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Chac-Mool is a personified physical representation of the past and of Native Mesoamerican culture in contemporary Mexico. He has a lot of knowledge of the weather and plant-life of his homeland, but is quick to anger. Eventually, he grows so hateful and indulgent that he becomes more human than idol. By the end of the story, Chac-Mool has almost completely transformed from stone idol to a human of earthly pleasures.

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He’s controlling

Prideful

Violent

Intelligent

Values earthly comforts

Values self-image

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"The room smelled of horror, of incense and blood.  In the darkness, I gazed about the bedroom until my eyes found two points of flickering, cruel yellow light.
Scarcely breathing, I turned on the light. There was the Chac-Mool, standing erect, smiling, ocher-colored except for the flesh-red belly. I was paralyzed by the two tiny, almost crossed eyes set close to the wedge-shaped nose. The lower-teeth closed tightly on the upper lip; only the glimmer from the squarish helmet on the abnormally large head betrayed any sign of life. Chac-Mool moved toward my bed; then it began to rain" (452).

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- Easily upset

- Physically sensitive

- Quiet

- Diligent with his work

- Mentally fragile

- Self-absorbed

- Hopeless

- Values stability in his life

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Carlos Fuentes, Chac Mool. Audiolibro fantástico en español

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- The unnamed narrator establishes a stronger appreciation and desire for status for Filiberto
- Dislike for modernity amplified, more directly comparing the chairs and soda to an invasion
- Change in tone over his collection, from his "collection of art" to a "room of trophies"

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Filiberto is an average person with a weak personality. He does not seem to have any outstanding qualities and works at a regular, well-paying office job.

He has been “diligent, disciplined and devoted” (449) to achieving his past dreams, but he has run into many roadblocks. He cannot stand for his quality of life to decrease, complaining when the plumbers are not able to arrive quickly enough (450) or when someone puts red dye in the office water(450).

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After the chac-mool becomes alive, he cannot stand any quality of it, negatively commenting on its texture as icy and scaly (453) and his nonhuman odor (452). He gives absolutely no resistance to the chac-mool’s rule, and meekly accepts it. This leads ultimately to his demise. Overall, Filiberto shifts from a stable, average, dissatisfied man, and becomes a more deranged, upset, and broken one.

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- A struggle maintaining both legacy and image, refusing to acknowledge alternatives to staying at his ancestral mansion and quick to buy Chac Mool even with no space ready for him

- Struggle with Impermanence throughout the Story, reacting to modernization like it's an invasion, and as he interacts with Chac Mool directly question the nature of reality and it's interaction with time and perception

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Resolution: By the end, Filiberto seems to have fallen to his tendency to look towards the past for solutions, resorting to an old familiar journey to allow Chac Mool to passively be defeated y the dry season. However, this failed him as he still died, in a perverted recreation of his habits when young.

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1. To entertain!

2. To blur the lines of magical and real; to challenge our understanding of what is and isn’t “real”

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Comparative analysis and cultural critique

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Comparative analysis and cultural critique

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Fuentes criticizes the common notion that the ancient were barbaric and savage by showing that there’s little difference between the ancient and the modern “sanctioned” religions.

“If I weren’t a Mexican […] in order to believe him” (bottom 449)

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Three key aspects:

1. The setting is in a place or situation recognized as the real world.

2. The magic is portrayed in a matter-of-fact manner.

3. There is not an expected rational or physical explanation for why.

Magical Realism is a genre that challenges the ideas of what is real and perhaps through this reality questions the common perspective.

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In Aztec cosmology, there are four Tlaloque, of which Tlaloc is one, who hold up the sky and function as the frame for passing time. Tlaloc was the lord of the third Sun, which was destroyed by fire.

Aztecs made human sacrifices to Tlaloc. In his temple, they placed a bowl of human hearts as offerings to the rain gods. At a special time, from the middle of February to the start of March, the Atcahualo festivals took place, where seven children would be sacrificed to the Tlaloque. The children would be adorned beautifully with feathers and flowers and would have their hearts removed at the shrine at Mount Tlaloc. Their tears were considered signs of the imminent rains that would result from this sacrifice.

