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The Landowner’s Wife (The Mistress)
Rigoberta’s little brother Nicolás died at the age of two, when Rigoberta was eight years old. He passed away of malnutrition on the finca (plantation) where Rigoberta and her mother were working. When he got sick, Rigoberta’s mother despaired at not having enough money to buy medicine for him or, later, to pay the finca overseer to bury her son’s body on the property. Nicolás’s death highlights the injustice that poor Indian workers suffered on fincas, and it led Rigoberta to feel intense fear and hatred for the first time in her life. She realized that, as an adult woman, she, too, would likely have to bury her own children, given how high the child mortality rate was in Indigenous communities. The death of this innocent boy thus served as an early impulse for Rigoberta to question the suffering in her community and to reflect on the possibility of escaping the cycle of poverty she grew up in.
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Nicolás Menchú Tum Character Timeline in I, Rigoberta Menchú
The timeline below shows where the character Nicolás Menchú Tum appears in I, Rigoberta Menchú. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Chapter 7: Death of Her Little Brother in the Finca. Difficulty of Communicating with Other Indians
...a plane sprayed the coffee with pesticides, causing him to die of intoxication. The youngest, Nicolás, died of malnutrition at the age of two. Since Rigoberta’s mother couldn’t spend all her...
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After Nicolás died, Rigoberta’s mother didn’t know how to bury her child. Because the 400-500 workers that...
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...workers brought them a small box. The family then spent the morning burying and mourning Nicolás. As a result, the overseer told Rigoberta’s mother to leave without getting paid, because of...
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