The Underdogs, a novel written by Mariano Azuela, is a story about a group of poor revolutionaries in Mexico during the 1910s. This group of soldiers starts out with a few men, then following some success, become a bigger player in the revolution. Eventually, their self destruction brings all of them away from the revolution and most of them towards death. One of the two main players in this novel is General Demetrio Macías. Demetrio joined the revolution because he killed a man, so Mexican government officials were after him. After running away, he got with a group of other men and decided to fight back. He is a very poor, very uneducated farmer. However, he does have reckless courage in battle and a great shot. The second of the two is Luis Cervantes. …show more content…
He left them after realizing the true nature of the revolutionaries as terrible people. Azuela based the character of Cervantes off of himself. Azuela saw just how awful the revolution was. He realized that the revolutionaries had no care for the Mexican government, but rather their own selfish desires. In The Underdogs, Azuela depicts that revolutionaries are not influenced by politics, but by the chaos they can cause. Besides Cervantes, none of Demetrio’s soldiers know the cause of the revolution. Absolutely none of the revolutionaries know anything about politics. As poor farmers, they know nothing about the Mexican president, the decisions he makes, or political and economic reasons why the first revolutionaries began to fight against the Federales. The only reason they are even fitting is because they joined Demetrio after they were all kicked out of their respective towns by the Federales. They do not have any idea as to what the outcome of the revolution will be or how it will affect their lives. Most of them just think that they will be able to go home afterwards like nothing every happened. Demetrio said “But I don't want nothin