The Life and Adventures of Joaquin Murieta

Rosita is Joaquín’s faithful and devoted lover and the main vehicle through whom the novel develops the theme of The Redemptive Power of a Woman’s Love. Her love for Joaquín is her defining feature and counters the corrupt and brutalizing influence of California’s racist society. Her comparison, after her brother’s death, to a weeping angel dispensing purifying tears similarly evokes idealized 19th-century femininity.

Like all of the women in the novel, Rosita therefore emerges as more of a caricature than a fully rounded character; even her rape is little more than an occasion for Joaquín to grow disillusioned with American society and for Rosita herself to (temporarily) calm him. That said, like all of the other banditti’s sweethearts, she successfully and convincingly disguises herself as a man and rides along with the male outlaws, displaying a level of physical courage not associated with women at the time. It is likewise notable that the novel does not portray Rosita’s unmarried state as detracting from her moral purity, given how prized female chastity was in the 19th century.

The similarity between Rosita’s name and that of Rosalie, who is briefly kidnapped by Reiss but is subsequently happily married to her sweetheart, encourages readers to compare the two couples. The white Rosalie is able to live out her romantic dream in peace, while the Sonoran Rosita ends her days alone and bereft.

Three-Fingered Jack is Joaquín’s sadistic right-hand man and functions as a foil to Ridge’s eponymous hero. While Joaquín retains clear (albeit not always coherent) moral principles, Jack delights in violence for its own sake. Although Joaquín is disgusted by many of Jack’s actions, he readily acknowledges that Jack is an indispensable component of his organization.

When he describes Three-Fingered Jack’s death, the author remarks that, despite his wanton cruelty, Jack was “as brave a man as this world ever produced” (133). This characterization encapsulates the novel’s broader ambivalence toward Joaquín’s methods, the brutality of which it mostly displaces onto Jack. Despite overtly condemning lawlessness and violence, the novel is full of graphic depictions of murder—possibly because of the popularity of this kind of sensationalism with dime novel readers.

Harry Love is the lawman who finally brings Joaquín’s criminal career to a bloody end. He too serves as a foil to Joaquín. He shares many of Joaquín’s qualities, including courage, fine horsemanship, and an extensive and profound knowledge of the California countryside. Also like Joaquín, Love is obliged to accept moral compromises in the pursuit of his goals. The narrator writes that the decision to dismember the corpses of Jack and Joaquín goes against Love’s nature but that he feels he has no other choice. The parallels between the two men invite the reader to consider why they turned out so differently and the extent to which racial prejudice can be blamed for this. 

Margarita acts as a foil to the other stereotypically virtuous women in the novel. While Carmelita and Rosita react to bereavement by retreating from society to pine for their lovers, Margarita remarries at once. When her new husband is abusive, she murders him in his sleep and marries a third, younger man.

If from one point of view, Margarita is simply a misogynistic stereotype—a seductress—from another she represents female rebellion against the violent, patriarchal world in which she finds herself. Whereas her saintly counterparts passively fade away when their lovers die, Margarita seizes hold of her own destiny and survives.