In The Old Gringo by Carlos Fuentes, the main characters, the old gringo and Harriet, are obsessed with destiny and death. They both have different theories about how they should die and when. None of them seem to be able to just let go and let fate decide when they should die. They feel entitled to being in control of their own mortality and making their own fate. They are afraid of living, using death as an escape.
They believe life's hardships are too painful for them to bear. By crossing over to Mexico, the old gringo is running away from his fear of dying the natural way. He wants to die "with honor" (17). He doesn't want to just commit suicide, because he saw how painful it was to his son, but he is on a reckless mission to die at the hands of others (144). Harriet wants to die "free of humiliation, resentment, guilt, or suspicion" and being in control of her own mind (44). They both expect to be able to make a choice they won't be able to make.
Mexico is used as a final destination, a place representing their dying wishes. We are told several times, "The old gringo came to Mexico to die," seeking euthanasia, and he wanted Pancho Villa to kill him (4). The old gringo goes to Mexico to die fighting for the revolution, knowing the locals hate the gringos, sealing his fate for dying through murder. The old gringo wants to die in the grand way of going out, fighting because "it's not difficult to be brave when you're not afraid to die" (56). He knows his recklessness will cost him his life.
They believe death will bring them mercy from their peril, loneliness, and boredom. The old gringo wants to die, "because everything he loved had died before him" (37). He feels lonely without his relatives, feeling left out, forced to carry the burden of living, when the others have been released from their pain. He says, "Only death can compensate for so much vindictive bile," making death seem like his savior from a painful life (74). The old gringo feels death brought him freedom the moment he "crossing the border," liberating him from his age and life scars (161). The U.S. represents everything bad in the world to him and Harriet. Once he goes to Mexico, he knows his goal of death will be met.
Death represents a good rest for the tired living. To the old gringo, death comes when he cannot fathom living anymore. As he rides through Mexico, "The desert told him that death is nothing more than the exhaustion of the laws of nature: life is the rule of the game, not its exception," making it seem like living and dying are the same (16). When Arroyo wants to kill old gringo, and Harriet intervenes, Arroyo thinks the old gringo "will hate" him if he grants him the chance to live any longer (136). To the old gringo, "dying is simply the last pain," and he would rather feel the pain of dying than the pains of living (176).
Neither of them can face growing older. The old gringo wants to be a "good-looking corpse," free from the signs of wasting away to nothing (199). The old gringo and Harriet avoid looking in the mirrors, because "mirrors were beginning to tell a story that didn't please [Harriet]," leading us to wonder if she is ashamed of her age (57). The old gringo believes early death lets you "escape corruption," leaving them to die as innocents instead of elderly (81). Harriet want to live through her "dreams," because when she dreams, she is "ageless" (111).
While the old gringo succeeds in his escape plan, we don't know if he is better off in the afterlife. We do know Harriet is still miserable, being alive and growing older. Harriet doesn't get her wish and we see what the effects of surviving have done to her. She cannot control her destiny and faces the toughest battle, because she has to remain in a cycle of these events, stuck in remembrance (199). She might as well be dead, because she is going through the motions of life, instead of living.
Works Cited
Fuentes, Carlos. The Old Gringo. New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 1985. Print.
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