The Tree of Red Stars

Tessa Bridal
1997

Introduction

Tessa Bridal's The Tree of Red Stars takes place during a time of dire political upheaval in Uruguay. Most of the story centers on the activities that occurred during the 1960s and 1970s in Montevideo, Uruguay's capital. Although a fictionalized account, Bridal makes a statement in the front pages of her book that the story was inspired by real people and real events.

After leaving her country, Bridal was surprised to discover that, outside of Uruguay, no one knew what was really happening there. The stories that were being printed in the media of other countries did not correspond to her experiences and memories. She recounts that no one in Uruguay was left untouched by the violence that was occurring there, and her story is told as a way to make sure that the voices of Uruguayans will not be lost. Bridal "uses her book to present a harrowing account of that country's takeover by a military dictatorship, a regime that violently demolished one of Latin America's oldest democracies," wrote Paula Friedman for the New York Times.

It was during these troubled times in Uruguay that a citizen's group of urban guerillas, the Tupamaros, was formed to protest the dictatorship government that had set itself in power. The Tree of Red Stars tells the story of a young, outspoken girl, Magda, who comes of age in the midst of all this social, political, and economic chaos. Her older friends and some of their parents are secretly involved with the Tupamaros, and as the young girl matures into womanhood, she too takes up the fight

against the corruption that has invaded her life and the lives of her family and friends.

The Tree of Red Stars is Bridal's first novel. It won the Milkweed Prize for fiction and first prize with the Friends of American Writers. It was selected by the New York Public Library for its 1998 Books for the Teenage list, was Booklist Editors' choice, and was chosen by Independent Reader as one of the five Most Recommended Books for 1997.

Author Biography

Over one hundred years ago, Tessa Bridal's ancestors settled in Uruguay. They had come from Ireland and soon established themselves in the city of Montevideo. It was in Montevideo, the capital city of Uruguay, that Bridal was born and raised.

During her youth, Bridal witnessed the turmoil that occurred in her homeland during the 1960s and 1970s, when Uruguay suffered economic losses and turmoil in the labor sector. The government, which had formerly been very successful in supporting its Uruguayan population, became increasingly corrupt and slid into a form of dictatorship, which set the scene for the creation of the Tupamaros, an urban guerilla movement. All these elements strongly affected Bridal and play a very significant role in her first novel, The Tree of Red Stars.

Bridal eventually left Uruguay. She has since lived in Brazil, Washington, D.C., and in London. For the past twenty years, she has called Minnesota her home. It is in St. Paul, at the Science Museum of Minnesota, that Bridal now spends many hours of her day as the director of public programs, where her responsibilities include producing live theatre performances. For her work in this capacity, she has earned the American Association of Museums Education Committee's Award for Excellence. She has also worked as the artistic director of the Minnesota Theatre Institute of the Deaf.

In 1997, Bridal wrote and published her first novel, for which she won the Milkweed National Fiction Prize. She has also published many articles and short stories, which have been published in various literary journals. In addition, Bridal teaches creative writing classes through The Loft, Borders Books, The Minnesota Center for Arts Education, and at Hamline University in St. Paul and at North Dakota State University.

Currently, Bridal lives outside the Minneapolis-St. Paul cities, in Albertville, with her husband, Randy, and their two daughters, Ana and Kate. She and her husband volunteer their free time for the Humane Society, for which they also run a foster home for animals. They share their home with a dog, a cat, two rabbits, and seventeen birds.

Plot Summary

Prologue–Chapter 1

The Tree of Red Stars begins with a prologue, written almost as a letter to the reader. The protagonist, Magda, is returning to Uruguay after a seven-year exile in Europe. She talks about Marco Aurelio Pereira, who has spent seven years in jail after rescuing her from a similar fate. Statements about the political unrest in Uruguay before Magda left are related, as well as Magda's efforts to secure the release of Marco.

Chapter 1 begins with details about Magda's childhood in Montevideo. The neighborhood is described, with a special emphasis on the poinsettia tree outside of Magda's home, where she and Emilia hide to watch their neighbors. As they sit in the tree, Gabriela, a young woman from the outskirts of town appears, and Magda convince Emilia to hide in the back of Gabriela's wagon to see where she lives. Once at Gabriela's house, which is made of cardboard, newspapers, and plastic, Magda sees a small plate, which she had made in school for her mother, hanging in Gabriela's home. Gabriela is proud of that plate, but Magda is hurt that her mother has given it away. In the meantime, Gabriela, concerned that the police might think she has kidnapped the girls, immediately sets out to return them.

Chapters 2–3

Chapter 2 introduces Cora, a young Jewish girl, whom Magda and Emilia find mysterious. Cora keeps her distance and is always chaperoned by her parents. Also in chapter 2, Josefa, Magda's cook, tells the mythical story about the moon and its present of mate, a local, traditional tea that "makes brothers and sisters of all who drink it," a tradition that will soon be shattered as the political upheaval will pit one Uruguayan against another.

In chapter 3, Magda's aunts, or tías enjoy a brief discussion of politics and of a woman who insists on her rights in the male-dominated Uruguayan society. Magda carries tidbits of the aunts' conversations to Emilia's house and shares them with Emilia's mother, who proclaims that men "think they know more about being a woman than we do." The rest of the chapter provides further examples of the inequality of women and men in Uruguay.

Chapters 4–5

Magda and Emilia celebrate their twelfth birthday. They discover that Cora is also about to turn twelve. Cora is a romantic image to them, especially in reference to her relationship with her father. Magda's and Emilia's fathers are seldom home and pay little attention to them when they are. They later realize that Cora's father is so attentive because he is afraid Cora will be assaulted for being Jewish.

Señora Francisca is introduced in chapter 5. One night, Magda sees Lilita, Cora's mother, sneaking into Francisca's home. Magda, after intercepting Emilia, insists that the two of them also sneak inside to find out what the two older women are doing. When they overhear the women's conversation, Magda and Emilia realize that the women are involved in the revolution.

Chapters 6–7

Francisca opens the chapter with a loud wailing sound after her husband's mistress appears at her door, telling her about all the money that he spends on her. Francisca is devastated. Although she has given the appearance of having money, her house is all but bare of furnishings. She decides to seek revenge by going on a shopping spree.

In chapter 7, Magda, Emilia, and Cora go to the zoo. After Magda risks danger by climbing over a fence to feed her favorite elephant, Cora yells at her about her careless behavior. Cora fears not only for Magda's life but also for her own, because she is afraid that Magda will one day get her in trouble.

Marco is introduced as Magda goes to his house to visit his mother. Magda describes him and pays special attention to his mouth. "I was too young to understand the hunger it evoked in me," she says, foreshadowing her involvement with him. Marco expounds on his political views, especially his dislike of the United States' intervention in Uruguay.

Chapters 8–9

Che Guevara comes to the university to speak. Magda is forbidden to go but sneaks out anyway and takes Emilia with her. Magda is inspired by Che's talk but, when a gunshot is heard, pandemonium breaks out. Emilia and Magda run into Cora, who has been injured. Magda seeks help, but a policeman corners her and assaults her sexually. She kicks him and runs down the street and is pulled into a doorway by some students, who hide her. They then help her, Emilia, and Cora to get home.

Upon arriving home, Emilia finds that her mother has tried to commit suicide. Lilita is saved and makes Magda promise never to get Emilia into any more trouble.

Chapter 9 takes on a lighter tone as Magda and Emilia celebrate their fifteenth birthdays. At the birthday celebration, Marco dances with Magda and kisses her. He also announces that he has enlisted in the army. Magda also meets a friend of Marco's, Jaime Betancourt, who courts her. As they become more involved, Magda's mother tries to get rid of Jaime, whom she disapproves of because of his social status. She promises to introduce him to people who will help him to find a job in the United States. When this does not work, she tempts Magda with a trip to the United States, hoping Magda will forget Jaime.

Chapters 10–11

Some of the history of Magda's family is portrayed in chapter 10. Her grandfather came from London when he was twenty-four. He arrived in 1902, bought a ranch, and eventually married eighteen-year-old Aurelia Ponce de Aragon, against the wishes of both sets of parents.

There is also mention of the first of Magda's ancestors arriving in Uruguay and of a special ancient agate puzzle that was made by a Charrúa native and which has been handed down over generations in the family. Magda's grandmother imparts this information as she prepares Magda for her trip to the United States.

In chapter 11, both Magda, who lives for one year in Michigan, and Emilia, who spends a year in Missouri, compare life in Uruguay to their experiences in the States.

Chapters 12–13

Chapter twelve is written in the form of several letters sent by Emilia to Magda, Magda to Emilia, Jaime to Magda, and Magda and Marco to one another. In the letters, Magda and Emilia continue to share examples of the strange culture that they are experiencing in the States. Jaime tells Magda how much he misses her and asks her to find out the names of airline executives to whom he can write.

