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Analysis Of Un Día De Estos

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Written by Gabriel Garcia Márquez in 1958 as part of Los Funerales de la Mamá Grande, Un Día de Éstos is a short story addressing a vast theme; that of power and how it is balanced. By constructing the narrative primarily around the two characters of Don Aurelio Escovar, an unqualified dentist, and the mayor who is suffering of toothache, Márquez uses their reactions towards each other to guide the reader into understanding how easy it is to become vulnerable, notwithstanding their social class. CHARACTERISATION The theme of power is explored through the characterisations of the two men in the story and it could be said that this done primarily through continuous contrasts between them. To start with, the vocabulary that surrounds Escovar …show more content…

Firstly, an important recurring symbol in the story is gold, used as a motif that encompasses Escovar, which is done three times. Firstly, his physical description includes, ‘un botón dorado,’ which is closely followed by a description of him as ‘rígido,’ attributing him with a similar quality. Then, as the mayor is introduced for the first time, Escovar, ‘estaba puliendo un diente de oro,’ and finally, and perhaps most pertinently, his first name, Aurelio, itself means gold. Seeing as, ‘gold has the reputation of being… especially strong and durable,’ means that the dentist himself embodies these traits1 (page 55). In addition, it could be said that teeth and dentistry are extremely strong symbols in the story to represent the power balance between the two men. Often, if a person dreams about losing their teeth, it could represent a fear of losing control or power in their waking life. When applied to Un Día de Éstos this is extremely telling of how the mayor is not only losing a tooth i.e. power, but it is Escovar that is taking it away. Similarly, the contrast that exists between the gold tooth that he polishes, and the painful tooth that the mayor demands to be extracted further enhance Escovar’s power, seeing as, ‘the [political] cause of Aurelio and his comrades… has greater value than the cause of the mayor and his accomplices.’1 (page 57) Furthermore, twice in this story does Márquez divert the reader’s attention from what is happening in the room to something that has caught his attention outside, meaning they could also be symbolic of what is in Escovar’s thoughts. At the start of the story, he looks outside to see two turkey buzzards drying off in the sun and seeing as often these creatures, ‘are associated with prey, corpses and death,’ this could be a foreshadowing of the twenty dead men that he

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