31 pages • 1 hour read
Mariano AzuelaThe Underdogs: A novel of the Mexican Revolution
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1929A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Part 3Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Part 3, Chapter 1 Summary
The chapter begins with a letter from Luis to Venancio, on May 16, 1915. Luis has left the Revolution in Mexico and moved to the United States. In his letter, Luis tells Venancio that he will find it difficult to become a doctor in the United States, but he wants him to come to El Paso to help him open a restaurant. The letter also reveals that Güero has shot himself. Venancio reads the letter “for the hundredth time” (134). He and Demetrio talk; neither of them is sure why they are still fighting. Montañez asks, “Didn’t we finish off this man Huerta and his Federation?” (134). As the men approach a small ranch, peasants run from them. Demetrio orders his men to catch them. Four prisoners are brought to Demetrio with their hands bound.
Part 3, Chapter 2 Summary
One of the prisoners says that Villa has been defeated and that Carranza is winning the fight. One of Demetrio’s men, Valderrama, says, “I love the Revolution like I love the volcano that’s erupting! The volcano because it’s a volcano, and the Revolution because it’s the Revolution” (137). He does not care whom he fights, as long as he can fight. Demetrio smiles at the man, but as they ride away, he is worried: “Villa defeated was a fallen God. And fallen gods are not gods at all, they are nothing” (138).
Part 3, Chapter 3 Summary
The men pass through Aguascalientes again. The ranches and houses are deserted. They find a barrel of tequila and get drunk. Demetrio asks Valderrama to play a song called “The Gravedigger” on the guitar. Valderrama sings so beautifully that Demetrio cries. Valderrama tells the men, “Here you may witness the pleasures of the Revolution in a single tear” (141).
Part 3, Chapter 4 Summary
They pass through a town called Juchipila, where the first revolutionaries were killed by the government in 1910. Valderrama says a prayer for all of the revolutionaries who have died. Most of the men—including many young men who have replaced Demetrio’s officers—are unhappy with Demetrio. They do not understand why they keep fighting, or for whom they are fighting. Valderrama overhears Demetrio telling another man that they have to prepare for another fight, and he deserts that evening.
Part 3, Chapter 5 Summary
In Juchipila, the men remember the beginning of the Revolution, when they were cheered by the townspeople everywhere they went. The town is in ruins and there is no food, as was the case in Aguascalientes and Zacatecas.
Part 3, Chapter 6 Summary
After two years apart, Demetrio’s wife sees her husband approaching on the trail. His wife appears to him to have aged at least 20 years. His child is two years old and recoils in fright from him. When his wife asks him to confirm that he is not leaving again, Demetrio sighs. It begins to rain. His wife can tell that he is not going to stay. He throws a pebble from a cliff and says, “Look at that stone; how it keeps on going” (148).
Part 3, Chapter 7 Summary
Demetrio and his men ride across the sierra where he claims to have defeated over 500 Federals. Gunfire begins nearby and some of his newest recruits run away. Montañez, Venancio, and Meco are killed by heavy machine-gun fire. Demetrio fires and notes that his marksmanship is as good as ever. He, however, is shot and killed, finally coming to rest at the bottom of the ravine; “his eyes fixed in an eternal stare,” he “continues to point the barrel of his gun” (151).
Part 3 Analysis
Part 3 is short and bleak. The men pass through towns that have become deserted ruins. The same peasants that they once swore to protect from the Federals now run from them in fear.
Although the older men in Demetrio’s group try to remember their prior glory as rebels in the Revolution, their alienation from their political roots is complete. Valderrama’s comment about loving the Revolution like he loves an erupting volcano, as well as Demetrio’s comment on the rolling pebble, hearken back to Solís’ observation in Part 1 that a man in the Revolution has as little agency as a dead leaf in a storm. They are no longer acting out of free will, but are being pushed by forces out of their control.
Part 3 also brings the story full circle. Demetrio is reunited with his wife and child. Yet he has clearly forgotten that they are the reason that he began to fight. He is once again in a fire fight with the Federals, much like at the beginning of the novel, but now without a reason, either personal or political. Again, as in the beginning, Demetrio is shot by the Federals and falls into a ravine, but this time he is killed, bringing an end to his story.
Many critics have argued that the novel’s ending shows Azuela’s pessimism about the chances for a world free of violence and war. Throughout the novel, men kill each other without understanding why they are doing it. Some enjoy the violence. Others come to love it by degrees. Demetrio, who was propelled into fighting at the beginning of the novel, clings to violence even in death at the end. The tone is even more ominous given that Azuela served in the Revolution and came out of it with little hope that humans would become less warlike.