In Magda's letter to Marco, she relates such incidents as the cold winter, the latest Beatles' movie, and sports—typical American topics. In Marco's letter to Magda, however, the tone is more somber, as Marco discusses the student protests in Uruguay.

Magda returns to Uruguay in chapter 13. The mood in Uruguay is rapidly changing, as Brazilians, fleeing their country to escape the military dictatorship there, warn the Uruguayans that the same thing could happen in their country. Marco is now a lieutenant in the army, but he is still involved with covert work that helps the protesters. Magda visits Gabriela, who tells Magda that Marco "has a mission" and that "such men are difficult to love." Magda has broken up with Jaime because both she and Jaime realize that she is really in love with Marco.

Cora elopes with Ramiro, a man she meets at a political gathering. Her parents are devastated.

Chapters 14–15

A friend of Jaime's dies in a plane crash, and Jaime blames his commanding officer, Captain Prego. Jaime believes that Prego was negligent and challenges him to a duel. Prego shoots Jaime in the chest, claiming that Jaime moved into the oncoming bullet. Jaime dies.

As a result of her being at the duel, Magda's picture appears on the front page of the city's newspaper. To avoid scandal, Magda's grandmother takes Magda to Caupolicán, the family ranch. While at the ranch, Magda realizes that her future plans must include Caupolicán. Her grandmother wants to give the ranchland to her, as no one else in the family truly appreciates it. Once back in the city, Magda enters the university in Montevideo and decides to major in economics and land management. One day after attending classes, she runs into Ramiro, who promises to take her to see Cora.

Chapters 16–17

There is a discussion between Cora, Ramiro, and Magda that involves the politics of the day. Russia is hoping that Uruguayans will not promote a capitalistic government, whereas the United States is hoping that there will be no move toward socialism. Ramiro tells Magda that he and Cora are involved with the guerilla group called Tupamaros, a group that wants to ensure that a social democracy is established in Uruguay. Magda decides to become involved.

Magda holds a job at the U.S. Information Services (USIS) because of her fluency in English. She promises the Tupamaros to act as a spy for them. In such a capacity, she discovers that one of her supervisors, Dan Mitrione, teaches Uruguayan police officers how to torture prisoners. Magda and Ramiro plan to kidnap Mitrione and use him to gain the release of political prisoners.

Magda discovers, in chapter 17, that Gabriela had been tortured to death by some of Mitrione's men. She gains permission from her grandmother to bury Gabriela's body at Caupolicán. Magda, Gervasio, and Cora bring Gabriela's body to the ranchland. In the meantime, Mitrione's body is found in the back of a car.

Chapters 18–19

The Tupamaros decide to kidnap the British ambassador, Geoffrey Jackson. In an attempt to gain information about Jackson, Magda must be-friend his assistant, Peter Wentworth. Emilia meets Wentworth when she and Magda audition for a play that Wentworth is directing. Emilia and Wentworth fall in love.

The ambassador is kidnapped, Ramiro is arrested, and Cora goes into hiding. Magda and Emilia are invited to Wentworth's home, along with Emilia's parents, who believe that Wentworth is about to propose marriage to their daughter. After they arrive, however, the police show up and arrest Emilia, convinced that she became involved with Wentworth only to find out the comings and goings of the ambassador. Magda confesses that it was she who was a Tupamaro and that Emilia is innocent. The police do not believe her.

Emilia is released three days later. Wentworth, who had set up the arrest, refuses to talk to her. The Uruguayan military is called into force to take over the struggle against the Tupamaros. Marco, now a captain, continues to work with the Tupamaros while keeping his cover as an army officer. He helps political prisoners escape.

Chapter 20–Epilogue

Ramiro escapes prison, and Magda is told where he and Cora are hiding. She brings them food. Emilia insists on helping her. Shortly thereafter, Magda is arrested. She is put in isolation. She often hears, in a room above her, the moans of people being tortured. At one point, she is taken out of her room and brought to a gathering of some old friends, including Ramiro and Cora, whom the police have allowed to be officially married.

Magda remains in her cell for several months. One day Marco, now a colonel, shows up and secretly releases her. He takes her home and Magda's father takes her to Caupolicán.

Marco appears at Caupolicán the first night. He and Magda make love, and then he leaves. Marco is arrested shortly afterward. Magda learns that Ramiro has died and that Cora has disappeared. The next day, Magda escapes to Brazil.

In the Epilogue, Magda and Emilia are waiting for Marco to appear. When he does, he looks frail and tells Magda that he does not have much more time left to live.

Characters

Cora Allenberg

Cora is first introduced as a young girl who moves into Magda's neighborhood. She appears mysterious to both Magda and Emilia because she is always neatly dressed and, whenever she is outside of the home, she is always accompanied by her parents. Cora eventually is able to throw off the confines of her parents, but she does so through deceit, telling her parents one thing but then doing something quite different. She becomes a good friend of Magda's and Emilia's.

Cora elopes with Ramiro, a young man whom she meets at a political gathering. They both become involved with the Tupamaros and are arrested and tortured. Although they escape, they are recaptured. At the end of the story, no one knows what has happened to Cora. She is listed as a missing person.

Mr. Allenberg

Cora's father, who is overly protective of Cora, afraid that people will offend or assault her because she is Jewish, mourns his daughter after she elopes with Ramiro.

Mrs. Allenberg

Cora's mother, who together with her husband had to flee from Holland in a hearse in order to escape the Nazis, is very suspicious of Magda and Emilia, concerned that they will one day turn on her daughter and call her names because she is Jewish.

Señora Francisca Arteaga

A neighbor of Magda's, Francisca is totally humiliated when her husband's mistress comes to her home and tells her about how much her husband spends on her. After that, Francisca goes out and spends a lot of money on her and her daughters' comfort. Francisca is also involved, covertly, with the Tupamaros. She represents a traditional woman who is going through a transition into a more modern and more independent stance.

Jaime Betancourt

Jaime, Marco's friend, becomes involved in a relationship with Magda. Magda's mother believes that Jaime is trying to use Magda's position in society to make a better name for himself. Jaime's father is a tailor, a profession that Magda's mother looks down upon. Although Jaime professes his love for Magda, he also encourages her to help him find a way to get a job as a pilot with an American airline.

Upon Magda's return from the States, Jaime asks Magda to marry him, but he notices her reluctance and finally makes her admit that she really loves Marco. Jaime graciously backs away.

One of Jaime's colleagues dies in a plane crash, which Jaime blames on his commanding officer and challenges him to a duel. Jaime dies in the contest. While Marco goes through his belongings, he finds a letter addressed, but never sent, to Magda. In the letter, Jaime's true feelings for Magda are revealed.

Charrúas

The Charrúas are native people of Uruguay who initially posed a threat to all pioneering land settlers who came from Europe. One of the Charrúas supposedly had fallen in love with one of Magda's female ancestors, Isabel FitzGibbon, and made her a beautiful agate puzzle, which had been handed down from generation to generation in Magda's family.

Emilia

Emilia moves into Magda's neighborhood while both girls are very young. She and Magda become lifelong friends, sharing their love of climbing into the poinsettia tree and watching people walk by. Although Emilia is included in all of Magda's childish pranks, as the girls grow older, Emilia becomes weary and very concerned that one day Magda's need for adventure will get them both into very serious trouble.

Emilia is described as being very nurturing. She worries about her mother, whose clandestine activities she does not understand. When Emilia's mother tries to commit suicide on the same day that Emilia has followed Magda to hear Che speak, she tells Magda that she no longer wants to be included in any more of Magda's activities. However, when Magda tells Emilia that she is auditioning for a play, Emilia insists on going with her. She meets Peter Wentworth at the audition and immediately falls in love with him. Later, when Peter's boss is kidnapped by the Tupamaros, Emilia is arrested as a suspect and is tortured. After this incident, she becomes involved with the revolution, helping Cora and Ramiro while they are in hiding. At the end of the story, Emilia is involved in the reunion of Magda and Marco.

Charlie FitzGibbon

Charlie is the first male ancestor of Magda's to land in Uruguay from Ireland. Referred to as a "black Irishman," Charlie is Isabel's husband.

Isabel FitzGibbon

The first female ancestor of Magda's to land in Uruguay, Isabel is married to Charlie but is said to have befriended a Charría native who fell in love with her and made a beautiful agate puzzle for her.

Gabriela

Gabriela is a beautiful but poor young girl who lives on the Cerro, a tall hill outside of Montevideo, in a neighborhood of shacks. She is the mistress of a married man. She comes to Magda's neighborhood to beg for food and clothing for her children. During the revolution, she becomes involved with the Tupamaros, is caught, and is tortured to death.

Gervasio

Gervasio is the oldest son of Gabriela. Marco befriends him and encourages Gervasio to attend college. When Gabriela is murdered, Gervasio assists Magda is finding his mother's body and reburying it on Magda's grandmother's ranch.

