It’s a great introduction to Magical Realism if you don’t feel like tackling a full on novel. I could go on about this story for days but in the interest of keeping your interest, I’ll end it here □ I recommend you give this story a chance. The constant clash between past and makes us wonder if past and present can ever co-exist or if we must choose one or the other? What do ye think?… These little incidents dotted throughout the story help to form Fuentes’ crtique of Modern Mexican society. He describes how Filbierto’s colleagues mock him for his obsession with Pre-Hispanic art. He describes how the merchant who sold Filbierto the Chac Mool put ketchup on it’s belly to trick tourists into buying it, thus making a mockery of its original purpose. He describes the “country Clubs” perpetrated by the wealthy ‘mexicanas modernas’ and the foreignization of Mexico.īy mixing these descriptions of past and present Fuentes eloquently paints a picture of a modern Mexico with no respect for it’s history. He describes the shift from indigenous religions to Christianity. He contrasts these aspects of indigenous Mexico with descriptions of Mexico post Spanish colonization. Sources: Huizilopochtli image:, Tlaxcala image:, Teotihuacán image: ![]() An Indian man answers the door who we understand to be the newly transformed Chac Mool. The creature enslaves Filbierto in his own home and torments him until one night Filbierto escapes to Acapulco where he drowns soon after.īack in the present day, Filiberto’s friend arrives at his house with his body. Then, the weirdest thing of all, the ChacMool starts transforming from stone to flesh. The water pipes in his house mysteriously burst, rainwater starts to seep in from outside flooding his home, he starts to hear inexplicable howling in the dead of night. Soon after lots of weird things start to happen. The story flips between past and present as the friend reads Filibiertos diary and tries to understand what happened to him.Īs the story progresses we learn that Filbierto is obsessed with indigenous Mexican art. His friend comes to collect his body and possessions and discovers his diary. The protagonist, Filibierto, drowns at the beginning of the story. What happens in Chac Mool?Ĭhac Mool is a short story from Fuentes’ book, Los días enmascarados (1954). ![]() ![]() Usually made out of stone in the form of a man with a bowl on his belly or chest, the Chac Mool was used as a place to make sacrificial offerings to the Gods. A Chac Mool is a type of Mesoamerican statue associated with the Aztecs and Mayans.
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