How we cite our quotes: Citations follow this format: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #4
Twice the bullet-riddled bodies of peasants from other haciendas were discovered. There was not the shadow of a doubt in anybody's mind that the guilty one was from Tres Marías, but the rural police simply recorded that bit of information in their record book with the tortured hand of the semi-literate, adding that the victims had been caught committing a theft. The matter never went any further. (2.74)
Here we find one of the discrepancies between Alba's narrative and Esteban Trueba's. While the third-person narrator leads us to believe that Esteban is, without a doubt, the murderer of the two peasants, Esteban swears in his own testimony that he's never killed anyone.
Quote #5
The day Esteban Trueba discovered that the son of his administrator was slipping subversive pamphlets to his tenants, he summoned him to his office and, in the presence of his father, gave him a lashing with his snakeskin whip. (4.99)
Esteban Trueba's decision to whip Pedro Tercero in the presence of Pedro Segundo is perhaps based on the patriarchal notion that the son's shame is a source of shame for the father as well. In punishing Pedro Tercero, Esteban is also punishing his faithful foreman.
Quote #6
Blanca reminded Pedro Tercero of the Socialist leader who a few years earlier had bicycled across the province, distributing pamphlets on the haciendas and organizing the tenants until the Sánchez brothers caught him, beat him to death, and hanged him from a telephone pole at the intersection of two roads, where everyone could see him. (5.110)
Like Esteban Trueba, other members of his class can get away with murder. In this society, more value is attached to the lives of upper-class citizens than those of the poor working class.