Carmen Grey

Carmen is one part of Magda's twin cousins. She comes to live with Magda's family after her parents die in a car crash. Because the twins are a little older than Magda, she watches them to see how they act with boys.

Ernest Grey

Ernest is Magda's maternal grandfather, who came from London and fell in love and married Aurelia Ponce de Aragon, against his parents' advice. He and Aurelia reap the benefits of their parents trying to outdo one another in providing wealth to their children. However, his main interest is in sharing his love and life with Aurelia. He is never present in the story, having died prior to the time of narration.

Magdalena Ortega Grey

Magdalena ("Magda") is the protagonist of the story. It is through her that the story is told. Readers learn about her childhood, in which she was always looking for some form of adventure, whether it was soaping the sidewalk so she could watch her neighbors slip and fall or sneaking into her cousins' room to find novels that portray explicit references to sex.

Magda's closest friend is Emilia, whom she has known since elementary school. Magda usually drags Emilia with her, as she seeks out new adventures. Magda loves excitement and going against the sometimes stifling social constraints that her parents try to impose on her due to her family's high standing in the community. Her family can trace their lineage back to one of the oldest European pioneers. Because of their large possessions of land, they belong to the class of the moneyed elite. The family is, therefore, in a general way, the enemy of the Tupamaros, with whom Magda eventually becomes involved.

Magda's reunion with Cora and Ramiro introduces her to the Tupamaros. Since she works for the USIS as a translator, she has access to information that the Tupamaros need. She often bemoans her covert activities, as they are subtle. She would rather be involved in the actual kidnappings, the releasing of prisoners from jail, than the spying that she is told to do. When she does become involved in helping to feed Cora and Ramiro, she is caught and sent to jail. She is tortured there, not physically but psychologically and emotionally. She is secretly released by Marco.

Magda, from an early age, falls in love with Marco. However, because he is older than she and because she creates a romantic image of him in her mind, she has trouble letting her feelings be known. Instead, when she turns fifteen, she becomes involved with Jaime, a friend of Marco's. She is never truly convinced that she loves Jaime, but there is an attraction to him that she does not fully understand. After spending a year in the States, however, she returns to Uruguay and realizes that it is Marco whom she really loves. She breaks up with Jaime shortly before he challenges Prego to a duel in which he dies. Marco, in the meantime, becomes so involved with his rising role in the military and his dual role of working undercover for the Tupamaros that he seldom has time to see Magda. In the end, the two lovers finally admit their strong feelings for one another. However, their paths cross for only a brief time, as Magda is imprisoned and, upon her release, Marco is thrown in jail. They meet again, after a seven-year span, at the end of the story, with Marco having only a few months left to live.

Sofía Grey

Sofía is one part of Magda's twin cousins. She comes to live with Magda's family after being orphaned at the age of seven. The twins are a little more than a year older than Magda. Magda learns about sexual relationships through her cousins by eavesdropping on them.

Geoffrey Jackson

Geoffrey is the British ambassador to Uruguay, whom the Tupamaro kidnap.

Josefa

Josefa is Magda's family cook. She tells Magda local myths about love and the making of mate, a local tea. At one point in the story, when Josefa cries over a family incident, Magda relates, "Her tears were a gift of caring." Then Magda continues, "She gave because it was in her nature to give."

Lilita

Lilita is Emilia's mother. She is involved with the Tupamaros from the early development of the movement. She tries to hide her activities from her daughter, but Magda sneaks Emilia into a neighbor's house so they can eavesdrop on a conversation that reveals Lilita's involvement in the revolution. She later talks to Magda about the revolution, warning her that one day she will have to make a decision about which side she wants to take. In the end, she feels bad about having kept so many secrets from her daughter and reveals the truth to her. At the end of the story, Lilita has died.

Mamsita

See Aurelia Ponce de Aragon

Dan Mitrione

Based on a true character, Mitrione was reportedly trained by the FBI and served as a chief of police in the States. He is sent by the State Department to Uruguay to train the local police force. His alleged specialty was torture. Mitrione is the first person that the Tupamaros kidnap. He is later found dead.

Señora Ortega

Magda's mother is typical of the upper-class Uruguayan women of her time. She condescends to her husband, tries to keep her children innocent of adult activities, and wants only that her daughter grow up healthy, well educated, and contented with a rich man. Appearances are very important to her. Only once does she open up to Magda, and that is after her daughter is sexually accosted by a policeman.

Colonel Pereira

The father of Marco, Colonel Pereira encourages his son to enter the army, believing that this will keep him out of trouble. He wields his political power to keep Marco from being put in jail, while Marco, still in his teens, demonstrates alongside of students and laborers who are fighting for more decent wages.

Marco Aurelio Pereira

Marco is a young neighbor and childhood friend of Magda's. He is several years older than she and, as a teenager, he is constantly seeking out ways to join the students and laborers in their protests against the dictatorship of the Uruguayan government.

Marco's father is a military man, and eventually Marco enters the army, thus appeasing his father. However, Marco's real aim is to undermine the army. He senses that it will be the military that will become the strong force of the government, and he wants to be able to inform the Tupamaros of the army's activities. He also wants to rise in rank so that he too will have power, which he will use in favor of the revolution.

Marco is very intelligent and falls in love with Magda at an early age. However, he does not reveal his feelings until Magda is much older. He does educate Magda about what is happening in the government and in the revolution. It is because of Marco that Magda becomes involved in the revolution, although Marco does not know this at first. When he does discover that Magda is working with the Tupamaros, he tries to convince her to stop.

Marco quickly gains the commission of colonel in the army and is responsible for helping political prisoners be released. He is also involved in the satisfactory release of the British ambassador that the Tupamaros have kidnapped. Marco gains the release of Emilia when she is wrongfully accused of having been involved in the ambassador's kidnapping. He also gains Magda's release at the cost of his own imprisonment.

Señora Marta Pereira

Marco's mother, Marta Pereira, is "an ample woman" who likes to cook and to write poetry and dramas for soap operas. She names her sons after characters in Shakespeare's plays. She also befriends Magda when Magda needs someone to talk to.

Aurelia Ponce de Aragon

Aurelia is Magda's maternal grandmother, Mamasita, who was married to Ernest Grey at the young age of seventeen despite her parents' objection. She is a very lively woman, even in her old age. She maintains a large home in the city as well as the ranch called Caupolicán, out in the country, several hours' drive away from Montevideo.

Aurelia rides horses, climbs coconut trees, and tells Magda family secrets and important details about life in general that no one else will convey to her. She speaks openly and honestly to Magda, her favorite grandchild, to whom she wills her estate. She shelters Magda when she is in trouble and encourages her in love.

Captain Prego

Prego is Jaime's commanding officer who agrees to take part in a duel with Jaime, who slaps him in the face with a glove, displaying his anger over the death of a pilot, whom Jaime believes died in a crash due to Captain Prego's negligence. Prego ends up killing Jaime.

Ramiro

Ramiro is a young man who meets Cora at a political rally. He falls in love with Cora, and the couple elopes when Cora's parents try to make her marry a young Jewish man. Ramiro joins the Tupamaros with Cora and becomes involved in two kidnappings, which eventually lead to his arrest. He is tortured and finally released from jail but dies shortly afterward.

Mr. Stelby

Stelby is an English neighbor who is used to show the contrast between European culture and manners and Uruguayan ones. The narrator states, "for reasons no one could fathom, they [the Stelbys] had decided to remain in a country they never stopped reviling."

The Tías

The tías are Magda's mother's sisters: Catalina, Josefina, and Aurora. They come to Magda's house for tea on several occasions, and Magda loves to eavesdrop on their conversations. It is through their talk that she learns inside stories about various neighbors, about men and sex, and about politics.

Tupamaros

The Tupamaros are a group of people who secretly have come together to help to at least embarrass Uruguay's dictatorship. They are referred to as urban guerillas, and it is through them that the revolution against the government is conducted. Although they start peacefully with marches, speeches, and protests, they kidnap one of the men responsible for the torturing of political prisoners and kill him.

Peter Wentworth

Peter works with Ambassador Geoffrey Jackson, and it is through Wentworth that Magda gains information about the ambassador. Wentworth directs the play that Magda and Emilia audition for. When he first sees Emilia, he is captivated by her and falls in love. However, after the ambassador is kidnapped, Wentworth falsely accuses Emilia of being involved and arranges to have her arrested. After she is found innocent, Wentworth continues to refuse to have anything to do with her.

Themes

Oppression

Oppression is a very strong theme in this book, and it is demonstrated to exist in several different areas of the Uruguayan culture. There is the oppression of females from the rules set by the patriarchal society, which encourages its females to gain an education but sets double standards for other aspects of the women's lives. For instance, to have sex before a woman is married is not only discouraged, it is grounds for punishment, possibly a beating. However, it is standard practice for men to have sex before marriage. Not only that, it is common for most married men to have one or more mistresses. For women, once they are married, they are encouraged to stay home; some are even told they must stay in the house all day and are not allowed out unless accompanied by their husbands.

