If understood literally, the short-story “Goodbye Mother” by Reinaldo Arenas is really difficult to percept. The behavior of characters seems to be outrageously inappropriate and beyond any laws of human morale and common sense. Fortunately, the allusion to the Cuban Revolution and the author’s attitude to it become obvious from the first paragraphs.
The Cuban Revolution started in 1959 as a struggle of the opposition headed by Fidel Castro against the regime of Francisco Batista. The people of Cuba widely supported this movement and now it is claimed that the Revolution still means a lot for the older Cubans. At first, Reinaldo Arenas was among supporters of it himself. However, later he claimed himself to be a strongly against it. In the mid-1970 he spent a couple of years in prison, when Castro’s regime had already started. In 1980s, after he came to the USA as a refugee, Reinaldo Arenas became an initiator of an anti-Castro campaign. Even earlier he claimed being a homosexual, which, beyond any doubt, was not a lifestyle that Castro’s government wanted their people to lead.
It can be said from this point of view that “Goodbye Mother” a rather autobiographical work. Anyway, the author reveals all the horrors that the Revolution create in people’s minds very vividly.
He starts with people themselves. Every sister of the Main character has her own name, but they do not differ very much. They are Onelia, Ofelia, Odilia and Otilia . This may represent the people of Cuba blindly supporting the Revolution. They have a little individuality, but in general they are a crowd.
The hideous picture of the Mother rotting body does not seem disgusting to the sisters. Moreover, they do not feel the smell of decay. They continue denying that something wrong is going on until the very end of each of them. A reader may think that the sister cannot accept their lossless and keep pretending that their mother is alive. On the other hand, taking into consideration the metaphorical sense of the short-story, more likely is that they prefer a new way of the Mother's existence, just like the Cuban preferred the Revolution, no matter how much distraction and how many deaths it would bring. The sisters say that the Mother is “more beautiful than ever.” Further Odilia adds: “Doesn’t she look lovely!” The main character cannot but agree. But the common sense does not allow him to say ‘yes’, therefore he, like an echo, repeats a part of the phrase. This reply reflects the response of the majority to the Cuban Revolution, to any revolution as a matter of fact. People are led by somebody else’s opinion. They feel that their actions and actions of the ones who lead them may have consequences. The consequences can hardly be good, more likely they will be terrible, or even disastrous. However, people keep echoing slogans and battle-cries, being not able to step away from things they have once believed in or, maybe, fearing to become traitors. The nonsense contained in …