Unsound Body Equals Unsound Mind?
Before the accident, Brother Augustine quotes the Roman poet Juvenal, “Mens sana in corpore sano”. This Latin expression points to the complementary relationship that the body has to the mind. The idea being that a sound/healthy mind can be found in a sound/healthy body and this describes Cuellar’s position as a young schoolboy at the beginning of the Mario Vargas Llosa’s The Cubs. Cuellar is not only able to be the first of his class academically, but over the winter he overcomes his athletic disadvantages to become a first-rate footballer. Juvenal’s line translated vice versa to the true meaning argues that an unsound body leads to an unsound mind. With Cuellar’s emasculation his body became unsound, affecting the way people treated him and eventually transforming his mind from sound to unsound. At first, Cuellar seems to recover and even has hope that his manhood can be restored, but as time goes on this hope fades and he faces an ever-widening gap between himself and his barrio and the rest of society. However, it is not society that ostracized him, but his own mind. He watches his friends fall in love, marry, and have children, but his physical emasculation conditioned his mind to bitterness. Just as the dog snarled and attacked him physically, he snarls and attacks his barrio with jealousy. The story is told in the voice of the barrio. There is a continually flow of description and dialogue between the friends of the barrio, not as in a play, but rather as choppy prose. The remembering voices stumble over each other, telling the story of Cuellar’s descent from merely physical deformity to mental and emotional derangement.
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Thank you for being (apart from me) the 3rd person on the whole blog list to be caught up for this week as of Sunday night at 12 midnight. I give you an A….as if I am the giver of grades. Concerning your comment, I enjoyed the different take you had on it. I don’t know if I would say he had mental and emotional derangement although that is an interesting take….derangement seems really strong. Also, I believe society did play a part in ostracizing him for not having his male sexual organ….society had conditioned him and all his friends to think that no PP=not a man. Of course, once that condition is set up by society, he runs with it to the very end to the extreme. Thanks for not causing me to have my own mental breakdown by clicking on everyone’s blogs and finding Pedro Paramo or for heaven’s sake Endgame and even Jose Marti..what a hoot.
I think you do a great job of summarizing the story and giving us some insight into what could have happened to Cuellar’s mind after having been mutilated by the dog. Certainly the psychological scar to his persona is evident in the downward spiral of his life after that and his alienation from his friends in the barrio.
I missed the connection you made to the Latin phrase from Juvenal, so I’m glad that I happened on your blog and was able to see another side of the story that this quote permits. Sally
I also did not understand the Latin phrase either when I read the story. It makes so much sense to use this phrase in relation to Cuellar’s both physical and psychological destruction. I agree that much of Cuellar’s problems result from his attitude towards the others from the barrio. He constantly feels pressured to get a girlfriend and be “normal” and he chooses to listen to the others, resulting in jealousy and frustration from not succeeding.
I think your writing style is really nice. Good job!