Landowners, at the time of this story, rule in Uruguay. They wield both economic and political power. People who do not own land scrounge for poor-paying jobs, and the population of poor people is growing. Landowners enjoy their elite position and exclude others from their ranks. Daughters are expected to marry within their economic class or to better themselves by marrying into richer families. If a young woman falls in love with someone her parents believe is beneath her, that relationship is thwarted.

There is also the oppression of ideas. Students who have their minds opened to other types of political philosophies and who try to pressure their oppressive government to make changes are imprisoned and tortured. This not only gets rid of the so-called dissidents but attempts to suppress others from speaking out as well. The government uses fear as an oppressor to maintain control over the masses.

Coming of Age

Magda comes of age in many different ways in this story. First, she goes through puberty, turning fifteen in the middle of the novel and awakening to the sexual desires of her body. She is aroused by Marco, but it is Jaime with whom she first encounters sex and mistakes it for love. With Marco, she develops into an understanding of mature love.

She also comes of age in her awareness of the culture around her. At first, she has very little understanding of her own social status. She lives in a privileged world and believes that everyone else does too. Although she visits Gabriela and sees her poverty, she does not fully grasp the hardships that Gabriela must face. Later, when she is rescued from the policeman who tries to sexually assault her, she realizes that the students who befriend her have offered her things that she takes for granted, like a pair of shoes, which she realizes might be the only pair that that particular student owns. When Jaime comments that he cannot afford to go to school, Magda finds the statement unbelievable. School in Uruguay is free. Then she realizes that Jaime has no money to pay for books, housing, food, and the other necessary items that he will need.

In the area of politics, Magda learns to open her mind to different voices, not just those who hand her propaganda about the current government regime. She discovers there is corruption and greed among the officials, which has led to the oppression of many Uruguayans. She comes to a point in her life when she must decide whether to continue to ignore the hardships of those around her or to do something that might be of service to them. Her decisions are made in spite of the difficulties it may cause her own family.

Love

Various forms of love are expressed in this novel. There is the strong friendship between Magda and Emilia that binds them together from their earliest years in elementary school to the end of the story, when Emilia witnesses the reunion of Magda and Marco.

In contrast is the tragic love affair between Magda and Marco, which is intense despite the fact that the two of them are rarely together. They feel their love for one another as teens but are too young to express it. By the time they are more fully matured, their roles in the revolution keep them separated. They make love only once throughout the telling of the story, and then they are torn apart again as Marco sacrifices his own life to save Magda. Once both of them are free, Marco's health is so deteriorated that he has only a few months to live.

There is also the love of country, as expressed by the young men and women who were willing to sacrifice their lives to bring down the dictatorship that was ruining Uruguay. Unable to close their eyes to the poverty and inequalities that existed as a result of the corrupt officials and the ruling elite, the students, the workers, and the poor risked everything that they had to bring about change.

Also represented is the love of the land as seen through Magda and her grandmother and their attachment to the family ranch. It is a love of the ways of nature and of the peace of the open space. It is also a respect for their ancestors who gave them the gift of the land.

Style

Point of View

The story is narrated in the first person, who readers can assume is Magda. Because of the first-person narrative, the story reads as if it has been written specifically for the reader, almost as if the author were writing a letter. The only time the first-person narration is altered is in chapter twelve, when the reader is privy to several actual letters, supposedly written by one character to another. However, even in the letters, of course, the point of view remains first person.

Topics For Further Study

• U.S. intervention in Uruguay is a topic that is often brought up in Bridal's The Tree of Red Stars. Research the role of the United States in Uruguay during the 1950s through today. What kind of investments has the United States made? What, if any, Uruguayan resources are the United States interested in? Has the United States influenced the political climate? Use a broad range of research sources, including, but not exclusively, the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, both liberal and conservative news magazines, as well as any publications from Uruguay that are available. The Internet might also offer some rich sources.
• Read the book Che Guevara: A Revolutionary Life (1998). Then research the student uprising and the activities of the Tupamaros in Uruguay during the 1960s and 1970s. What kind of speech do you think Guevara might have made at the student gathering mentioned in Bridal's book? Remember that it is Guevara's speech that most inspired Magda. Write and deliver such a speech to your class.
• There have been several reported incidents of police brutality in the United States during the twentieth century. Research some of those incidents and write a report on your findings. You might want to look into the period of time in the South during the Civil Rights Movement. The Rodney King case might also provide material, or do a general search on the Internet for "police brutality." Are there similarities between these cases and what was happening in Uruguay? How are they alike? How are they different?
• Choose one of the more dramatic scenes or events in Bridal's book, and write a poem from the principal character involved, expressing that character's emotions at that time. Suggestions include Emilia after her ordeal in jail, including the loss of John Wentworth's love; Magda while she is in the United States witnessing the differences between the American culture and her Uruguay culture; Marco, sometime during his seven-year prison sentence; Cora, as she sits at her window, wanting desperately to go out and play with Magda and Emilia.

With the first-person narration, the story has a feel of a documentary, giving the plot of the story more authenticity. The narrator sounds as if she is merely relating events that have happened to her, and there is no reason to doubt her. The disadvantage of using the first-person narrator is that the reader has no access to the thoughts of all the other characters in the story. Every character and every event is seen through the eyes of the narrator. Although the narrator may be reliable, she might also be biased. However, the reader has no choice but to witness the events as the narrator remembers them and the way she perceives them. Since a large part of the story involves the memories of a young girl, there is a slight tendency to question some of the narrator's interpretations.

Setting

The setting in The Tree of Red Stars is almost a character in itself. The political turmoil of the 1960s and 1970s in Uruguay affects all the characters in the story. It is the setting of the story, as well as the consequences of that setting, that moved the author to write the story in the first place. Most of the characterization is used to put individual faces on the huge conflicts and the chaos that were taking place. Although the reader is pulled in by the stories of the characters' lives, it is the setting that makes this story unique.

Proselytization

The only criticism that has been made against the writing style of this novel is Bridal's occasional slips into a type of proselytization, a seeming attempt to persuade the reader to accept certain beliefs. As the story unfolds, Bridal occasionally ventures into political discussions between her characters. Sometimes these sections read as if she is trying to convince the reader rather than relate a discussion between two characters. The conversations are much longer than other dialogues. The same theme of U.S. intervention in Uruguayan politics is repeated in these specific discussions. Because of this, the discussions feel as if they have been inserted into the story artificially. It is the type of material that is more often found in a documentary than in a novel.

Historical Context

Early History

Uruguay's original populations consisted of the Charrúa Indians. They were a group of hunter-gatherers and, according to most historical accounts, they disliked outsiders. In 1516, when Spaniards first stepped foot into Uruguay, the Charrúa Indians killed Spanish explorer Juan Díaz de Solís and most of his party. Later, in the seventeenth century, the Charrúas became somewhat more friendly and set up trade with the Spanish explorers.

By the latter part of the seventeenth century, a settlement called Colonia was established by the Portuguese at the mouth of the Rio de la Plata. The Spanish, who did not approve of this settlement, built a citadel in Montevideo and later fought the Portuguese and won and then exiled José Artigas, an early Uruguayan hero. In 1828, the Uruguayans, inspired by Artigas, rose up against the Spanish and claimed Uruguay as an independent state.

During most of the nineteenth century, Uruguay had to fight either the Argentines or the Brazilians to maintain their independence. The British arrived in Uruguay and established several new industries, including importing British-raised cattle. Internal politics were made unstable by the two warring political parties, the Blancos and the Colorados, who were responsible for a civil war and several dictatorships.

Modern History

At the beginning of the twentieth century, José Batlle y Ordóñez was elected president. It was under his leadership that Uruguay became what is often referred to as the only welfare state in South America. He served two terms, during which he initiated a wide range of social welfare programs and abolished capital punishment.

Unfortunately, due to Uruguay's lack of natural resources and a slump in the demand for wool and meat, the two principal exports, to refurbish its economy, the country slowly became weighted down by the heavy expenses of Batlle y Ordóñez's social programs. By the 1960s, there was mass unemployment and inflation. Added to this was an overgrown government riddled with corruption. These factors led to a loud outcry from the Uruguayan population who was most affected by the decline in the economy—the unemployed workers, the poor, and the student population. It was during this time that the urban guerrilla movement was created.

The official name for the group was the Movimento de Liberacion Nacional but was known by most people as the Tupamaros, named for the last of the Inca royal family, Tupac Amaru. The movement was founded by Raúl Sendic, a student at the university in Montevideo.

At the beginning of the creation of this group, Uruguayan military and police membership was very low. Uruguay had enjoyed several decades of peace, and it was believed that there was little need to reinforce either establishment. The early goal of the Tupamaros was to embarrass the Uruguayan government. They stole from banks and gun shops. As their membership grew, they began to kidnap government officials.

