39 pages • 1 hour read
Héctor TobarThe Tattooed Soldier
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1998A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 4-5Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Part 1: “Antonio and the Sergeant”
Chapter 4 Summary: "The Source of the Infection"
We encounter Longoria playing chess in the park. His opponent is García, a Cuban who is far superior at the game. The players who gather here represent a range of nationalities, and they speak English; Longoria enjoys the chance to improve his English. Despite the chess books in Longoria’s apartment, he still cannot beat players like García. During the game, García plays offense even though he controls the defensive side, which is black. This angers Longoria, but García admonishes him for playing so conservatively.
At home, studying his chess books, Longoria fumes at the unruly behavior of the children in the building’s halls and apartments. He imagines that he was much more disciplined as a child. He recalls how he was a mere child when the army took him. He remembers boot camp, where he was beaten and deprived of sleep. The training camp’s higher officers once disappeared for an extended period, then suddenly reappeared, led by a drunk officer. The officer made the recruits slow dance together to humiliate them.
Longoria also recalls how the army transformed him from Guillermo to Longoria. The army forced him to do bad things, forcing him to love the army in the process. This love was a precondition of survival. The army also taught him that what they were fighting in Guatemala was like cancer or a virus. Everyone contaminated with it had to be killed, including the children. The army blamed this necessity on the parents who spread their disease to the children that the army must kill. To hear the voices of the families he killed is something that Longoria views as a sacrifice made in the service of his country.
On another date with Reginalda, Longoria comes across a demonstration in support of the leftist movements in Guatemala and El Salvador. Longoria is incensed to encounter this in America, as these were precisely the people he fought in Guatemala. He pushes his way through the crowd to the stage, where a woman is speaking. He is tempted to commit violence but knows it is out of the question.
Chapter 5 Summary: "Probability"
Returning from a food bank, Antonio and José Juan run into an old acquaintance of José Juan’s from Mexico named Ramiro. To Antonio’s astonishment, José Juan tells Ramiro that he is working in a machine shop and owns a Chevy.
Antonio remembers how he came to America expecting to see only blond, blue-eyed natives, but he is surrounded by people from throughout Central America and Mexico. The encounter with Ramiro also makes Antonio realize how pathetic he looks. He cannot shower or wear genuinely clean clothes. Unlike the Mexicans who live in their encampment, Antonio is unwilling to bathe in the brackish river.
The next day Antonio is aware that he does not know the date. This is evidence of his distance from normal life. Exploring a nearby park, they discover a highly frequented area with a playground and chess tables. Focusing on the chess tables, Antonio sees a man who is clearly a soldier. The man’s shaved head and muscular frame indicate this. When this man raises his arm, Antonio sees a yellow animal tattoo.
The focus then shifts to Longoria, who is finally on the offensive against García in a chess game. Unfortunately, he makes a foolish move, and his opponent quickly regains the advantage to win.
Antonio, meanwhile, has recognized the man who killed his wife and child. He is amazed to see him in Los Angeles. Seeing the soldier brings back a flood of memories. Concerned that the soldier will see him, Antonio backs away from the area.
Chapters 4-5 Analysis
These chapters provide reasons to feel sympathy for Longoria. In fact, the novel describes his tragic backstory before revealing what he has done to others, which frames all his actions within the tragic context of his childhood, which was cut short by his kidnapping at the hands of the army.
The ridicule heaped on Longoria by García and the other chess players is prompted by his conservative and uninspired chess play. Learning more about him, especially his bold and violent doings as soldier, leaves readers wondering how to reconcile his chaotic and vicious past with his present timidity. However, a closer look reveals that even as a soldier, Longoria was in some ways taking the path of least resistance. He was following orders, even though these orders often meant behaving decisively and taking initiative.
Antonio and José Juan’s encounter with Ramiro demonstrates the shame that homeless or poor immigrants feel in a country where Latino immigrants experience widely different fates. Immigrants are often tasked with supporting families in their home countries, and falling into poverty in the prosperous United States feels like the ultimate failure. José Juan’s lie about the job and the Chevy is an attempt to save face and avoid such judgment.
Antonio’s discovery of the soldier at the park confirms that Longoria is responsible for the deaths of Elena and Carlitos. Consequently, the novel is not about the mystery of their deaths but about how Antonio will respond to encountering the man who killed his family. While such a coincidence is extremely improbable, it demonstrates how men like Longoria and Antonio come to the United States to escape from the past only to wind up forced to confront it anew.
The entangled fates of the United States and Latin nations is a theme that appears in these chapters, although it does not emerge completely developed or resolved. Tobar is not so much interested in the question of US involvement in Latin America as he is in the parallels of violence and inequality in the different nations. Some could argue that this is less engaging of an investigation on Tobar’s part, but it is effective in the context of his narrative, which is a story about the lives of two men in the Guatemalan diaspora.
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