We’re not dogs

Tranquilina shouts “We’re not dogs” as her life is in danger. Her cries aren’t heard, or perhaps they are being ignored. This last scene in the book is very thrilling. I feel what Tranquilina is feeling as she runs for her life and tries to save others as well. What interests me a lot about this whole scene is how she shouts “we’re not dogs” hoping that this will save her life. The very end where Tranquilina faces death is a very powerful scene. While running she is terrified and crying and finally when she has no where left to go, she accepts her fate.What I really like about the ending of the book is that it stays true to the character. In her final moments, (although we aren’t 100% sure she is going to die, but we are lead to believe that) Tranquilina still maintains her faith. Her parents advice runs through her mind and she stops crying. In the scene it describes how she looks up at the sky and lets the rain wash away her “grievous exhaustion” (I assume her tears, sweat, and blood) and this can possibly represent the rain washing away any sins she has committed. The rain can mean Tranquilina is being baptized, which means that she is being given another chance at living a new life, having a Christian rite of adoption and admission-Tranquilina’s admission to heaven? Her fighting for her life and being chased like a dog in the cold rain, has a sort of gothic element, mainly on how the events are playing out, but her faith showing in the end of the book can tie in with the strong religious roots that is sometimes portrayed in the Chicano community. 

Comments

We’re not dogs — 1 Comment

  1. I think what is most fascinating about Tranquilina’s proclamation that “We are not dogs” is the very fact the the ordinance for shooting the stray dogs is utilized as a device for controlling and upkeeping the Latin American population of the East Los Angeles communities depicted in the novel.

    This stands to suggest that the moment of proclamation is not only one of liberation, but one that resonates with the historical implication of the quoted passage at the onset of the book itself.

    Although I am not in any sense religious, the instance in which prayer and faith are utilized as solidarity and resolve really personifies Tranquilina’s cultural roots and her very name.

    Though, I do believe it is curiously suspect that the writer chooses to employ Christianity as exemplary of liberation because as the Spanish’s dogs came with them, so too did their crosses. Perhaps, however, this is merely a cultural criticism of the book’s depiction of Tranquilina, rather than an analysis of the greater metaphor at play here.