As the economy grew worse, Montevideo often experienced student rioting. By 1968, a national emergency was declared. In 1970, Dan Mitrione, an American policeman who had been sent to Uruguay from the United States reportedly to teach Uruguayan police forces how to control the rising chaos, was kidnapped and later killed when the government refused to release political prisoners.

The Tupamaros, after the government made it illegal for any radio broadcast or any other media to mention their name, began their own underground media and produced much print and broadcast propaganda. As they grew stronger in force, they made the police look inept. After several policemen were killed, the police force went on strike, demanding better pay and more protection. As the economy continued to fail and after a series of corruption scandals, public support for the government began to diminish.

In 1971, a more liberal political party called the Frente Amplio gained support and looked as if they might actually have a chance to win the election. However, when the Tupamaros came out in favor of the Frente Amplio, the Uruguayan population, still stunned by the murder of Mitrione, turned away from the party and elected Juan María Bordaberry, who immediately suspended civil liberties and declared a state of internal war with the Tupamaros. Toward this end, the army was called into action, and mass arrests, torture, and freehanded search operations ensued. By the end of 1972, the Tupamaros ceased to be a threat.

Once in power, the military demanded that all left-wing political activity be suppressed and the legislature dissolved. For the next eleven years, Uruguay was ruled by one of the most repressive dictatorships in South America.

In 1984, Julio María Sanguinette won the presidential election. Under his leadership, Uruguay returned to democratic traditions. The government issued a massive political amnesty, but no other farreaching reforms were made. Luis Alberto Lacalle was elected in 1990 but proved unpopular due to his attempts to restructure the economy. In the following election, Sanguinetti was returned to office.

The year 1999 saw the election of Jorge Batlle, who has promised a return to progressive social programs. He is the first president to call for a search for those people who disappeared during the reign of the Tupamaros. Although the Uruguayan government begins to show signs of a return to democratic rule, there still remain severe restrictions on the Uruguayan press to refrain from publishing any stories that speak out against the government and can be viewed as inciting violence or insulting the nation. Stiff penalties for such crimes range up to a possible three years in jail.

Critical Overview

Bridal realized, upon traveling outside of Uruguay, that the story of her country was little known. Not only did people not know exactly where Uruguay was located, they had little idea of the terrible tragedy that was unfolding there. In writing The Tree of Red Stars, Bridal hoped, as Sybil S. Steinberg noted for Publishers Weekly, to create a "memorial to lost lives."

Bridal's debut novel won her the Milkweed Prize for fiction, and the overall reaction by critics has been one of praise. Steinberg, for instance, appreciated Bridal's storyline, which she described as "an unblinking exploration of the way absolute power can destroy civilized existence." She also referred to Bridal's "understated prose," which she found capable of permitting "large moments to occur without melodrama, and small ones to build into potent revelations."

In a review for Library Journal, Ellen Flexman likened Bridal's first novel to that of Isabel Allende's The House of the Spirits. Allende is a fellow South American author, whose family also suffered during an oppressive political regime in Chile. Flexman recommended Bridal's book for its "simple, straightforward plot," which captured "the terror of modern despotism as well as the hope necessary to overcome it."

In general reference to authors from South America, Friedman, in her article for the New York Times, stated that Bridal brought "a fresh voice to Latin American literature." Bridal relates her story, Friedman contended, "with a chillingly understated sense of inevitability." A critic for the Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, Isabel Schon, called

Bridal's story, a "moving, sometimes witty account" of growing up in Montevideo. Schon continued, "this tender story of love and friendship provides an insightful view into the realities of Latin American politics and life."

Criticism

Joyce Hart

Hart has degrees in English literature and creative writing and focuses her writing on literary themes. In this essay, Hart examines the connections between the protagonist Magda and the character Gabriela. Although the two women appear to live worlds apart, the author has built a very strong relationship between them.

In Tessa Bridal's The Tree of Red Stars, Magda, the protagonist of the story, grows up in the midst of many female characters. Those closest to her include Emilia, a young girl Magda's age, whom the protagonist has known since elementary school. Emilia has a gentle soul that attracts Magda to her. It is through her that Magda learns to see people as creatures with emotions, people who need to be nurtured, whereas Magda had tended to view the people around her as mysterious puzzles or strange machines that she would like to take apart to better understand how they work. Emilia is a caretaker, whereas Magda is a scientist. Magda is also an adventurer, often including Emilia in her escapades, with Emilia usually giving in but reluctantly so.

Another childhood friend who influences Magda's early life is Cora, whose exotic family culture lures both Magda and Emilia to want to get to know her. They are awed by Cora's strong connection with her father, something neither Magda nor Emilia enjoys. They soon learn, however, that because of her father's overprotection, Cora remains somewhat a prisoner in her home, denied the free rein that Magda and Emilia enjoy to casually play in the river or to pull childish pranks. It is from Cora that Magda learns a new form of defiance, as Cora slowly moves away from her father's control, deceiving him in order to establish her own identity. Magda also celebrates Cora's decision to elope with a young lover of her choice rather than to marry a man whom her parents have chosen for her.

These girls share Magda's childhood with her on an almost daily basis. They live in her neighborhood, enjoying the same easy lifestyle of comfort afforded by wealth. That neighborhood is many miles away from the Cerro, the tallest hill in Uruguay, abandoned by all but a few soldiers who are stationed at the museum on the summit and "by the city's poorest residents, who lived on the hillside in houses made from the city's leftovers." It is on this hill that Gabriela lives in a house made of cardboard and newspapers, a drastically different environment from that in which Magda lives. However, despite the disparate economics that influence their lives, there are strong similarities that drive Magda toward Gabriela, that make her want to get to know her.

Gabriela is introduced in the first chapter of the novel and is described first by the color of her hair, the only other "redheaded young woman" in the story besides Magda; and, next, there is mention of the fact that she is "driving a rather fine horse," which stands in stark difference to the normally "tough and dusty" horses that other people from the Cerro drive, thus immediately setting Gabriela in a somewhat elevated position. Gabriela is also said to have physical features that "in a different time and place would have made her a movie star." The fact that, immediately following her introduction, Magda devises a plan in which she and Emilia will hide in the back of the young woman's wagon in order to go back to the Cerro to see where Gabriela lives makes the reader aware that this redheaded eighteen-year-old holds great significance.

Gabriela, although still a teen, brings a child with her when she visits Magda's mother. The child is still a very young baby, and Bridal emphasizes that not only is Magda interested in Gabriela, she is also fascinated with the little baby boy that Gabriela carries. In many ways, Gabriela represents exactly the opposite of Magda's potential. Gabriela is the mistress of a married man. She will give birth to several children over the course of the story. For Gabriela, being the mistress of a man of money and social standing might be the most that she can wish for. Her options in the Uruguayan society, during the time of the novel, are slight.

Magda, on the other hand, will fall in love with a neighborhood boy, with whom she will never have children. Her only other sexual relations will be protected, it is subtly suggested, as the issue of condoms is somewhat obliquely mentioned. Magda also not only has the option of going to college, but it is assumed from childhood that she will eventually attain a degree. Magda's options are multiple, given to her because of her family's connections and high standing in a society that at one time was considered one of the most successful welfare states in the world. It is therefore through a comparison of Magda and Gabriela that Bridal characterizes the political, social, and economic changes that have occurred in Uruguay between the early decades of the twentieth century and those of the 1950s through the 1970s, the setting when most of the drama of this novel takes place. The disparity that exists between Magda and Gabriela is the stimulus of the student riots, the labor strikes, and, ultimately, the revolution, the main focus of the story.

However, there is more than just the obvious dissimilarities between Magda and Gabriela. As already mentioned, they both have red hair, a simple fact that could easily be overlooked except that it is so emphasized. Gabriela's red hair is multiplied by her children, a fact that Magda uses later in the story to help her pinpoint Gabriela's whereabouts. She revisits the Cerro but cannot remember where Gabriela lives. Then she notices the redheaded children. She uses the color of their hair as a beacon. In the beginning of the story, it is Magda's red hair that is referred to as a beacon, one that might catch the eye of the soldiers, whom Gabriela fears. So it is with the color of their hair that Bridal first creates a link. Next, it is with a plate that Magda made in school, while quite young, for her mother. Magda's mother gave it away but told Magda that it had broken and had to be discarded. When Magda visits Gabriela, she finds the plate hanging on the wall. Gabriela is proud of the plate, whereas Magda's mother was ashamed of it. Through the plate, Bridal deepens the connection between Magda and Gabriela. With the color of hair, she establishes a sort of sisterhood between them. With the plate, Gabriela takes on a somewhat maternal role.

Magda and Gabriela also share a love of Marco. Once established in the army, Marco provides health benefits to Gabriela and her children. He also helps her children obtain an education. It is through Gabriela that Marco, in turn, understands on a personal level the elements of poverty. They both share political philosophies and are both involved in the revolution.

