Chichina and “Comeback” Symbol Analysis

After leaving Buenos Aires but before beginning their trip in earnest, Ernesto and Alberto visit Ernesto’s girlfriend Chichina at her summer house. Like Ernesto, Chichina is from an urban, upper-middle class family, but while Ernesto feels ambivalent about his privileged background, Chichina is completely comfortable with it; She always appears within the comfort of her luxurious summer home or on a private beach, and she expresses her love for Ernesto through material goods, giving him a gold bracelet before they part ways. Ernesto considers himself to be in love with her, but he also characterizes her presence as intoxicating, like a drug—enticing him and tempting him to abandon his road trip, but not necessarily making him content. Thus, Chichina simultaneously symbolizes the comforts and attractions of conventional bourgeois life, and Ernesto’s anxieties about remaining within this social sphere. Ernesto names the dog he brings Chichina “Comeback,” as a promise that he will resume his life with her after the road trip. Thus, theoretically Comeback symbolizes Ernesto’s commitment to the kind of conventional life Chichina represents. However, Comeback almost dies several times on the way to Chichina’s summer house, falling off the motorcycle and refusing to eat. This suggests that Ernesto’s commitment to life with Chichina is tenuous from the start, and it foreshadows their breakup and his eventual rejection of bourgeois values. In retrospect, both Chichina and Comeback show how much Ernesto’s commitments change as a result of his road trip.