Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in I, Rigoberta Menchú, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Tolerance vs. Resistance
Class, Race, and Inequality
Ancestors, Tradition, and Community
Gender and Sexuality
Language, Education, and Power
Spirituality, Nature, and the Sacredness of Life
Summary
Analysis
For Rigoberta, such intense contact with the natural world is what differentiates Indian education from ladino schooling. Respect for the sacredness and purity of natural elements, such as water and the earth, is the foundation of their upbringing. No one in the community eats food produced by machines. They must ask for permission before disturbing or harming the earth in any way, for example before a harvest.
Rigoberta insists that the cohesion and strength of her community derives not from formal schooling, but from concrete practices that are in touch with nature. The village’s rejection of machines reveals its adherence to strict rules about respecting traditional customs, such as making their food by hand. The goal of preserving such traditions is not to increase efficiency, as a machine might, but to honor the legacy of their ancestors.
Themes
The recitation of prayers, honoring the ancestors and their legacy, is another crucial part of Indian education. When Indians pray, they invoke the natural elements. In particular, they ask for the sun to shine one everyone, including their enemies, which they define as people who steal or engage in prostitution. For the community, the sun represents the fullness of life and a path toward their God. The goal is to respect all living things and natural elements, including all human beings.
The community’s generous prayers, which extend to their enemies, highlights their core values of benevolence and nonviolence. Their disapproval of prostitution hints that the Maya-Quiché place a high value on modesty and sexual purity. This attitude seems to overlook the fact that some women in this community are essentially forced into prostitution because they have no other way of earning a decent living—and in this way, prostitution exploits the women’s economic vulnerability.
Themes