Magda's love of Marco is on a different level. She is attracted to him physically and emotionally. She is in awe of his intelligence and his commitment. Although it takes Magda a while to recognize her love of Marco, Gabriela notices it immediately. "The two of you are meant for one another," she tells Magda, upon Magda's admission that she loves him. However, she warns Magda that Marco "has a mission" and that such men "are difficult to love." In this role, Gabriela acts as older sister to Magda. She is mature enough to understand love and to recognize not only Marco's personality but also his passion. It is Gabriela who also predicts (and in that way warns Magda) that Marco will never have children and that "a piece of his lifeline is missing." She also tells Magda that his love is very strong.

Although Magda's visits to Gabriela's house cease as she matures into a woman, Gabriela's presence remains throughout the story. While working for the USIS as a translator, Magda is called to the home of Dan Mitrione. While there, acting in her capacity as spy for the Tupamaros, Magda over-hears Mitrione discussing techniques of torture and his suggestions of using poor people to practice the new methods on. Later, she discovers photographs of people who have been his victims, and it is through these pictures that she learns that Gabriela has been murdered by Mitrione and his men. Prior to this, Magda had somewhat halfheartedly become involved with the Tupamaros. Once she discovers that Gabriela has suffered a horrendous death, her commitment changes. At first she is outraged and extremely passionate, wanting to kill Mitrione with her own hands. Later, she tempers her emotions, but Gabriela sustains the personal image in her mind, the image that makes Magda willing to sacrifice her own life in order to create changes in her government and in her country.

There is one more poignant scene in this novel that includes Gabriela, and it is through this scene that Magda demonstrates her deep love of Gabriela. With the help of Emilia and Gabriela's oldest son, Magda locates Gabriela's body and takes it to Caupolicán, Magda's family ranch in the wilderness. Here she reburies her friend, paying her the highest compliment that is possible, given the circumstances. Caupolicán is a place of great beauty and peace for Magda. It represents the part of Uruguay that she most loves. Magda has committed herself to this land, promising her beloved grandmother that she will care for the land in a way that no one else in her family understands. By burying Gabriela here, Magda relays the message to Gabriela's son that she will also care for his mother, giving her peace in her death that she could not give her while she was living.

For Magda, Gabriela was someone to be admired. She was beautiful and self-determining. She was like a goddess of motherhood, fruitful and giving. She was also mature and understanding, qualities that were not dependent on social status, education, or money. However, Gabriela also represented suffering, both from the daily hardships of poverty and from the extreme inhumane conditions of warfare. It was because of these details of her life that she brought Magda out of her sheltered cocoon of privileged prejudice and taught her about the world of inequality and lack of opportunity. Despite the cultured differences of their childhoods and their consequential roles as adults, in the end they shared very similar perspectives on life.

It was through Gabriela that Magda learned to give without expecting anything in return. It was also through her that Magda comprehended that although money provided certain comforts, it was not the highest goal to reach for. Love and friendship went much further. Had Magda not jumped onto that wagon and ridden with Gabriela to the Cerro, poverty might have remained a distant cliché, something talked about but never fully understood. Through Gabriela, in some ways her exact opposite, Magda found herself.

Source: Joyce Hart, Critical Essay on The Tree of Red Stars, in Novels for Students, The Gale Group, 2003.

David Kelly

Kelly is an instructor of creative writing and literature at several colleges in Illinois. In this essay, Kelly explores the ways in which Magda's gender and social class make her the ideal narrator for the story that she tells.

The triumph of Tessa Bridal's 1997 novel, The Tree of Red Stars, is not that it introduces contemporary American readers to the political upheaval in Uruguay in the 1960s and 1970s. In fact, the political situation surrounding the events of the book is somewhat under-explained, left to function as a frightening shadow and not really examined in much detail. Like much in totalitarian countries, the political dynamic that drives the actions of the characters in this novel is shrouded behind a veil of lies and destroyed evidence. Read as a novel about Uruguayan history, this book can only hope to sensitize readers to the signs of what a government is like when it is in the process of turning against its citizens. However, the book is of even more immediate relevance to readers than that. It presents a universal story of how individuals are drawn into revolutionary causes. The natural process that the novel's protagonist, Magdalena Ortega Grey, undergoes is parallel to a political maturation that readers around the world can relate to in their own lives.

At first glance, Magda might seem to be a weak choice to be the narrator of a novel about social upheaval. She comes from a wealthy family, and her parents and extended family make certain that she is trained in the bourgeois values that fit upper-middle-class Uruguayan society. Because of her elevated social status, it would have been very easy to ruin the novel by portraying Magda's concerns falsely.

In every social movement that entails fighting for the rights of the oppressed, there are purists who have a difficult time accepting outsiders who have benefited from the rules made by the oppressors. The rich, according to them, could never experience the social outrage needed of true revolutionaries. Doubtlessly, many who have suffered from brutal regimes like the one described in this book would dismiss Magda. Bridal gives an example of this thinking in Laura, the girl who gives up her only boots when Magda is fleeing from the police. While mocking Magda's wealth, Laura sarcastically and correctly guesses that the rich girl's parents would never let her come to the area of town where Laura lives. She sees Magda as someone who is dabbling in revolution but is free to flee back to her own sheltered world when things turn bad. Magda, in fact, seems to feel the same way about herself: at the end of the story, when her grandmother tries to convince her that the best way to help free Marco is to go to Europe and publicize the events in Uruguay, Magda feels that leaving the country would be a cowardly act of abandonment.

While a wealthy character in a novel about revolution might be accused of being superficial, there is also the danger that a writer might be tempted to use a wealthy protagonist to overstate the revolutionary cause. A protagonist from the ranks of the oppressed might not allow a writer to bring out the vibrancy of the situation. An impoverished narrator would be familiar with the tactics that are used to keep all of her or his peers from revolting, but such characters would show less dramatic change when taking up the cause. Oppressed people tend to take a world-weary, jaded view toward their own situations, having gradually grown familiar with oppression on a daily basis. For a child raised in privilege, however, the moment of suddenly becoming aware of evil comes as a great shock. It is easy for novelists to shake up their readers by exposing governmental repression to the book's bourgeois protagonist (which, to some extent, actually is the structure of The Tree of Red Stars) who then becomes a zealous convert to political activism.

Wisely, Bridal manages to make Magda a credible observer and participant, showing her commitment to political change to be something that, despite her upbringing, she is in fact able to feel sincerely. Used as she is here, the character of an upper-middle-class girl can be an excellent tool for showing readers what is involved in many levels of a society in turmoil.

For one thing, Magda's social position makes her an outsider from the revolution, which is started by the poor. She is only vaguely aware of its existence as a child, putting together the pieces that explain it to her throughout the course of the novel. As a structural technique, Magda's growing awareness of the problems of Uruguay's poor follow the standard "fish out of water" pattern: just as some stories follow a person from a foreign land, or, more recently, an extraterrestrial, learning about a new culture, so Magda's observations about the revolutionary movement are used to introduce the details of the revolution to the book's readership.

Perhaps the greatest benefit that Magda's position offers to the book's narrative structure is that it gives her access to many different aspects of Uruguayan society. Throughout the course of the novel, Magda becomes familiar with people of her own social class but also with poor people such as Gabriella and with the revolutionaries of the Tupamaros movement. If Bridal had written Magda as a member of a poorer class, her options for social interaction would have been limited. One of the privileges of wealth is that it is used, in most cases, to shut out those of poorer classes. Bridal shows this in the way that Cora is raised in seclusion, locked away from the rest of the world for her own protection because of her family's experiences as Jews in Europe in the forties. Though the protective shield they throw around her is notably extreme, it is a reflection of the way that all Uruguayan families shelter children of their class. The distinction between the middle class's security and the lower class's defenselessness is actually made clear in the book's very first chapter. When Magda and Emilia disappear to the poor section of town, search parties are formed, and the residents of the Cerro rush to return them home before the situation becomes violent, whereas a few pages later, when Gabriela's baby is missing in the middle-class neighborhood, there is nothing she can do but cry. The social position of Magda's family allows her to cross over into the homes and lives of the poor, but a poor person does not have equal access into the homes of the rich.

What Do I Read Next?

