"Her man was going to burn in hell, not because of his sins, but because he was poor and black. The rich békés of the land openly kept several concubines; their skins and their eyes had the greenish tint of the absinthe which they drank like coconut water and which aged them as rapidly as the cartman's white rum. Yet, when one of them died, he was given the grandest of funerals. The whole clergy, in their robes, walked in procession before the hearse with crosses and banners. Masses sung in Latin were celebrated for months on end for the repose of their soul."
This quote gives reason as to why someone would choose to go against their own religion which was an important thing in postcolonial societies. To go against the dominant religion, in this case, for Eloise to find an alternate way of salvation in the afterlife for her husband Eugenio, is to go against the hegemony. Eloise went against the hegemony because of the hegemony. The way the elites of the society lived were in contradiction to the ideals that had been established by the hegemony and because Eugenio was both poor and black, that effectively made the family sub-altern at least in alignment with the elites.
From the beginning of the story I feel like readers could definitely tell that Eloise was a strong and independent character. I really like that you picked this topic because you not only show how she was a strong character fighting against the hegemony but why she set herself against the hegemony. I definitely agree that class issues made Eugenio's family the subaltern because money is power and the powerful definitely rule over the subaltern. The implication old sugar cane shows this at the beginning of the story and you do a good job showing how all of theses factors tie together.
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