Tuesday Siesta by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Objectives: Mood, Characterization & Inferences
Pre-reading: What does dignity look like? What are examples of dignified characters that you know?
How might the setting of a siesta effect the mood of this story?
Instructions: read each description and underline examples of imagery. In the Analysis box write two complete sentences
using at least two different words from the word bank below that capture the mood of the setting.
Setting
Mood Analysis
(958) “The train emerged from the quivering tunnel of sandy rocks,
began to cross the symmetrical, interminable banana plantations,
and they couldn’t feel the sea breeze any more. A stifling blast of
smoke came in the car window. On the narrow road parallel to the
railway there were oxcarts loaded with green bunches of bananas.
Beyond the road in uncultivated spaces set at odd intervals there
were offices with electric fans, red brick buildings, and residences
with chairs and little white tables… it was eleven in the morning,
and the heat had not yet begun.”
(959) “There was no one at the station. On the other side of the
street, on the sidewalk shaded by the almond trees, only the pool
hall was open. The town was floating in the heat. The woman and
the girl got off the train and cross the abandoned station—the tile
split apart by the grass growing up between and over the shady side
of the street.”
(960) “They entered a room permeated with an old smell of flowers.
The woman of the house let them to a wooden bench and signaled
them to sit down…no noise could be heard above the electric fan.”
(961) “Rebecca, a lonely widow who lived in a house full of odds
and ends, heard above the sound of the drizzling rain someone
trying to force the front door from outside. She got up, rummaged
around in her closet for an ancient revolver that no one had fired
since the days of Colonel Aureliano Buendia, and went into the
living room without turning on the lights ...”
Word Bank
Light-hearted
Enlightened
Warm
Peaceful
Trustful
Idyllic
Dignified
Tense
Insidious
Cold
Nightmarish
Foreboding
Desolate
Barren
Playful
Optimistic
Hopeful
Welcoming
Awkward
Sympathetic
Empowered
Gloomy
Pessimistic
Hopeless
Hostile
Painful
Merciless
Heartbroken
Tender
Liberating
Nostalgic
Harmonious
Confident
Joyous
Inclusive
Violent
Confining
Haunting
Suspenseful
Threatening
Terrifying
Lonely
Inference about Characters
Type of
Characterization
(958) “…The woman seemed too old to be her mother, because of the blue veins on her eyelids
and her small, soft, and shapeless body, in a dress cut like a cassock. She was riding with her
spinal column braced firmly against the back of the seat…she bore the conscientious serenity of
someone accustomed to poverty.”
Inference:
(959) “If you feel like doing anything, do it now,” said the woman. “Later, don’t take a drink
anywhere even if you’re dying of thirst. Above all, no crying.”
Inference:
(961) “’Carlos Centeno,’ said the woman…’He’s the thief who was killed here last week…I am
his mother’”
What can we tell about the woman by her answer to the priest? Why might she want to
visit during the siesta and not after?
(961) “The man they found dead in front of the house in the morning, his nose blown to bits,
wore a flannel shirt with colored stripes, everyday pants with a rope for a belt and was
barefoot.”
Inference:
(962) “I told him never to steal anything that anyone needed to eat, and he minded me. On the
other hand, before, when he used to box, he used to spend three days in bed, exhausted from
being punched…Every mouthful I ate those days tasted of the beatings my son got on Saturday
nights.”
Inference:
(962) “’Thank you,’ replied the woman. ‘We’re all right this way.’ She took the girl by the hand
and went into the street.”
Inference:
Closing thoughts: Describe the author’s attitude toward the
mother in the story. Do you think the author’s attitude
extends to poor people in general? What would you say is the
theme or central message of the story?
Draw what you think happens next!
Direct
Or
Indirect
Direct
Or
Indirect
Direct
Or
Indirect
Direct
Or
Indirect
Direct
Or
Indirect
Direct
Or
Indirect