INTRODUCTION

Che Guevara was a prominent communist figure in the Cuban

Revolution (1956–59) who went on to become a guerrilla leader in
South America. Executed by the Bolivian army in 1967, he has
since been regarded as a martyred hero by generations of leftists
worldwide. Guevara’s image remains a prevalent icon of leftist
radicalism and anti-imperialism. Revolutionary leader. Born
Ernesto Guevara de la Serna on June 14, 1928, in Rosario,
Argentina. After completing his medical studies at the University
of Buenos Aires, Guevara became political active first in his
native Argentina and then in neighboring Bolivia and Guatemala.
Che Guevara has been the subject of a number of films, including
“The Motorcycle Diaries,” which was based in part on Che's own
account of his 1952 journey across South America, an experience
that shaped his leftist beliefs.

CONTENT
Guevara’s early life and his own writings, collected in The
Motorcycle Diaries, offer a unique perspective on what led this
would-be doctor from relatively affluent Argentina to become one
of the 20th century’s most important political figures.Thus, before
he became "The Marxist revolutionary icon known as "El Che,"
Ernesto Guevara de la Serna was an Argentine medical student
tired of school longing for an escape and itching to see the world.
The trip may have begun as a lark, filled with audacious pranks.
But, as the film shows, the two men encounter increasing poverty
and injustice on their trek across the continent. Historians and
biographers now agree that the experience had a profound
impact on Guevara, who would later become one of the most
famous guerilla leaders ever.

The Motorcycle Diaries, " New York Time best seller for several
years " is a journey in both senses of the word. It is an arduous,
event-filled travelogue from Argentina across South America and
ultimately to Miami. Here a planned day-trip to close the
adventure stretched out to a month’s stay for the 24-year-old with
but a single dollar in his pocket, thanks to a mechanical fault on
the plane he flew in on.
It is also the mental journey of a young man learning about
poverty, politics and philosophy on his way to becoming a
Marxist revolutionary.It is thus a revolutionary memoir that
traces the early travels of Marxist revolutionary Ernesto "Che"
Guevara, then a 23-year-old medical student, and his friend
Alberto Granado, a 29-year-old biochemist. Leaving Buenos
Aires, Argentina, in January 1952 on the back of a sputtering
single cylinder 1939 Norton 500cc dubbed La Poderosa ("The
Mighty One"), they desired to explore the South America they
only knew from books.[1] During the formative odyssey Guevara
is transformed by witnessing the social injustices of exploited
mine workers, persecuted communists, ostracized lepers, and the
tattered descendants of a once-great Inca civilization. By journey's
end, they had travelled for a symbolic nine months by
motorcycle, steamship, raft, horse, bus, and hitchhiking, covering
more than 8,000 kilometres (5,000 mi) across places such as the
Andes, Atacama Desert, and the Amazon River Basin. The diary
ends with a declaration by Guevara, born into an upper-middle-
class family, displaying his willingness to fight and die for the
cause of the poor, and his dream of seeing a united Latin
America.
The book has been described as a classic coming-of-age story: a
voyage of adventure and self-discovery that is both political and
personal. Thus before he became the Marxist revolutionary icon
known as "El Che," Ernesto Guevara de la Serna he was an
Argentine medical student tired of school longing for an escape
and itching to see the world.The trip may have begun as a lark,
filled with audacious pranks. But, as the film shows, the two men
encounter increasing poverty and injustice on their trek across the
continent. Historians and biographers now agree that the
experience had a profound impact on Guevara, who would later
become one of the most famous guerilla leaders ever.
Carlos M. Vilas, a history professor at the Universidad Nacional
de Lanús in Buenos Aires, Argentina cited "His political and
social awakening has very much to do with this face-to-face
contact with poverty, exploitation, illness, and suffering."
Guevara's political consciousness began to stir as he and Granada
moved into mining country. They visited Chuquicamata copper
mine, the world's largest open-pit mine and the primary source of
Chile's wealth. It was run by U.S. mining monopolies and viewed
by many as a symbol of foreign domination.
A meeting with a homeless communist couple in search of mining
work made a particularly strong impression on Guevara. In Peru,
Guevara was impressed by the old Inca civilization. Riding in
trucks with Indians and animals, he felt a fraternity with the
indigenous people.

In Lima, the capital, the two men went to see Hugo Pesce, a
leading leprosy researcher and a Marxist. Guevara engaged Pesce
in political discussions. A decade later Guevara acknowledged
the doctor's formative influence on him when he sent him a copy
of his first book, Guerilla Warfare.
From Lima, Guevara and Granada traveled into the Amazon rain
forest. They stayed for three weeks at San Pablo, a leper colony
deep in the jungle, where the pair gave consultations and treated
patients.
Guevara swam once from the side of the Amazon where the
doctors stayed to the other side of the river where the leper
patients lived, a distance of two and a half miles (four kilometers).
On his 24th birthday, with the doctors and nurses as his audience,
Guevara gave his first political speech, advocating a unified Latin
America.

CONCLUSION

The Motorcycle Diaries (Salles 2004) is a good example of the

former, since it creates a new mythology of Che Guevara, re-
energizingthe myth in the process. After all, those who tell the
story of Guevara tend to emphasize his role as guerrilla leader
and as a communist, and Salles's film is probably the first
cinematic project to devote itself entirely to the period of
Guevara's life prior to the guerrilla. Savio (1972) had indeed given
much attention to Guevara's formative years in the first part of his
documentary, but his leadership in Cuba and in Bolivia is also
discussed in the other two parts of the film. In contrast, The
Motorcycle Diaries moves away from the guerrilla years
altogether
and from the typical mythical representations of Guevara.
Interestingly, although Drexler, Salles and Bernal insist on
the humanity of Ernesto in The Motorcycle Diaries (Salles 2004),
Guevara's story in the film becomes associated with a new dose of
idealism, of a common man who became a hero. It thus
focuses on Guevara's first journey through Latin America,
Ernesto's internal journey from an Argentine middle class
medical student to an engaged leader, and Bernal's embodiment
of young Ernesto Guevara, results in a new mythology of a
common man turned hero that also re-energizes the myth by
giving it a young body and by bringing him closer to the twenty-
first-century audience. The film manages to ground the characters
in the past while making Ernesto's internal journey, precipitated
by the oppression he encounters along the way, very
contemporary.

Submitted by:
Reema Bajaj
BA ENGLISH (HONS)
16/827