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Ethos
Part 4
Explanation and Analysis—Gustavo's Idealism:
In Alfonsa’s last speech to John Grady in Part 4, she tells stories from her youth, including her romance with Gustavo. She offers a flashback of Gustavo's idealistic life philosophy:
He said that those who have endured some misfortune will always be set apart but that it is just that misfortune which is their gift and which is their strength and that they must make their way back into the common enterprise of man for without they do so it cannot go forward and they themselves will wither in bitterness.
Alfonsa bittersweetly remembers her lover's idealism, his ability to turn even great tragedies into something hopeful, much like John Grady. However, despite Gustavo’s aspirations and efforts, things do not end well for the couple: the Mexican Revolution—after brief success—fails, and Gustavo is tortured and killed by a mob.
Alfonsa uses this flashback to highlight that no amount of effort or care from Gustavo and his brother Francisco could have made the Revolution succeed indefinitely. She suggests that they were perhaps foolish to have believed otherwise, that their paradoxical thinking was delusional rather than insightful. Now that she is an older woman, she is able to recognize this—but the young romantics did not have the same perspective.
Related Themes:
