Paper One

Katie Miller

Kaustav Mukherjee

World Literature

March 2, 2014

Tragedy of a Young Girl

Isabel Allende’s story, And of Clay Are We Created depicts the catastrophic aftermath of a volcanic eruption and the effects it had on a small village. Although the story mentions the dark side of the tragedy, such as the death toll and the vivid description of the scene, the story encompasses around a little girl named, Azucena. News casters exploit the young thirteen year old girl’s story in order to make headlines. Her stories purpose is to show how she represents the tragedy as a whole.

                The premise of the story revolves around a volcanic eruption that destroys the small village. News crews arrive at the scene to capture the horrors of the tragedy.  Their lenses depict the soldiers whom tend to the victims of the tragedy as well as clear the rubble of the volcano. Rolfe Carle, a reporter, focuses his lens on Azucena.

                Rolfe Carle began by filming the catastrophic scene in which the girl was encompassed by. He made note of the chilling temperatures and stench of the corpses. The main focus, however, was on Azucena. Rolfe had taken freeing her of the mud into his own hands. He built many contraptions that failed to free her. When many attempts to free her passed by, he resorted to providing Azucena with moral comfort.

                He spent hours sharing stories with the young girl and went as far as reaching into his imagination to keep her entertained. All the while he was comforting her, the camera’s focused in around her vacuuming up the scene of which was presented.

                Rolfe had begged for a pump which was shown on a screen in which is wife observed. She then took matters into her own hand and went about obtaining a pump. While she waited she, and million other viewers, were subjected to the horrors of the volcano’s aftermath. “I watched that hell on the first morning broadcast, cadavers of people and animals awash in the current of new rivers formed overnight form the melted snow.”

                The images shown were meant to evoke emotion in its viewers. For Rolfe’s wife it stirred the need for a pump immediately. She and her husband were attached the young thirteen year old girl in need of rescue. The media took Azucena’s horror and used it for their own personal gain. News anchors flooded to her and used the image of her face on their networks. Multiple times she was questioned but after a while she felt too defeated to answer.

“In the meanwhile, more television and movie teams arrived with spools of cable, tapes, film, videos, precision lenses, recorders, sound consoles, lights, reflecting screens, auxiliary motors, cartons of supplies, electricians, sound technicians, and cameramen: Azucena’s face was beamed to millions of screens around the world.

                Azucena became the poster child of the catastrophe of the volcanic eruption. News reporters plastered her face everywhere to promote the story. The images may have depicted the fear in the little girl’s eyes but they did not provide her with any comfort in her time of need. Only Rolfe had stayed by her side to listen to her and to offer her stories.

                Rolfe’s stories transitioned from imagination to him venting to the young girl about thirty years of suppressed memories. He began to share the stories of his father and mother and seeing them in a rough state and he reflected on his sister, Katharina, whom he shared solace with. Upon reflecting on his own personal past he came to the realization that he was Azucena. “He was buried in the clayed mud; is terror was not the distant emotion of an almost forgotten childhood, it was a claw sunk in his throat.”

                His ramblings did not seem to bother her but they worried her. It was as if Rolfe was experiencing a personal volcanic eruption within himself. “Don’t cry. I don’t hut anymore. I’m fine, “Azucena said when dawn came.”

                “I’m not crying for you,” Rolfe Carle smiled. “I’m crying for myself. I hurt all over.”

                Rolfe used his time with the little girl to come to terms with his past. By then, Azucena had accepted her fate. After three days of consoling the young girl and making false promises of freeing her, Rolfe too had accepted her fate. On the third day, Azucena had passed away.

                The cameraman had shared in her passing but the images did not evoke the passion that was felt by Rolfe. Only his wife truly accepted what he had experienced. No one could ever fully understand what Rolfe had experienced for they had not been a part of it, yet, after following her husband’s journey, his wife had a small sense of what he went through. From the other side of the screen she tried to help with the situation but could do nothing more than watch the death of the young girl.

She and her husband shared the same ideology. A young girl was in need of help and they tried everything in their power to provide her with a pump. The media exploited her story for the viewers. Her story ran on multiple news stations many times and still no one provided the young girl with the help she so desperately needed. Rolfe continually asked for a pump to free the girl but instead of filling his requests, the media continued to run her story so that viewers could experience the tragedy with her.

With the mass media encompassing Azucena’s story, Rolfe questions humanity. He comes to terms that there is nothing he can do to help her but he wonders if her story should be exploited when she would not gain anything from the media’s coverage. The word clay represents how humans are created. We are made from the earth but can be molded. The media’s persistence in filming her shows that they have been molded to overcome harsh images in order to cover a story. The ideology of the camera men exploiting her story is vastly different from Rolfe’s. Azucena was not the only person in need therefore she was not the center of everyone’s focus; however, she became the face of the tragedy because of the horrors she experienced.

                Azucena was the poster child for the tragedy because she was molded into a beautiful piece of artwork that in the end was destroyed. The media overlooked the fear in her eyes and the beauty of her face and used her vulnerability to capture an image. Rolfe was one of view people that did not share in the same ideology as his news casting brethren. His focus was not in creating a story but rather taking care of Azucena in her time of need. Rolfe saw the beauty in her and how she reflected the tragedy of the event in her eyes.