Book:Malintzin\’s Choices by Camilla TownsendISBN-10:0-8263-3405-9Camilla Townsend’s book continues a recent trend of historical revisionism on the woman known as Doña Marina/Malintzin/la Malinche and her role in the conquest of Mexico. Rejecting the persistent stereotypes that have portrayed her as traitor to her people or powerless victim, Townsend attempts to understand Malintzin’s decisions in the context of her own world, not to view her as a symbol of treachery, but to view her as a real historical figure, one facing the challenges and realities that confronted all indigenous women of her time. As Townsend herself admits, however, this is a real challenge because direct historical evidence about Malinche herself simply does not exist (which is why so many people in every era have been able to project on her interpretations which, on closer inspection, buttress political agendas of the day.) How, then, does Townsend approach her topic? What is her methodology? She claims that by a very close examination of the existing ethnographic evidence about Nahuas and Spaniards she is able to produce another kind of book, one “that provides full details on every aspect of Malinche’s context and places her actions in the proper setting, allowing readers to see what kind of thoughts she might [my italics] have entertained in such a situation, as well as the extent to which her decisions mattered.” (Townsend 5)Keeping in mind the challenges Townsend faced in writing this work, I would like you to chose 3 or 4 of Malintzin’s “choices” from the book, examine the context in which they were made, and evaluate how convincing, or not, Townsend’s argument is in this particular case. Pay extra close attention to her sources! Read the end notes as this is where you will see “Townsend the historian” at work. As Townsend herself notes, this kind of book “is a dangerous one to write: if not executed carefully and with restraint, it could itself become part of the problem, projecting motivations and feelings onto the woman that she in fact never harbored. This is a classic problem in works treating the past of nonliterate or disempowered peoples who did not leave a paper trail for posterity.”(Townsend 5) Does Townsend’s book live up to her own standards?
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