The Mangy Parrot Name of Student
Name of University
Date
Mange is a disease in animals that causes their feather or fur to shed, leaving an awful sight where most will find it disgusting while others may find sympathy – knowing that it is curable. This disease attacks aesthetics and beautiful animals like parrots, dogs, and cats, can really look like they are carriers of a despicable sickness that people will do their best to avoid them. And, Jose Joaquin Fernandez De Lizardi has sound reasons why he placed mangy in the title of his piece; it is about the lack of moral upbringing in the young that makes them behave so terribly in adult life that they are comparable to animals with mange. Thus, this work is the story of Periquillo Sarniento, allegedly written by him and addressed to his children so they may not repeat his ugly circumstance. To be a good person is not something that can just be wished, a sound personality starts with value formation in childhood with the mother playing a vital role. Fernandez De Lizardi was an activist in Mexico before, during, and after his nation’s independence from Spain. Mangy Parrot is said to be one with the intent of nation building so to suggest the right attitude while, at the same time, it attacks the inequities of the Spanish system that is being imposed in Mexico; the author was actually jailed, again, by Spanish authorities as a consequence of writing Mangy Parrot (Leonard, 2010, n.pag.). In the novel, Periquillo Sarniento, tells his own story with the intent of educating his children so they may not repeat his misdeeds. Periquillo is one with a sad story as he continually blunders through life with so many errors committed due to lack of sound reasoning. And, all these blunders are attributed to bad parenting; which for those with acute social awareness, can be attributed to the really bad examples that the dominating Spanish exhibited. Unlike other people who never realize that they are in depraved circumstance, Periquillo is lucky to be able to see the root causes of his recurring predicament – he had been poorly grown as a child. Periquillo had acquired despicable attitudes that makes him comparable to an animal with mange and is a terrible sight to see and much more awful to get near with. He ascribes this to poor parenting, especially from his mother who even left him as a child to the care of others. Scornfully, he addresses such mothers with a nagging question: “Do you have any inkling of a mother’s great dignity?” (Fernandez De Lizardi, 2004, p. 14). After growing out of infancy, his parents then provided him with the wrong way of child rearing; “…they set about raising me to be pampered, delicate, and lacking all direction or moderation” (2004, p. 15). For his own personality – and all the troubles that would happen – Periquillo has his mother to blame. He was so spoiled as a child; according to him: “If some maidservant bothered me, my mother would have her punished in order to satisfy me; and this did nothing but teach me to be proud and vengeful” (Fernandez De Lizardi, 2004, p. 15). These wrong notions that he acquired in childhood will be carried
