The Three Dirges

The racism, oppression and violence in Connelly's shory, the Three Dirges has lots of foreshading in it. The story opens with the words of the Colonel, as quoted by the baffled mayor: ''Don Lazaro, you've got five boys in Comitan teaching the campesinos how to read. That's subversive. That's communist. So tonight, you have to kill them. Now, what can I say?-you tell me! What can a man say to - something like that". Marshall Bennett Connelly's novel, Requiem Guatemala, This story is based from the Guatemalan civil war , which lasted for the hole second half of the twentieth century . This was a war between the government and the insurgents. This was particularly violent and oppressive just like any war that was fought in that century. Most of the victims were civilians of indigenous descent and the war was also called genocide. The violent conflict is an instance of the disastrous effects produce by the fight for political power. Foreshadowing in Three Dirges is a sense of ominous foreboding permeates the woeful passage from Three Dirges.

What is significant about the war is that it is largely an example of discrimination and calculated genocide . Although the population of Guatemala is predominantly made of Indians , the Spaniards in the region have long abused the people of Mayan descent. So it caused a civil war, which emphasized the gap between the two cultures . In the early 1980 's , the war became synonymous with genocide , as the military forces of Guatemala turned began a murderous campaign which targeted the Maya peoples. People of God say that, "every village in the region of El Quiche has a bloody story to tell." These type of wars where common with the Indians and Latinos during this the second half of the 20th century. The wars were usually based on religious, even though the bible is subversive to all gods.

The Maya peoples do not want to be assimilated in the Latino culture and decides to defend their right to their own traditions. In the Three Dirges the conflict is immediately started, "Don Lazaro, you've got five boys in Comitan teaching the campesinos how to read. That's subversive. That's communist. So tonight, you have to kill them." Don Lazaro, the mayor of the war torn village, San Martin Comitan, was left with only one choice and that to kill the five boys.. His response was not rejected but was questioned, but was already to handle the situation that was ordered to him.. "What can I say? --you tell me!" says Don Lazaro talking to the village people.

Don Lazaro begging for the five boys understanding, and looking for a solution that would change the challenge that likes before him. The elements of foreshadowing is told earlier in the story talks about an Indian skyrocket. The skyrocket, had orange and yellow star-burst with a streaking gray tail, was this a warning, or a bomb. Perhaps the skyrocket was an indication