Nelson Farina Character Analysis

Nelson Farina, the father of Laura Farina, is a criminal who fled from Devil’s Island to Rosal del Virrey after he murdered his first wife and desecrated her body. Stashing himself away on a ship with “innocent macaws,” he was able to reach the Rosal del Virrey with the woman from Paramaribo who would give birth to Laura Farina and later die of natural causes (and whom Nelson Farina buries respectfully). Nelson Farina and his daughter speak French, likely as a result of colonialization in French Guiana. For twelve years, he has been attending Senator Onésimo Sánchez’s election speeches in the hopes of convincing the senator to give him a false identification card so he might be “beyond the reach of the law” and avoid being arrested for murder. This year, however, he appears to have given up and stays home during the speech. But, when Nelson Farina notices that the senator finds his daughter attractive, he dresses her up in their best clothes and sends her to the senator wearing an iron padlock over herself that he will only unlock if the senator promises to finally grant him his false ID card. Nelson Farina’s ultimate fate is unknown by the end of the story; the senator says he’ll agree to the terms of the bribe, but that is before his political career ends in scandal.