60 pages • 2 hours read
Sandra BenitezThe Weight of All Things
Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 2000A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
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La Virgen Milagrosa
La Virgen, or the Blessed Virgin Mary, is arguably the most revered saint in the Catholic tradition. Mother of Jesus, she performed the miracle of immaculate conception and the birth of the son of God. She symbolizes protection and care, as a mother cares for her child, and the power of miracles. La Virgen is represented by Nicolás (he is named after her), the medallion he wears around his neck, and the small statue of her which Nicolás rescues from his bombed church. She becomes more than a symbolic figure to him as she begins to appear in his dreams and speak words of guidance to him. He witnesses a miracle when the statue comes to life inside his cave, emanating light from her hands and speaking directly to him. When Nicolás loses his birth mother, La Virgen becomes his spiritual mother, much as she is to Jesus. La Virgen accompanies Nicolás on his journey and protects him from harm, providing him with miracles and the hope he needs to persevere. Nicolás is compared to a lamb, which in biblical terms represents humanity (Jesus and his flock of sheep). Nicolás represents the innocent people of El Salvador in need of protection, while La Virgen manifests as the miraculous salvation they need in order to survive.
The Cave
The motif of the cave is introduced in the first three pages of the novel and continues to appear throughout. Nicolás says that he is comforted by the confinement of his secret cave. He compares the “sweet damp earth” (3) smell of the cave to his mother, suggesting that the cave is a symbolic womb. He returns to the cave with the statue of La Virgen, where she speaks to him at night. The cave is dark, damp, and secure from the outside world. Nicolás is suspended in air, fetus like, wrapped in his hammock inside the cave. This is the place he returns repeatedly to find safety and comfort. In the Army garrison, he finds a substitute for a cave in the pantry, which has an entry and exit just like his cave at home. La Virgen appears to him in the dark, cool pantry, “which was small like a cave” (155). Finally, when faced with imminent death, Nicolás takes refuge in another cave setting: “The ledge was ahead, a haven from the flat terrain that now exposed them” (229). It is this low hanging, earthy ledge that protects and conceals Nicolás, Tata, and Basilio. After the massacre, Nicolás emerges from the ledge, Christlike, having miraculously survived. The symbol of the cave appears throughout the novel to point out the danger inherent in living during this time, as well as to symbolize the rebirth of Nicolás after his mother dies. He is reborn as the son of La Virgen, compelled to walk forward “with the might of a lion, with the heart of a lamb” (235).
Weapons
Weapons delineate the Left from the Right and the innocent from the dangerous. The common people of El Salvador possess no weapons; they are portrayed as generally peaceful. The guerrilleros possess some rifles and piece together makeshift bombs and other weapons. In contrast, the National Army possesses a vast collection of deadly weapons. Each soldier is equipped with a rifle at all times. Even when the target is a small group of guerrilleros, the Army sends in trucks full of soldiers with grenades as well as helicopters that gun people down from the sky. For the Army, might is right. At the garrison, Nicolás sees the armory: “the rows of M16 assault rifles resting at an angle in the floor racks, the Colt 45 automatic pistols suspended against the wall […] the stacked boxes of […] hand grenades. The half dozen rifle grenades with launchers” (166). All these weapons to be used against the FPL, which have almost no weapons by comparison, relying mainly on machetes for defense.
Benitez contrasts the garrison with Dolores’s words: “Compared to the enemy, we’re in our infancy” (112). The depiction of the opposing sides weapons makes it clear that the Army’s response to the FPL is outsized and cruel, and thus leads to massive casualties. It is their use of such overreactive and destructive weaponry that forces the FPL to grow their own methods of attack, resulting in the surprise massacre at the garrison. At the end of the novel, Nicolás destroys an M16 rifle. This is the same type of gun that accidentally killed his mother, shot down Gerardo, and killed the innocent people trying to cross the Sumpul River. He takes apart the M16 and throws it into the Sumpul, suggesting that the problem with this war has less to do with ideology and more to do with “that little mechanism of destruction” (235). Without the extreme weapons, the war would not have so many casualties.
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