• Isabel Allende wrote her famous work The House of the Spirits in 1985. It was her first book and was originally published in Spain. In it, she tells the story of a Chilean family, focusing on three women—a young girl, her mother, and her grandmother—as they struggle to keep their family together during chaotic times. The story is part fiction and part truth, as Allende herself suffered from political oppression while she lived in Chile. Her writing style is highly praised, and she is often referred to as a gifted storyteller.
• Felisberto Hernandez, a Uruguayan, wrote his Piano Stories in 1993. This is a collection of tales written in the style of magic realism. The tone of his writing is quite different from that of Bridal, but for a male perspective and another take on creativity from a fellow Uruguayan, his book offers an interesting read. Hernandez is one of the favorite writers of fellow author Gabriel García Márquez.
• Cane River (2001) by Lalita Tademy is a family saga that traces the lives of four generations of women born into slavery. The stories are a combination of oral family history and the author's imagination as she pieces together the details of her own Louisiana matriarchal family. The story begins at the early days of slavery, continues through the Civil War, and ends during the fight for civil rights. Tademy, who was a successful corporate executive, quit her job to write this story because she became obsessed with researching her roots. The book includes photographs and reprints of actual documents to attest to its authenticity.
• Rosy Shand wrote the novel The Gravity of Sunlight (2001) about life in Uganda, Africa, during Idi Amin's rise to power. Through the telling of the lives of two couples, their successes and failures in love, Shand examines cultural and political conflicts in that country.
• Coming of Age in Mississippi (1997) by Anne Moody relates the true story of a young woman living through the 1960s and the beginnings of the Civil Rights movement in the South. The story relates Moody's difficulties in trying to gain a successful education as well as to help others achieve the right to vote in the oppressive political environment of the Deep South.

If the protagonist of The Tree of Red Stars had been poor, Bridal would not have had the means

for showing readers how the ruling class thinks. She does this in the form of Magda's gossipy aunts, who consider themselves to be the bearers of traditional standards. In addition, Magda has the opportunity to travel to America as an exchange student and observe firsthand what life is like in a consumer society, where the government is left to carry on unquestioned. Her superb education, including special tutors whom only a few Uruguayans would be able to afford, gains Magda entry into a government position that will eventually expose her to the reality of torture as it is viewed by the torturers: as some sort of game. She lives in the area of town known for its embassies, a fact that in itself gives her a global perspective from her earliest childhood. One final aspect of her social position is her grandmother, a strong-willed landowner, who has ties to the country that are deeper than those of temporary political alliances.

These are the reasons why Magda's social class makes her uniquely qualified to tell this story. The ways in which her social class affects the book's plot are, on the other hand, discussed openly within the novel. An early example of this comes when she is escaping the riot that breaks out during Che Guevara's speech. The young revolutionaries who rescue her, while mocking her for being from a rich family, also recognize how helpless she is in the unfamiliar situation of police brutality and protect her. Much later, after she is released from jail, Magda's family has the means to send her out of Montevideo and, eventually, out of the country. She is sent to Europe with an heirloom worth a half million dollars and the skill to earn a living in a strange land. If Magda had come from a poor family, Bridal would have had to take her down different paths.

While examining how this novel's narrator allows Bridal to tell a story that could easily have turned too sensationalistic, angry, or superficial, it is important to note the significance of the narrator's gender. Using a girl to tell the story may not even have been a conscious choice: it is quite likely that Bridal did not write about a girl in Uruguay as a storytelling strategy but simply because that is what she knew best and understood. Still, the book makes much about the roles of women and men in the society that it examines, and viewing mid-century Uruguay through the eyes of a maturing woman allows this book to explore its subject to its fullest.

At the time of this novel, change was sweeping through Uruguayan society, redefining gender relationships. This change in gender politics preceded the political revolution and may have been responsible for it to no measurable degree. Regardless of the historical accuracy of the role of women's liberation in bringing about social revolution, the fact that Bridal made such splendid use of their convergence is a mark of extremely intelligent writing. The first third of the book is not explicitly about revolution: it is dedicated to Magda and Emilia's girlhood adventures, and the role models who shaped their views of who they were and could be.

The Uruguay of Magda's youth is a traditional Latin American society, with a double standard regarding sexuality. Men, such as Francisca's husband in the book, are expected to have both a wife and a mistress, while women, like Magda's older cousin Sofía, have their reputations carefully guarded, so that they will not lose their value as material for marriage. This logical inconsistency is obvious to Magda and Emilia, who joke about it.

As the girls grow, they see the double standard change. One force for social change is the progressivism of other countries, particularly America. Magda's aunts pretend to be shocked at the behavior of Miss Newman, an American woman who wears pants and objects openly and violently to the Uruguayan "tradition" of men shouting sexual suggestions at women in the street. Their pretense at disapproving is betrayed by the fact that they talk so much about her, betraying a fascination with Miss Newman's fiery self-assurance.

Though Miss Newman is only a shadowy, vague, talked-about character, Emilia's mother Lilita is quite real in the novel and a strong influence on both girls' lives: she tells Magda outright that she hates men because she is jealous of their freedom. Sofía, chastised because she has been seen in public with a boy, openly flaunts her sexuality, daring Magda's father to beat her again and again if he wants, vowing that the beatings will not change her behavior.

It is easy to see how these role models from the early part of the book influence Magda's behavior in the later chapters. Without them, and the numerous skirmishes against social expectations that Magda and Emilia go through as girls, there would be little point to the novel relating their childhood exploits. As it is, the daily struggle for women to earn a place in society foreshadows the struggle of the poor that turns into a life-or-death struggle by the book's end.

Novels told in the first person are limited by the experiences of their narrators. In addition to its other virtues, The Tree of Red Stars has a narrator who has access to a variety of social situations and the drive to explore them. Ultimately, the aspects that make Magda a useful narrative tool trip her up, leading her into situations that endanger the lives of those she loves. She is so uniquely adventurous and capable that Emilia and Marco are unable to keep up with her and are trapped in webs that she has escaped. For readers, the world of this novel would not be as fully realized if it were witnessed through the eyes of any other character.

Source: David Kelly, Critical Essay on The Tree of Red Stars, in Novels for Students, The Gale Group, 2003.

Bryan Aubrey

Aubrey holds a Ph.D. in English and has published many articles on twentieth-century literature. In this essay, Aubrey discusses the key images in the novel, examines the political context in which they appear, and offers some thoughts about the relevance of the story to the contemporary political world.

Bridal's The Tree of Red Stars is a novel of almost infinite delicacy that also possesses the force of a sudden, hard punch in the stomach. Its poetic richness includes a few key images—especially the tree and the river—that encapsulate the essence of the novel, while the plot gives much food for thought about the phenomenon of terrorism and the relations between Latin America and the United States.

It is the images that remain indelibly imprinted in the mind long after the reader has finished the novel. The most prominent is that of the old poinsettia tree, which is the "tree of red stars" of the title. This is a reference to the fact that in winter the tree flowers red. Magda thinks it looks like "a hundred small fires holding the cold at bay." This image of the tree that flowers red reverberates at so many levels that it comes to embrace the totality of human life, in pleasure and pain, joy and sorrow, even life and death. It carries the subtlest themes of the novel.

As a young girl, Magda spends many hours sitting in the branches of the poinsettia tree, spending many of those hours with her friend Emilia. The tree is Magda's favorite place, and it is associated in her mind with many of the most important things that have happened in her life, especially the time when she and Emilia "started our journey together into young adulthood." Significantly, these events are often heralded when the tree begins to produce its red flowers. It is in winter, for example, when Magda and Emilia spot from the tree their future friend and Tupamaros comrade, Cora. It is also when the tree flowers red that they first see Ramiro, Cora's future husband, also a future member of the Tupamaros.

What is the significance of the image? The color red is traditionally the color of passion, and it is also the color of blood. The red blossom of the tree therefore symbolizes love and suffering (passion also means suffering, as in the passion of Christ on the cross). This suffering is both mental and physical. Love and suffering are inextricably linked as the two qualities that dominate Magda's life and the lives of the other main characters. It is Magda's love for the beggar Gabriela, and her outrage at the woman's cruel death by torture, that deepens her involvement with the Tupamaros. During Magda's imprisonment, it is her love for the men whom she can hear being tortured in the cell above that sustains both her and the men (as she finds out when she encounters one of them many years later on the riverbank). It is Marco's love for Magda that precipitates his arrest and his premature death, seven long years later, from the injuries inflicted by torture. It is Magda's love for him that motivates her to go into exile to fight for his release. The love of Ramiro and Cora is also presented in romantic terms. Theirs is an ideal, passionate love that endures separation and torture. In every case, love and suffering of the most extreme kind are linked.

The significance of the image of the redflowering tree does not end there. The young girls perceive the flowers as they gaze upwards from their perch in the lower branches. For Magda, it appears as if the red blossoms are stars in the heavens. After one incident in which she overhears a quarrel between her cousin and her mother, she and Emilia take refuge in the poinsettia tree and happen to look up, where they see that "One perfect star had bloomed a bright, piercing red." This evocative image suggests that if love, suffering (passion), and blood are inextricably mixed, as the two maturing girls will shortly discover, those qualities are also exalted, raised up and woven into the very fabric and heart of life. They express a kind of unshakable, eternal, even glorious perfection, for which the appropriate image can only be a bright red star shining in the heavens.

