The Writing of Sarmiento, Martí, and Darío

History and specific events had a clear effect on the writing of Sarmiento, Martí, and Darío. Sarmiento wrote Facundo in 1845, the same year the United States was taking part of Mexico. While Sarmiento’s writing does clearing show how he viewed the United States, such an event had an affect of Martí’s writing. Martí lived in Cuba, Spain, and the United States. While most Latin American nationalists after 1845 would have been very critical of the United States, Martí felt a conflicting view, as he had lived in the United States. Darío wrote To Roosevelt in 1905 in response to the Spanish-American War, in which poem he denounces the United States, calling it “a hunter.”

Along with being influenced by historical events, all three literary works, Facundo, Our America, and To Roosevelt, use the symbol of the tiger. Whether or not the uses of the tiger are coincidental, the tiger always symbolizes power. In Facundo, the tiger is a “maneater,” who is dominates the wild, but is constrained by the law and the civilized world of humans; the tiger later comes to symbolized Facundo. In Our America Martí is trying to prove that America needs to build itself up without European technology or thinking (the tiger) and while that temptation will always be, “wait[ing] behind every tree, crouch[ing] in every corner” America needs to build itself up without “the tiger” (European influence) (293). Darío argues a similar point as Martí. However, instead of Europe being the tiger, the United States is considered the tiger. Darío, like Martí, is suggesting that the Latin American world should not be influenced by foreign powers.