization. † That of course was his adult life, his job, and thus modern post-1492 culture. As Jung mentioned, water is associated with the unconscious. In the meta-unconscious of Mexican culture, the Mayan pantheon is the â€Å"repressed† religion of ancient Mexico that lies beneath the modern Christian surface. The death of Filbert is preceded by his experiences with Chac Mool, the symbol of the past pre-Columbian religion. It is also important to link Filbert’s delirium as being connected to his unconscious. Thus water, unconscious, delirium, death all interplay.