Previous Next

From then on, I was very depressed about life because I thought, what would life be like when I grew up? I thought about my childhood and all the time that had passed. I’d often seen my mother crying. . . . I was afraid of life and I’d ask myself: “What will it be like when I’m older?”

This passage appears in Chapter XIII, just after Rigoberta’s friend, Maria, is poisoned on the finca. Seeing both her brother and a friend die at the fincas makes Rigoberta depressed, then angry. She questions here what the future will hold for her and responds by feeling afraid. Throughout the remainder of the work, Rigoberta replaces fear with action and independence. Her impulse to respond and engage with her world is present in these passages, as she chooses to be an active player in the events that surround her. Looking at her weeping mother, whose spirit appears to be defeated in this quotation by the ills that have been thrust upon her, Rigoberta responds not by crying but by asking a powerful, somewhat political question. Though Rigoberta is only fourteen years old when this passage takes place, she interprets the events that have happened to her people not as sentences that are unstoppable and must be endured but as conditions that can be improved and changed.

Rigoberta will not rest until she is given a satisfactory answer to the question of what the future holds for her and for all poor Guatemalans. By asking this question of herself, she is motivated to incite change in her own life. This passage is somewhat a turning point in Rigoberta’s development as a woman, as she comes to the understanding that advancement must begin with her. This dissatisfaction with the present conditions and hope for a changed future compel Rigoberta to leave the relative safety of the Altiplano in search of knowledge, first as a maid in the capital and later as a human rights worker and political organizer. Rigoberta takes such a step despite being afraid of life, a bravery she exhibits throughout the work and one that is repeated in actions taken by other members of her family and by Guatemalan peasants throughout her country.

Previous section Important Quotes Explained Page 1 Next section Important Quotes Explained Page 3

Popular pages: I, Rigoberta Menchú

Take a Study Break