Summary
“The Censors,” by Luisa Valenzuela is a short story that takes place in a letter censorship factory in Argentina. The only actual character in the story is Juan, but there is a woman mentioned by the name of Mariana. The problem Juan faces is that he sends a letter to Mariana but it’s worried it won’t get through the censorship factory.
After he writes a letter to his love, Mariana, he applies for a job at the letter censoring factory; he gets it. He attains a job there so he can obtain his letter to Mariana to send it through.
As Juan slowly becomes more and more obsessed with his job, he feels a sense of peace. Within a month, he was sent to his first section, K, where he carefully checked envelopes for tiny explosives. Juan was promoted to section J when he snitched to his superiors about a man who tried to organize a strike to demand higher wages. In section J, letters are carefully observed for poison dust. With hard work and diligence, he was speedily promoted, this time to section E, where he finally got to read, analyze, and censor letters. Finally, he reached section B. Juan was very bored in this section because only a handful of letters made it to him. Before he knew it, he had his chance to send his letter through to Mariana. He had the letter in his hands, finally, but little did he know, he would be executed for the contents he scribed into the letter.
Juan was executed because, although he did not remember, what he wrote in the letter was inappropriate. We do not know what he wrote; we just know it was unacceptable. Valenzuela is trying to get two messages to us: 1) Be careful with everything you do, and 2) Never trust anyone, even yourself.
After he writes a letter to his love, Mariana, he applies for a job at the letter censoring factory; he gets it. He attains a job there so he can obtain his letter to Mariana to send it through.
As Juan slowly becomes more and more obsessed with his job, he feels a sense of peace. Within a month, he was sent to his first section, K, where he carefully checked envelopes for tiny explosives. Juan was promoted to section J when he snitched to his superiors about a man who tried to organize a strike to demand higher wages. In section J, letters are carefully observed for poison dust. With hard work and diligence, he was speedily promoted, this time to section E, where he finally got to read, analyze, and censor letters. Finally, he reached section B. Juan was very bored in this section because only a handful of letters made it to him. Before he knew it, he had his chance to send his letter through to Mariana. He had the letter in his hands, finally, but little did he know, he would be executed for the contents he scribed into the letter.
Juan was executed because, although he did not remember, what he wrote in the letter was inappropriate. We do not know what he wrote; we just know it was unacceptable. Valenzuela is trying to get two messages to us: 1) Be careful with everything you do, and 2) Never trust anyone, even yourself.
Relation to culture
So, “The Censors” has its own little story about a man and his woman and whatnot, right? But the basic just of the story is about a letter. Writing letters is a form of communication that dates back to the ancient Mesopotamians. Of course, it has evolved over the years.
This is an important point because the way “The Censors” brings out the culture of Argentina is by showing they used to write letters to communicate. Now, Valenzuela could have easily written: “So Juan calls Mariana and says, “I love you! Meet me so we can run away and live happily ever after.”” But why would she do that? That would be a boring, predictable, even shorter story. Instead, she brings out the ancient art of letter-writing. Now, of course, being that this story was published in 1992, it might be a bit unrealistic for Juan to pull out a cell phone and call Mariana, but anything can happen in a story, obviously.
By choosing to have Juan write a letter, she shows us a little bit on how Argentineans used to communicate, by letters. Obviously, now the world is much more technologically advanced and doesn’t have to write letters, but in the time that the story was written, the people of Argentina wrote letters. Clearly, they don’t have censorship factories or anything like that, because that would be absurd, but you get the point.
This is an important point because the way “The Censors” brings out the culture of Argentina is by showing they used to write letters to communicate. Now, Valenzuela could have easily written: “So Juan calls Mariana and says, “I love you! Meet me so we can run away and live happily ever after.”” But why would she do that? That would be a boring, predictable, even shorter story. Instead, she brings out the ancient art of letter-writing. Now, of course, being that this story was published in 1992, it might be a bit unrealistic for Juan to pull out a cell phone and call Mariana, but anything can happen in a story, obviously.
By choosing to have Juan write a letter, she shows us a little bit on how Argentineans used to communicate, by letters. Obviously, now the world is much more technologically advanced and doesn’t have to write letters, but in the time that the story was written, the people of Argentina wrote letters. Clearly, they don’t have censorship factories or anything like that, because that would be absurd, but you get the point.