88 pages • 2 hours read
Che GuevaraThe Motorcycle Diaries
Nonfiction | Autobiography / Memoir | Adult | Published in 1992A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.
Key Figures
Ernesto "Che" Guevara de la Serna
Guevara was born in Rosario, Santa Fe Province, Argentina in 1928 and died by execution in La Higuera, Vallegrande, Bolivia in 1967. Guevara is best known as a key figure in the Cuban Revolution, a diplomat, and a guerilla strategist.
At the beginning of The Motorcycle Diaries, which chronicles the journey that radicalized him, Guevara is a restless 23-year-old medical student who dreams of something more romantic and fulfilling than medical studies, exams, and hospitals. He has a girlfriend, Chichina, whom he is reluctant to leave behind, but when she leaves him, instead, he realizes that his feelings for her were less significant than he thought.
Offhand talk and daydreaming lead to a real decision: along with his friend, Alberto Granado, Guevara undertakes a transformative motorcycle journey to North America. Their journey begins as a lighthearted and freewheeling one, characterized by good meals and happy times with new and old friends. Guevara, who suffers from asthma and is prone to a poetic, sometimes rather exalted and often very witty writing style, emerges as the more peaceful of the two friends and frequently keeps Granado from starting fights, though Guevara, too, occasionally starts some mischief by attempting to steal wine or seduce someone else's wife.
As Guevara sees more of the poverty and oppression of Latin America and gains more exposure to a variety of people, including repressed communists, passionate advocates for Indigenous peoples, and people suffering from leprosy in remote colonies, he becomes increasingly focused on the need for political and social change and, by the end of his journey, he is fully committed to taking part in revolution.
Alberto Granado
Granado is a 29-year-old biochemist, Guevara's friend, and the owner of La Poderosa II. His loving care and maintenance of the old motorcycle, as well as his profession, suggests that he is detail-oriented and conscientious; his attachment to the motorcycle is clearly more sentimental than practical, for it breaks down constantly and requires a good deal of upkeep. Granado cries when it finally stops working forever.
At the beginning of The Motorcycle Diaries, Granado has never seen the ocean before and reacts with awe and perhaps a touch of trepidation once he does. At this point in the book, he is preoccupied with money problems and looks forward to working in Venezuela. Most of the time, Granado appears as a kind of second self to Guevara: Guevara typically writes in the first-person plural, and his remarks in the book's penultimate chapter suggest that he and Granado were generally in harmony and of a single mind. On several occasions later in the book, however, Granado sets himself apart. His hot temper–which tends to be piqued by injustice and insults–nearly gets the friends into several fights. He is also the instigator of at least one performance of the "anniversary routine," which suggests that he is not merely a willing accomplice to Guevara's schemes (such as the wine-stealing escapade), but rather a schemer in his own right. At the end of the book he takes up the job he was promised in Venezuela.
La Poderosa II
Granada's Norton 500 motorcycle, whose name means "The Mighty One." La Poderosa is old and unreliable, breaking frequently and prone to crashes. However, both Guevara and Granado view her with affection, and she inspires strangers they meet on the road to pity.
Chichina (Maria del Carmen "Chichina" Ferreyra)
Guevara's girlfriend, who at the beginning of the journey is vacationing in Miramar with her wealthy family. We see very little of her, and learn about her primarily through Guevara's memories and reflections. She has green eyes, and Granado seems to regard her with some cynicism, suggesting that she is reluctant to give Guevara her gold bracelet because it is valuable. She writes Guevara a letter, ending their relationship, and later Guevara speculates that she may already be with a new suitor. It is impossible to get an unbiased view of Chichina from the narrative, which casts her as inconstant, perhaps a bit flighty, and not terribly serious about the relationship.
Comeback
Comeback is a tough little dog whom Guevara gives to Chichina as a gift. Guevara describes him as a symbol of his relationship with Chichina. Comeback is a survivor, since he falls from the motorcycle twice, suffers from constant diarrhea, gets trampled by a horse, survives a head-on collision, and eats horse meat that is too sweet for Guevara and Granado (33).
