Blog Number 3

I would first like to start out by saying that as sad and gruesome as “The Slaughter House” was, I really liked this reading. I like reading short stories because they have a plot to follow and this story was different from everything else that we have been reading in this class. I hope we read more short stories, maybe even one with a happy ending. Anyways, with that being said, some of the things in this story just did not seem to add up to me. I’m still not sure how the Unitarian died at the end. When I first read the story, I thought he was beaten to death by the federalists, but going back, they never touched him. They had him tied down to the table and were undressing him and then, “a torrent of blood spouted, bubbling from the young man’s mouth and nose, and flowed freely down the table”. I don’t understand what exactly happened to him. Also, after analyzing the message of this story, it reminded me of something in chapter one of Sarmiento’s reading. On page 52, Sarmiento says, “all that is civilized in the city is blockaded, banished outside of it, and anyone who would dare show up in a frock coat, for example, and mounted on an English saddle, would draw upon himself the peasants’ jeers and their brutal aggression”. I wonder if he could be talking about the aggressiveness of the Federalists towards the Unitarians. The Unitarian came by the slaughterhouse riding a horse with an English saddle and dressed well. The Federalists were depicted as unruly savages just as Sarmiento depicts the people of the countryside. The Federalists taunted the Unitarian and were brutal and aggressive towards him. I think there may be a connection between the two.