Maria Concepcion

I don't remember the last time I read a short story like "Maria Concepcion," a short story that causes me to actually detest every character. This tale reminded me very much of what I am learning about in my physical anthropology class: the roots of human violence, natural selection, primitive instincts, etc. Each character emulates some kind of animalistic nature, the bestial part of human nature. Juan devolves back to the primitive animal state when he refuses to control his sexual longings. Maria Rosa knowingly ruins a functioning marriage. Maria Concepion slits the throat of Maria Rosa then steals her child. Even Givens and Lupe refuse to acknowledge the concept of justice, a civilized and democratic principle, by, respectively, bailing Juan out from prison and announcing out Maria Rosa’s murderer. Irrationality motivates each person, especially Maria Concepcion, who ironically goes to church daily. When she finds out about the affair, her purpose in life becomes “to sit down quietly and wait for death, but not until she had cut the throats of her man and that girl.” Her rationale is that Rosa is a whore with no right to live and eventually builds her anger solely toward the adulteress. Does that truly turn Concepcion’s revenge into a rationalized revenge? I know that revenge, in Christian views, is never rationalized. It all comes down, therefore, to this primitive desire in all of us for survival. Concepcion numbs herself to the surroundings; she can slit the throat of a fowl without flinching and cry no tears for her own dead infant because she knows that the fowl is merely an economic token and asset to prevent starvation and because her child will hinder her new purpose. By the end of the story, Maria Concepcion kills everything her husband loved because he betrayed her. She takes the life of Maria Rosa to increase the likelihood that Concepcion’s family will prosper. I noted too, that the quick resolve to violence is a primitive emotion in humanity as well as in our animal relatives. Chimpanzees, for example, become extremely violent when threatened and studies show they have been observed in enjoying violent actions. Maria Concepcion revealed the inner beast, the barbarism within ever animal threatened with reproductive survival and isolation.