Genre
Dystopia
Setting and Context
Colonial Mexico
Narrator and Point of View
The physician narrates in first-person voice
Tone and Mood
Macabre, agitated, menacing, and disquieting
Protagonist and Antagonist
The physician is the protagonist. The plague is the antagonist.
Major Conflict
Suppression of the swiftly spreading plagues.
Climax
The physician beholding broad daylight sexual depravity at a fountain near a chapel.
Foreshadowing
N/A
Understatement
Traditional healers’ part in boosting welfare is understated when their art is likened to witchcraft.
Allusions
Allusion to Catholicism( the priest).
Allusion to the accounts of Mexico’s colonization.
Imagery
The travail that people stomach due to the plague is comparable to the agony of the Biblical plagues.
Sexual decadence and inadequate hygiene are causative of the plagues.
Paradox
The physician’s helplessness in the face of the pandemic is paradoxical, but it shows that medical edification may be deficient in the face of new-fangled, aggressive pandemics.
Parallelism
N/A
Metonymy and Synecdoche
‘Flock’ denotes Catholics.
‘Majesty’ denotes King.
Personification
The physician personifies his soul.
The world is personified by being given a heart (New Spain).
