La Poderosa Symbol Analysis

Ernesto begins his narrative with an image of his friend Alberto’s motorcycle, which is the vehicle that makes possible Ernesto and Alberto’s road trip across South America. The motorcycle’s nickname, “La Poderosa” or “The Powerful,” is obviously a joke to the two men, since La Poderosa is far from a powerful machine—it’s difficult to ride, it breaks frequently, and it dies forever halfway through the trip. In this sense, the motorcycle symbolizes the youthful scrappiness of their adventure and their reckless desire to embrace risk and improvisation. However, just as Ernesto transforms from a naïve and unfocused youth to a serious political revolutionary over the course of the book, the symbolism of the motorcycle shifts, as well. When Ernesto and Alberto finally lose the motorcycle and become “bums without wheels,” Ernesto realizes that owning a motorcycle had identified him as a member of the middle class, which had led people to respect him and Alberto in the poor towns he visited. Without the motorcycle, the two men begin to live and to be treated like members of the proletariat. Thus, La Poderosa does signify real power—the power of class advantage—which the men had been previously unaware that they possessed. The transition in the motorcycle’s symbolism foreshadows Ernesto’s eventual disavowal of his bourgeois roots and his embrace of the proletarian cause.