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- He is  the god of rain, earthly fertility, and water

- His name means “He who makes things sprout”

- He wears a blue and red mask with large eyes and fangs

-He was worshiped as a life-giver, but the Aztecs feared his temperamental nature

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Defined as specifically a Mayan statue within the spanish translation

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Relationship Between Tlaloc and Chac-mool

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Relationship Between Tlaloc and Chac-mool

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There are striking similarities between chac-mools and Tlaloc. Tlaloc has long sharp teeth and large protruding eyes, which can both be seen on various chac-mools around Mesoamerica. When Chac becomes enraged in the story, his teeth elongate similarly to Tlaloc’s. It is possible that he and Tlaloc had some kind of disagreement in the past, or are related  somehow. Perhaps it is their similarities, and how one could be mistaken for the other which make the Chac-mool perturbed when asked about his relation to Tlaloc (452).

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There are three settings in regards to time and two for place

Present

- The present was the main character travelling around to set her friend Filiberto off. But she finds his journal which she then begins to read. Most of the present though consists of her in a hotel room and meeting the roommate/Choc-mool. The settings is described as "hot and bright"(448) with a "good breeze"(448). Which is in complete contrast to the setting that was described from the journal.

Characters included in the Present Timeline
- Main Character
- Filiberto (Dead body)
- Filiberto's roommate (Possibly Chac-mool)

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Journal Timeline (Before present but after creation of Chac-mool)

- Described firstly as a "ancient mansion with half the rooms locked" (452) with just Filiberto going through his day to day until he picks up the Chac-mool and his life flipped upside down. First the kitchen "flooded the floor and poured into the cellar" (450). Here the stone got wet and started to get "covered in slime"(451). Every night moans would occur and the stone slowly became more alive. Then his life became no longer his but Chac-mools, who ran him to get water and drove Filiberto insane.

Characters included in the Journal Timeline
- Filiberto (Alive)
- Chac-Mool (Through Filiberto's view)

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Past Timeline

There isn't necessarily a past timeline, but more that Chac-mool doesn't come from the present nor the journal but existed prior to both. A ever lasting rock that was turned into a fleshy form. Encased maybe, ancient introduced to the present creates a jarring realization of what is just encased and waiting for its catalyst.

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All first person, through a textual context. We get Filibertos thoughts and the visuals of Chac-mool's Conception and story. Since this is seen as only Filiberto's view it can be taken as factual. He could have had a psychotic breakdown and came up with this story in his head.

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This would be the view of the main character, it's not first person. He has moments where we can look into his thoughts but we get snippets where it looks like a 3rd party is watching.

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The temple was named this after the Eagles and Jaguars that line the outside of the platform. They supposably depict the warriors who would actually capture victims to be sacrificed at the alter.

Built during the Maya-Toltec era and surrounded by larger, but similar temple like structures. This would have been created anywhere from 900-1200 AD

Structure was built to worship the Sun God via human sacrifice when needed. They believed that if they did not sacrifice the sun would cease to rise and the world would end.

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When referring to Filiberto losing his job, alludes to the beginning of the Mexican Revolution, using "Sufragio Efectivo No Reelección", as in without any support rather than without any authorization

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- Due to his fathers position as a diplomat, grew up constantly moving between countries
- Learned English at 4 years old while in Washington DC
- Studied Law in Mexico City and Geneva

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- Worked in Geneva from 1950-1952 as a member of the International Labor Organization
- Spent much time in Mexico disseminating Mexican culture through funding literature magazines and working with the University of Mexico City
- French Diplomat
- Outspoken Marxist, diverged from the Mexican Communist Party due to intellectual differences

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Eagle and Jaguar Warriors In Correlation with Temple of the eagles and jaguars 

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Eagle and Jaguar Warriors In Correlation with Temple of the eagles and jaguars 

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- Eagles were archers who were a select group that would engage the enemy before anyone else. They wore eagle feather lined clothing when they were in battle. This was equivalent to a knight in medieval times.

