The Gaucho Juan Moreira recalls the life and exploits of Argentina's great 19th-century antihero, Juan Moreia, a noble and hard-working horseman who has been forced into a life of crime. This crime story, however, is more than just a gauchesque novela. In the novel, Gutierrez claims that the development of a new state had dire consequences for the noble lifestyle of the rural people in Argentina. The progress towards free trade and modernization ,in fact, was too much to handle and it destroyed the nationalistic identity of the rural people. As we’ll see in this essay, Gutierrez uses the tragic downfall of our progragonist Juan Moreira to illustrate this destruction. Furthermore, he also uses the conflicts between Moreira and the “villains” of this story …show more content…
Our protagonist, Juan Moreira is a charismatic character with a heart of gold. Like many of the people from the country, he is a hardworking horseman who lives by a moral code of honor that everyone in the rural community respects. This is why, in this story, he symbolizes the ideas, attitudes, and traditional custom of the common people during the 19th century. His moral as well external conflict represent the common struggles that rural people fought in the 19th century. However as Gutierrez explains, Moreria was a relatively peaceful man... that is until he was pushed to his limits. “Routinely deprived of their civil rights and… human right. Both military and police authorities abuse [them and] their crime? To be native sons and citizens of Argentina! No one