Ester Lucero

Cassie Essary Tim Petete Ethnic American Literature November 12, 2009 paragons Psyche in Ester Lucero nonpareil of the most fascinating aspects of any story is the formation of itscharacters. The way the author chooses to describe them, give them personalities, is how the reader will see their lives. A characters psyche and the way he thinks about events around him change the way a reader perceives the story. Authors pull in an amazing chance to shape and bend a story to fit what they want it to be through the characterization of the people they write about.If an author is incapable of making characters believable and understandable, the story wont survive. In Isabel Allendes Ester Lucero, angel is described in a way that makes the reader understand his impulses and desires, even if they areof a completely foreign nature to the reader. Allende is an extremely skilled writer that used her ability to make a character believable to her advantage for this story. Angels psyche is one of the most fire elements of this story. When he returns from the state of war in the jungle, he seems to be in a state of inner turmoil.Hes searching for something to help him deal with the war and the things that he did and saw happen there. When Angel sees Ester Lucero for the first time, he believes that he is seeing a mirage. Nothing could possibly be that perfect, and he has to search her out. When he fin totallyy finds her, he is shamed by his unseemly passion for a child who still had not reached puberty (Pearson 10) as she is 12 and he is 30. Angel gives the impression that he picked Ester as the object of his interest because she is unavailable, therefore he never has to worry about what might happen if he did somehow distinguish her.Although he is attracted to her, he never makes a move to do anything about it, other than watching her walk by on her way to school attendance her when she caught the measles providing her with vitaminsteachingthe multiplication tables ( Pearson 10). The simple fact that he is dumbfounded not to find a whirl of suitors around Ester Lucero (Pearson 10) leads the reader to believe that Ester is unfeignedly not that special or beautiful, but is only special to Angel. Instead, Angel seems to have fixated on Ester as a way of getting past his deliverproblems. Ester became something that he desperately wanted, but could never allow himself to have.She was a child, and he would not allow himself to touch her for that reason, and because his obsession with her is what keeps him going. Ester became the focus of all his attention so he didnt have to deal with anything else in his life. Another issue with Angel is the fact that he has a bullet in his groin. The women of the town question his masculinity and begin to wonder if maybe the malaria or that bullet he has there in his crotch rid him forever of a taste for women (Pearson 10). They dont realize that he has become completely engrossed with Ester and therefore uninter ested in the other women of the town.Since Angel does have a bullet in his groin, and purposefully chose an unavailable young fair sex to fixate on, it makes the reader wonder if the bullet did cause some sort of dysfunction. Perhaps the reason that Angel deliberately chose a girl that he could never have was because he knew women wouldnt want him if they knew that he was impotent. Early on, when it is Angels turn with a bride-for-the-moment he found no consolation he would have to search for that girl, if for no other reason than to determine whether she was a mirage(Pearson 9).This passage leaves the reader hanging as to whether Angel was ineffective to perform, or simply didnt enjoy it. Angels masculinity is questioned by the people of the town, as well as himself throughout the story. The four primary(prenominal) aspects of Angels psyche discussed here really help tell the story of whoand what Angel really is. Ester as a distraction from his own problems shows us that even t hough Angel is an extremely capable man, he cant get past his own demons.Hes a prepare and a combat veteran, yet when he sees a little girl in the crowd, he chooses her to think about in order to avoid his own problems. The magical realism displayed in this story is a stroke of genius by Allende. She uses the herbs to add an element of suspense and terror to the story that wouldnt have been present otherwise. The herbs and dance enable Angel to save Ester while dealing with some of his own problems at the same time. When the town women begin to question Angels masculinity, he does a sort of tailspin into the next main point in his psyche, which is obsessive love.He could probably choose any woman in the town, yet he chooses a 12 year old girl, and the love is not exactly pure. Angels obsessive love ties all four points together nicely. The love he has for Ester is not pure, but obsessive. He chose her because he needed a way to get out of his own head, and maybe because he is impo tent and couldnt deal with the threat to his masculinity, and when he cured her, Angel really just needed a way to outwardly pronounce his capability of taking care of her, even if he could never have her. Works Cited