- Jaguar warriors were also knight equivalents but were usually the front line and some of the best warriors that they had to offer. They usually lined themselves with the skins of jaguar and carry wood clubs covered in the obsidian shards.

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"The Chac-Mool flooded the living room today. Exasperated, I told him I was going to return him to La Lagunilla. His laughter—so frighteningly different from the laugh of any man or animal—was as terrible as the blow from that heavily braceleted arm. I have to admit it: I am his prisoner. My original plan was quite different. I was going to play with the Chac-Mool the way you play with a toy; this may have been an extension of the security of childhood. But—who said it?—the fruit of childhood is consumed by the years, and I hadn’t seen that. He's taken my clothes, and when the green moss begins to sprout, he covers himself in my bathrobes. The Chac-Mool is accustomed to obedience, always; I, who have never had cause to command, can only submit” (453).

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Filiberto is pictured as an average person, maybe even slightly less than average. However, Filiberto wishes and dreams about having status and power, although he lacks the ability to grasp it. Filiberto states that when he was younger, he and his friends would, “open fire on anyone in the house who so much as mentioned an inferior background, or lack of elegance.”(449) Later in life, however, he becomes one of the inferior and non-elegant people he once despised. The author seems to be making a criticism about those who aspire to reach great heights, but lack real ambition to achieve their goals.

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why is it important that readers get access to Filiberto’s story from a firsthand account?  What does he add that the overarching narrator cannot?

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Inside Filiberto’s house; in the surrounding area.  These establish details of Filiberto’s character and “place” in society

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Inside the house, inside the mind.  Both degenerate.

As these interior settings degenerate, the Chac-mool generates, or anthropomorphizes, and rises—from the basement to Filiberto’s last refuge: his bedroom.  At the end of the story, Filiberto is taken to the basement, while the Chac-mool has full control of the house—and Filiberto.

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Shifts in these settings drive the horror and suspense of the plot.

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One of the rituals referenced in this story is the face-off between warriors.  One, however, is a captured enemy who has been deprived of food so as to be weaker and ensure the home warrior’s victory.  The Chac-mool’s sunken stomach area is believed to have been used for subsequent sacrifice of the vanquished enemy.

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The story takes place from the point of view of a close friend of Filiberto/outside narrator (448)

It is a story set in the real world: Acapulco, La Quebranda, National Palace, etc (448)

It’s way of expressing irony is suggests MR. There is the fallacy of seeking to gain riches but ultimately losing it all (449) and Filiberto does this by losing touch with his past (unfit, lonely etc.) (449). He also parallels the Chac-Mool. He gains strength from swimming (being in water) and he "needs some sun" (453). The narrator gets an ironic twist upon meeting the now human-like Chac-Mool (454)

The magical elements do not become apparent or accepted to/by the characters until later. Filiberto doesn’t accept the Chac-Mool statute as real god until it sneaks into his bedroom (452), and the narrator thinks Filiberto lost his mind or madness (454)

The magical aspects to the story are certainly real as suggested by the ending (454)

However, the story does not portray the magical aspects as real until Filiberto experiences a shift in character and is not affirmed by the narrator until the very end of the story.

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- Specification of the Chac-Mool in the story as a Mayan statue
- When describing the college friends and how they moved on in life, instead of some of them 'breaking the rules', there's a realization that there were no rules in the first place, also describing the 'humble' as 'the lowly' later within the same sentence.
- When Pepe is describing Christianity, instead of the English “a warm feeling, bloody sacrifice and ritual”, it is instead “A feeling of warmth, blood, of sacrifice and liturgy”
- When speaking of his past, he describes it as Disguises, rather than just make believe. It also connects to his description of him now, in a Costume of Papers rather than buried in papers.

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Filiberto is weak and submissive (representing Mexico, especially in the context of global standing) “Porfiro Munoz Ledo, formerly a president of the PRI, a secretary of labor, and an Ambassador to the EU, told me bluntly: ‘Why is this government so weak?’”.  The current President of Mexico, Pena Nieto, was lambasted for being so weak in his response to Trump’s declaration that Mexico would pay for the border wall.  He even invited Trump to Mexico and was submissive rather than authoritative in his response to Trump.

