Malintzin's Choices and the Historical Narrative

According to Wikipedia, “Historical Narrative” is a methodology which presents history in a story-based format and is usually subdivided into two genres: “traditional narrative” and “modern narrative”.  Traditional narrative focuses on individuals, events, and the intentions of the individuals while modern narrative centers more on general trends and structures as well as on the why and causation.  With this in mind, I would say that Townsend was successful because clearly and engagingly wrote a narrative centered around the indigenous woman, Malintzin, during the time of Cortes’ conquest of Mexico and she offers insight into Malintzin’s possible motives or intentions concerning many of her decisions (such as her willingness to be a translator for the Spaniards and to assist them during their first contacts with the indigenous peoples).

When I learned the nature of the historical narrative methodology, and when I previewed the book and discovered that Townsend was presenting an indigenous woman’s perspective of the conquest of Mexico, I was prepared to absolutely love this book.  I was certainly engaged in the story-line and intrigued by Townsend’s interpretations of Malintin’s motives, but I didn’t love the book.  Maybe my expectations were unreasonable; I was expecting the book to read much more like a novel. And interestingly, I preferred the parts of the book which didn’t read like a novel.  Much of Townsend’s work reminded me of last week’s microhistory and of Kierner’s writing style – which has been my favorite so far this semester.  I think what bothered me was that Townsend would vacillate between presenting an account of the events in Malintzin’s life, the decisions she made, and Townsend’s own interpretation of Malintzin’s motives and then at times she would add an attempt to portray Malintzin like a character in a historical fiction novel.  I found the switch between the two styles jarring and the inclusion of Malintzin as a character felt forced and almost farcical at times.  For example, on page 140 Townsend describes Malintzin giving birth to her first child in this way:

        Malintzin fought the battle, and won.  The child came diving down from

        the cave within her, headfirst into the light, like a god emerging from

        one of the caverns in the ancient stories.  It was a boy, the youngest

        and most special child in the world at that moment. “You have arrived

        on the earth, my youngest one, my beloved boy, my beloved youth.”

I feel like Townsend is working too hard to be literary and it comes off, at least to me, as being very cheesy and for me, it detracted from the rest of the book (which I thought was very good and made many insightful and important points).

And speaking of important points which Townsend makes, I think she does an admirable job at presenting an alternative view of Malintzin as neither victim nor traitor.  I think Townsend successfully argues that Malintzin was able to exert her own agency in many situations and she was able to make decisions and choices which either preserved or increased her own status; additionally, she was able at times to use her influence to mitigate the situation of the indigenous people.  Therefore, even though she was a captive of the Spaniards, she was still able to change and improve her position to the point that she had significant fame and power. 

For example, I’m thinking of Townsend’s argument that Malintzin may have requested marriage to Cortes’ officer Jaramillo in order to give herself the more secure position of wife which had legal rights and social standing; this shows Malintzin’s power to advocate for herself and improve her social and legal standing, not her acting as a passive victim who has been cast off on a junior officer.  Additionally, Townsend believes that Malintzin, as a translator and liminal figure, was able to span a bridge between the two worlds of the Spanish and the Indigenous people, and when possible, Malintzin used her abilities and position to help the indigenous people by limiting the loss of life and facilitating the expression of their desires to the Spanish (p. 170).  Many times Townsend mentions that Malintzin’s situation was not a simple black or white, victim or traitor, but it was in reality very complex and tangled; I think Townsend does a valiant job at presenting many possible alternative interpretations to Malintzin’s motives and actions.