In Grapes of Wrath we saw tractors destroy homes and fields and gerry-rigged trucks as delivery to a promised land. Now in The Beast we have trains that can both quickly transport migrants but also can kill and maim as well as trap them to be robbed or kidnapped.
What is the Beast telling us about technology and machines? Good, bad or a little of both?
In The Beast, machinery is both the migrants' salvation and the greatest threat to their lives, showing that machinery can be good or evil, depending on how it is used. In The Beast, the train transports everyone: Migrants and cops, warriors and children, mothers and murderers, prostitutes and families. All of them take the train in hopes of a better life, though how they achieve that using the train is up to them. Some use it for evil. The gang Los Zetas uses it for narco, arms, and human trafficking. They kill for money, entirely disregarding human lives in favor of their agendas. One migrant remembers the death of one of his traveling partners, caught in a gang war on the train, “I saw her just as she was going down, with her eyes open so wide.” She is caught under the train wheels, and he watches as her head rolls away. “It never stops being horrifying,” he says (59). That death, though technically by train, was caused by human violence. The train can do good too. It’s brought thousands of migrants through otherwise perilous territories and delivered them to where they want to go. It gives many good coyotes and guides their livelihoods. El Chilango, a coyote, explains it's not the job that’s the most treacherous, it’s the gangs that take advantage of it. “The good coyote no longer has that option–to be a good coyote. He has to pay his dues to Los Zetas” (132). It’s not the train that is evil and promises death; it’s the violence of humans. Machinery is not inherently good or evil, but it has the capability to be both, depending on who uses it.
ReplyDeleteIn The Beast, the author suggests that machines are neither inherently good nor bad; what matters is the purpose behind their use and how people's relationships around them are shaped. In the book, the only hope the migrants have of finding a better life is in the cargo trains that travel from Central America to Mexico. Ideally, these trains should be hailed by the migrants, as they are technically the only way for them to escape the horrible conditions they live in. However, people call the train The Beast, which itself can even kill people “ignorant of the rules of The Beast.” People even give the train beastlike characteristics, such as jaws and teeth, even naming it “the devil's invention”. However, during the course of the novel, the reader realizes that many of the perilous moments are caused by people around the train taking advantage of the desperate migrants, and use the machine to gain profit (coyotes), loot and rob people (gangsters), and blackmail people (conductors and corrupt patrolmen). People getting hurt because of the train itself is just because they don't actually belong on a cargo train. If migrants did not achieve a better life in migration because of the train, then the message would be that it is truly a Beast, but since it is such a mixed symbol, the reader understands that it's just a cargo machine. If people around the train set up rest centers, humanitarian groups, and rest stops, the migrants would call the train something way less intimidating than The Beast, but since people around the train use it for harmful purposes, a negative image is created. Therefore, machines in the book are portrayed as what people around them intend for their purpose to be; its always about the people.
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