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In Fuentes’ story, the rich are golfing and hobnobbing (representing the Mexican elite that abandoned Mexico to pursue personal/financial interests in the United States—in the story, note that the economically powerful have left Filiberto behind as well).  Fuentes was critical of the socio-political elite and the PRI government because of their corruption and their seven-decade stranglehold on Mexican politics.

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Fuentes was sympathetic to those, in particular the Zapatistas representing the people of Chiapas, hurt by disparities in economic class and socio-political power.  He also wanted to see Mexico rise to a position of economic, political, and cultural standing in the global community.  He wanted a strong, autonomous Mexican identity.  In writing about the Chac-mool, perhaps Fuentes is pointing to an earlier time when indigenous empires flourished and concludes that what once was could be once again.

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Fuentes criticizes the plundering of ancient spiritual/religious sites--the disrespect, disregard, trivialization of the sacred.  These are not "toys" to be played with, as Filiberto thinks.
There are consequences.

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That which one was, is, and will always be.

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That which one was, is, and will always be.

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Tapahonso and the Holy People
Villanueva and the Wind God
Power and Red Dress
Historical, yet present.
Gone, but not forgotten.
Still with power--beyond human power.

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The conflict between the Chac-mool and Filiberto seemingly is "resolved" in the sense that Chac now has complete power and control of the house and Filiberto is, being dead, powerless to defend his home.  He is sent to the basement--the lowest level of the house. Victory to Chac-mool.
Given the powerlessness of Filiberto, it is unlikely he will resurrect from the basement as the Chac-mool did; Filiberto had no powers to begin with.

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Augustus Le Plongeon was a British-American amateur archaeologist and Alice Dixon Le Plongeon was photographer. They were the first, from 1873-1884, to systematically excavate and photograph Chichén Itzá and Uxmal Mayan sites in Mexico.

Augustus Le Plongeon is today dismissed by nearly all Maya scholars as little more than a troublesome eccentric.  His approach defied science: the "truth" will be supported by the evidence, rather than allowing the evidence to lead to a "truth".

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Why what Le Plongeon did makes Chac-mool mad

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Why what Le Plongeon did makes Chac-mool mad

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“Laughing stridently, the Chac-Mool recounts how he was discovered by Le Plongeon and brought into physical contact with men of other gods. His spirit had survived quite peacefully in water vessels and storms; his stone was another matter, and to have dragged him from his hiding place was unnatural and cruel. I think the Chac-Mool will never forgive that” (452).

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How was "a God that’s not only sacrificed for you but has his heart torn out, God Almighty" a checkmate to Huitzilopotchli?

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How was "a God that’s not only sacrificed for you but has his heart torn out, God Almighty" a checkmate to Huitzilopotchli?

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Huitzilopochtli needed sacrifices to keep the world from being destroyed

Christ provided the greatest blood sacrifice to save the world

Checkmate means to make an inescapable defeat or overcoming of another

God Almighty’s blood would be the greatest offering to Huitzilopochtli

The sacrifice would be more than a match or checkmate in this way

Thus Christ gave complete victory to Huitzilopotchli

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"This sculpture comes from Ihuatzio, one of the main political and religious centers of the Tarascan state. It was excavated in 1908 and later transferred to the National Museum of Anthropology where it is currently exhibited in the Culturas de Occidente room.

This peculiar position is shared with other sculptures known as "Chac Mool" found in Tula, Tlaxcala, Cempoala, Chichén-Itzá and in the Templo Mayor of Tenochtitlan.

Unlike the sculptures from the Mayan area (our Chac is Mayan) and Central Mexico, Ihuatzio's Chac Mool is distinguished from them by having a naked body, being semi-shaven, and having large wrinkles on his face. As the only adornments he has earmuffs and anklets on his legs." (our Chac has a "heavily bracleted arm" (453).

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Came out in his debut work, "Los Dias Enmascarados” (The Masked Days) as a short story within the collection.