Fighting for Corruption An American writer by the name of John Steinbeck once said, “Power does not corrupt. Fear corrupts…perhaps the fear of a loss of power.” Power is something that is very valuable and that people want and are willing to fight for. In Mariano Azuela’s novel The Underdogs, the main character, Demetrio Macias starts an army, the rebels to fight in the revolution. He initially starts fighting for a better Mexico; however, he forgets his reasons and continues fighting without a purpose. Demetrio couldn’t stop fighting until he lost his life in battle. He himself doesn’t understand why he couldn’t stop—he just knew he couldn’t. He had fallen into a great, deep abyss of never ending fighting.
One of the major themes in Mariano Azuela’s novel is good vs. evil. Demetrio Macias goes through the story wondering his purpose for fighting is. In the beginning he is looked at as a hero for his town, fighting for what is right, and protecting his family. The Federales are known for burning people’s houses, stealing their stocks, and harassing their wives. When this happened to Demetrio in the first chapter, he had to do something. He made sure his family was safe and sent them to his wife’s father’s house and then he left his town Limon, and created an army to fight back. He did all this for the right reasons—he wanted a better Mexico. Everyone looks up to him as their leader and he is known for creating an army and leading them into battle. He starts of with a little power, and as the story goes on, he gradually gains more and more power until it is too much for him. That is a possible reason he continues to fight—he essentially becomes a powerful person upon his army and even joins Pancho Villa’s army and climbs up the rankings. He has gotten so far; he doesn’t know how to stop. He likes the attention he gets and the respect people give him. He is afraid to lose all he has earned. However, the more he earns, the more he becomes like the enemy. Demetrio started off with his rebels being figures such as Robin Hood, stealing from the rich to give to the poor. However, eventually when they go through cities and kill people, they strip them for everything they have for themselves. Not to mention, they kill people other than the Federales. When a workman helps Demetrio and his rebels find the soldiers in a church, the start setting off bombs and killing everyone. The workman who helped them begs Demetrio to find his brother before they kill more people. Demetrio and his men don’t listen and continue to kill. One of the rebels, Pancracio, fights the workman’s brother and kills him. “We’ve no more bombs left and we left out guns in the corral,” Cervantes tells Demetrio. “Smiling Demetrio drew out a large shining knife. In the twinkling of an eye, steel flashed in every hand.” He then kills the spy that had lied to him the day before as he begs for his life, “Don’t kill me, Chief, please don’t kill me.” Demetrio ignored his wishes and killed him right then and there; striping the men for everything they had “laughing and joking as they despoiled them.” They left the scene as Demetrio says, “Now let’s get those city fellows!” (57). It is clear to the reader that is did not take long for Demetrio to forget the reason he was fighting for. He hurt people he did not need to, and he stole from them to keep for himself. He was exactly like the Federales—the reason he started to fight in the beginning. In part one, when the reader notices how Demetrio starts to fall for Camilla, it is skeptical because he already has a wife. It goes as far as his fellow rebel, Cervantes to lie to Demetrio and say he isn’t interested in her because he knows that Demetrio wants her. Cervantes goes out of his way to convince Camilla of Demetrio, “He’s really very fond of you. Don’t go and throw away this opportunity. You’ll never have one like it again in your life. Don’t you know that Demetrio is on the point of becoming a general, you silly