Clorinda Matto's Birds Without A Nest

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Clorinda Matto’s Birds without a Nest: a Story of Indian Life and Priestly Oppression in Peru, is an attempt to educate the reader of the treatment in which the indigenous population of the Andes were subjected to near the end of the nineteenth century. In essence, Matto was creating a platform for the support of the native population during a time when they were still under oppressive control of the social hierarchy of Peruvian elites. Matto succeeds in reaching reader’s, as well as character’s, sentiments as to the plight of an indigenous family oppressed by the town’s controlling triumvirate, the governor, the priest, and the judge. Matto’s story begins in the fictional town of Kiliac, where there is a large population of indigenous peoples in which they form the majority of the population. From the beginning, the reader is presented with the injustices that the indigenous…show more content…
The governor and the priest gathered with other authorities to discuss the plan to resolve the current disruption of their customs. Their resolution is an elaborate conspiracy to kill the foreigners, the Marins. It is important to point out that the word “foreigner” was not to describe people of another country, rather people outside of the small village. In other words, people not accustomed to Killiac’s way of life, oppression of the majority by the minority. Matto’s evolution of the story of the small town shows a social transition or a modernization of Kiliac. Here one can compare the actions of the triumvirate with those of Fernando Marin. The triumvirate, feeling threatened, resort to the immoral and barbaric plan of assassination to achieve what they deemed justice. Fernando’s actions in obtaining justice by contacting personages of authority outside of Kiliac show a civilized, modern way of dispensing justice without resorting to barbaric
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