The Decapitated Chicken - Horacio Quiroga by KARINA FLORES-GARCIA

The vindictive power of nature on people cannot be acquired to one’s desire. For example, in the short story of “The Decapitated Chicken” by Horacio Quiroga, it displays how a couple, Berta and Mazzini, have four ‘idiot’ sons for which the only thing that they both desire is to have a normal child, which later on they do achieve. However, by a simple action that the idiot sons saw in the kitchen, they, later on, perform it causing horror and death to their normal sister, Bertita. Quiroga did not unequivocally depict what occurred at the end of the story, however, his implication of what followed was sufficient enough for readers to know what happened. Obviously, the daughter died in the hands of the four idiot sons, but in my opinion, the story should have not ended at the scene that Berta saw her daughter dead. Below, is a new ending that I would have entailed to “The Decapitated Chicken” if I were the one who wrote the story:

Berta was crying uncontrollably on the bloody floor. The decapitated body of her dearest non-idiot child laid on top of the middle table where the idiot sons saw the chicken die that morning. Warm, dull blood was hurrying out through the opening of the little girl’s neck onto Berta and slowly sliding underneath Mazzini’s foot. She let out a louder cry when she saw her little girl’s head behind her, underneath the formation of the red blood puddle. With her obscured vision brought about her overwhelming tears, she noticed her daughter’s last facial expression through the dirty, red bloodstains all over her face. Bertita’s perfect curls were yanked and plucked leaving her almost bald. Her once beautiful eyes were left wide open as if her eyes were nearly about to pop out of terror. As for the mouth, which was not completely shut nor open, stayed in the shape that had been performed by the final word that got through her mouth as she was calling out to her parents.

Mazzini stood paralyzed as his wife was immensely screaming and sobbing. He did not know what to do next, for he never expected that the four idiot sons were capable of such horrifying action.

As the parents were left shocked in the kitchen, the four little beasts had gone to their bench gazing off into the night sky as if nothing had happened. They chuckled in unity in a low insidious profound laughter as they could unmistakably hear the edgy crying of Berta inside. As being idiots, they did not fully know what they had done with their spoiled sister, yet it was only the beginning of their subconscious actions.

“Where are they?” Berta yelled angrily as she kept on crying in pain.

“Where are they? Those idiots of yours!”

Mazzini was speechless to argue with her wife about the four idiot sons.

“Berta!” Mazzini, who knelt trying to get his wife up from the floor, responded, “Berta! Our sons ----”

“NO! They are not our sons,” she rudely interrupted, “Our only child has been brutally killed by those idiots,” she pointed out to the idiot sons as they stood watching their so-called parents from the kitchen entrance.

Berta forcefully shoved Mazzini aside and grabbed the bloody, stained knife that was beside her daughter's body and made her way towards the idiot sons. She was full of anger that without thinking she tried to stab each of the idiot sons, so she would not have to deal with them. She had had enough of them and decided to end their lives for which she knew that the idiot sons would not have a future for themselves.

Mazzini reacted late to Berta’s action, yet he tried to stop Berta from acting. Meanwhile, the idiot sons just stood there and looked at Berta without hesitation to stop her or did not even try to run away.

Unexpectedly, the four idiot sons acted, but in their minds, they thought that their parents were having a game with them. Little did Berta know that the idiot sons would try to stop her by trying to get the knife out of her hands. She tried to not have the knife in the possession of the idiot sons, but as she tried to fight off the force of the four beasts, she turned around and stabbed Mazzini in his chest, unintentionally.

Mazzini fell on the floor and Berta once again uttered a cry of horror and quickly sat beside her husband’s body. She slowly removed the knife from his chest and set it aside on the bloody floor beside her. She continued to cry with great remorse that she felt weak throughout her body.

As she continued to lament herself for accidentally stabbing her husband, the four idiot sons had grabbed her and lifted her to the table beside her daughter’s body. As weak as she was, she was not able to force the idiot sons to get off of her. One of the idiot boys squeezed her neck, leaving Berta unable to cry for help, while the other boys were pulling off her strands of hair one by one.

From left to right, Mazzini’s body was on the floor as his blood from his chest dripped down on the kitchen floor. His blood found its way to the fresh droplets of blood that belonged to Berta.

In the short story “The Decapitated Chicken,” Berta and Mazzini did not acknowledge their four idiot sons due to their cognitive impairment. Since neither one of the parents did not have a family ancestry of dysfunctional behavior, they continuously accused each other of the wellbeing status of their four sons. Rather than giving their sons attention and care for them in an adorable manner, the two of them neglected love for them. They did not try to help them through their mental illness. Rather than thinking about their idiot sons, they attempted to have a child with no psychological issue. Unbelievingly, they achieved to have a girl who did not become an idiot, and she gained all the attention from her parents, making her a spoiled child. All through the story, I felt sorry for the parents in such a case that if I were the one to have a kid with a chronic illness, it would be difficult to acknowledge it, yet it does not imply that I should try to have another child until it is ‘normal.’ Regardless of my sorrowfulness for the parents, I had the constant thought that it was the parent's fault for the actions of the idiot sons because Betita would have not been dead if the parents cared for and loved the sons equally.

In the story, it is clear that one cannot compete against nature. Nature prevails the egotistical desires of a person. As for the Berta and Mazzini, nature made something contrary to what they wanted each time they had a child. They truly wanted a child to be completely normal, but once they attained one, that child was taken by death, leaving them with the unwanted sons.

In the new ending of the story that I wrote, I decided to have the parents lose and have the four sons win a crucial battle. Berta was so brutal on the poor sons, that I believe she was capable of murdering her own sons as revenge. It would have been easier for her to do it because she did not love the four idiot sons. In the original ending, the parents lost either way, but the parents could have abandoned them or gave them up for adoption, leaving them to a win again. Unlike my story, the parents ending up dying, which was a brutal ending, but I see it as a way of karma. They neglected their own mentally ill sons for their daughter who was normal, leaving the four idiot sons off on their own without the negligence of their heartless parents.

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