It might also not be superfluous to mention Magda's comment that whatever sex education she ever had came as a consequence of sitting in the tree, since from her perch she was able to eavesdrop on the conversations of her two older female cousins. The quarrel between Magda's mother and Sofía, which immediately precedes Magda's moment of epiphany when she sees the "red stars," is over sexual matters, and Sofía dares to raise the previously forbidden topic of female sexuality and female sexual needs. This suggests yet another layer of meaning for the color red, since the emergence of sexuality is inseparable from the female menstrual cycle, which is itself a marker of the passage from childhood to adulthood. Since one of the novel's themes is Magda's coming-of-age, and she directly associates this with the hours spent in the poinsettia tree, there is clearly an association between the physical emergence into womanhood and the condition of exalted love and suffering that the "red stars" represent.

By making the tree of red stars such a significant symbol in the novel, Bridal also taps into a complex of mythological and religious associations conjured up by the tree image. With its roots in the earth and its branches reaching heavenwards, the tree is an apt symbol for human and cosmic life and has been used as such for millennia in Western and Eastern sacred art. In Christian mythology, the Tree of Life in the Garden of Eden is linked to the tree (the wooden cross) on which Christ was crucified. Bridal's red-flowering poinsettia tree provides a close secular equivalent. (In Christian art, the color red is always associated with Christ's passion.) There is also a legend that on the night Christ was born, trees bore fruit and flowers blossomed. Not for nothing, then, from the point of view of the symbolism of the novel, does the poinsettia tree bloom red in early winter—the time of Christ's birth.

If the tree of red stars symbolizes the nobility of love endured through physical and mental suffering, another recurring image in the novel, that of water, represents cleansing and healing. It is associated with the Río de la Plata, the river in Montevideo that Magda has loved since she was a child. She, Emilia, and Marco would often walk along its banks to lighten their cares: "Something about the river's changeable colors and the music of its movement against sand and rock soothed and comforted." At the end of the novel, as Magda walks with Marco along the riverbank, she comments, "It would take time, but the river would heal me, as I had known it would throughout those lonely years of exile." The image of the healing river is also contained in Magda's unforgettable, if distressing, account of the time during her imprisonment when bodily fluids emanating from the men being tortured drip through the wooden ceiling of her cell. Overcoming her natural revulsion at the odor, she comes to regard the liquids as holy, part of a sacred idealism that she reveres. She mops up the liquid with scraps of toilet paper, imagining the faces of the tortured men and repeating their names. Then she shreds the paper slowly, one scrap at a time, and washes it down the sink: "I imagined those scraps being borne down to the river; water to water returned."

The use of the image of the healing river, like the tree image, touches on a vein of religious practice and symbolism common to East and West. Hindu pilgrims, for example, bathe in the waters of the sacred river Ganges as a purification rite. In Christian scriptures, water is used as an image of healing in the New Testament's Revelation, in which John is shown a vision of the new Jerusalem, the redeemed holy city. He sees "the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb through the middle of the street of the city" (Rev. 22: 1–2). Bridal's Río de la Plata is a secular version of this holy, healing river.

These two powerful images, of the tree and water, cannot be fully appreciated, however, apart from the political context in which they occur. Although it might be tempting to feel that political events in Uruguay in the 1960s and 1970s have little relevance for today, closer examination suggests otherwise. While the United States is currently engaged in a global war on terrorism, it is sobering to note that The Tree of Red Stars might also be called "The Making of a Terrorist." It might also be noted that perhaps never before have terrorists been presented in such a sympathetic light. Magda, Marco, Ramiro, and Cora are all deeply appealing figures. They are idealistic, concerned for justice, and remain true to their cause despite torture and death. Yet terrorists they certainly are. Magda is instrumental in the kidnapping of Dan Mitrione, the man she believes to be a FBI agent responsible for training people in the use of torture. Mitrione is then murdered by the Tupamaros.

Mitrione is not a fictional character. He was head of the U.S.-funded Office of Public Safety in Montevideo from 1969 to 1970 and was in charge of a program that trained Uruguayan police officers in counterterrorism methods. These practices included methods of torture, which was widely practiced by the Uruguayan government. In this respect, although it would be comforting to report that Bridal's description of the death by torture of the beggar woman Gabriela is a fictional flourish to enhance the drama of the story, unfortunately this is not so. The Uruguayan government really did test their methods of torture on beggars snatched from the outskirts of Montevideo. It is one of Bridal's most moving achievements that in the character of Gabriela she gives a face to those poor forgotten wretches who were treated like vermin to be experimented on and then disposed of when they had served their purpose.

The military government of Uruguay that crushed the Tupamaros in 1972 was supported by the United States. With the Cold War against the communist Soviet Union at its height, the United States opposed revolutionary socialist movements such as the Tupamaros because it did not want to see left-wing governments established in South America. Unfortunately, the Uruguayan government during the 1970s happened to be one of the most brutal regimes in the world. It had the highest per capita rate of political prisoners in the world (about sixty thousand people, or 2 percent of the population), and torture was practiced as a routine measure. In addition to being brutally tortured, Tupamaros leaders were kept in solitary confinement for more than a decade.

Supporters of American policy might argue (as they do in different circumstances today) that in a war on terrorism, one cannot be too fussy about who one's friends are. Critics, on the other hand, might say (again, as they do today), that in a war on terrorism, it is all the more important to uphold the principles one claims to be defending, and therefore one must be extremely careful about the regimes one supports. In terms of the novel, resentment of what is perceived as American interference in Uruguayan affairs is a prominent theme among the characters who support the Tupamaros, such as Marco and Emilia's mother, Lilita. It is expressed even before the revolutionary movement gathers momentum. Marco, for example, believes that American financial control of many Uruguayan institutions amounts to exploitation masquerading as help. Once again, as with the question of what is an appropriate response to terrorism, this is not a dead issue. Perceptions similar to Marco's about the nature of American involvement overseas are common today in many countries in Latin America, Africa, and Asia. Many Americans may regard such suspicions as unjust, insisting that America's purpose in the world is to defend democracy and promote economic growth. In the novel, this point of view is given a voice in the character of Magda's mother, who does not share Marco's anti-Americanism. She believes that the United States genuinely wishes to help Uruguay.

Seen in this light, The Tree of Red Stars not only delves deeply into the spiritual dimensions of suffering and love in a context of political oppression, it also raises issues that remain important for anyone seeking to understand today's complex political world.

Source: Bryan Aubrey, Critical Essay on The Tree of Red Stars, in Novels for Students, The Gale Group, 2003.

Sources

Flexman, Ellen, Review of The Tree of Red Stars, in Library Journal, Vol. 122, No. 10, June 1, 1997, p. 144.

Friedman, Paula, Review of The Tree of Red Stars, in New York Times, November 16, 1997, p. 63.

Schon, Isabel, Review of The Tree of Red Stars, in Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, Vol. 41, No. 6, March 1998, pp. 501–502.

Steinberg, Sybil S., Review of The Tree of Red Stars, in Publishers Weekly, Vol. 244, No. 21, May 26, 1997, p. 65.

Further Reading

Anderson, John Lee, Che Guevara: A Revolutionary Life, Grove Press, 1998.

A dashing and dramatic figure, Che Guevara was the son of an aristocratic Argentine family, whose sympathies for the poor and the oppressed turned him into a socialist revolutionary, a friend of Fidel Castro, and a leader of guerilla movements throughout Latin America and Africa. Anderson, a journalist, spent several years gathering research for this book, including gaining access to some of Guevara's personal diaries.

Evans, Malcolm D., and Rod Morgan, Preventing Torture: A Study of the European Convention for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, Clarendon Press, 1999.

This documentary details the work of the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman and Degrading Treatment or Punishment (the CPT), established in 1989, which represents a new phase in international human rights intervention. The authors, an international lawyer and a criminologist, bring their different analytical perspectives to bear on this innovative human rights mechanism.

Feitlowitz, Marguerite, A Lexicon of Terror: Argentina and the Legacies of Torture, Oxford University Press, 1999.

Feitlowitz spent several years interviewing victims as well as those responsible for what has been called the "dirty war" that took place in Argentina between the years of 1976 and 1983, during which an estimated thirty thousand people were tortured and killed. The political history of Argentina during this time period is similar in some ways to that of Uruguay.

Kimball, Roger, The Long March: How the Cultural Revolution of the 1960s Changed America, Encounter Books, 2001.

From a conservative point of view, Kimball analyzes the cultural revolution of the 1960s, critiques the major players, such as the Beats, Susan Sontag, Norman Mailer, I. F. Stone, Miles Davis, and liberals in general, and shows how the ideas of this period took hold in the United States and changed the lives of its citizens.

Mandela, Nelson, Long Walk to Freedom: The Autobiography of Nelson Mandela, Little Brown & Company, 1995.

Most of this book was written during the twenty-seven years that Nelson Mandela was held as a political prisoner on Robben Island in South Africa. The story of his life demonstrates the strength of his spirit, which remained unbroken despite his imprisonment, his broken marriages, and lack of family life.