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Youngjay Choi

Professor Smyrl

ESL 117A.2550

December 7, 2023

The Intersection of Social Rebellion and Personal Choice

In our lives, we are faced with several choices and we have to choose one. No one

knows the choice will bring some results. It could have a huge impact in that it will change

our lives and could related to the future. Mostly, we know which is the right way and have to

choose it, but sometimes we feel that we want to go in a different way. Those people are the

Rebel of their archetypes. Carl Jung's 12 archetypes were developed based on the concept of

the collective unconscious. Jung identified these archetypes as universal, archaic patterns, and

images that derive from the collective unconscious and are the psychic counterpart of instinct.

The Rebel is a person who challenges and drives for revolution and change. That person

desires to overturn what is not working, has a rebellious attitude against established systems

and norms, and often embodies revolutionary ideas and creative, disruptive energy. In The

Madonnas of Echo Park by Brando Skyhorse, to emphasize the change of personality

Skyhorse fits Freddy into Carl Jung’s archetype of the Rebel. I argue that elements such as

life experience, environment, and social community have a big relationship with why the

character Freddy became rebellious, and with his personal choices.

Freddy’s time in prison is related to his identity as a Rebel and affects his outlook on

life and behavior. His rebellious nature in criminal activities led him to prison. Freddy spent

most of his youth in prison for nineteen years, “I spent nineteen of those forty-two years

locked up-juvie, youth camps, youth authority, Solano, Tracy, Soledad, Tehachapi,

Chino-including my last stint up at Lancaster for aggravated battery” (104). When he was

young he was rebellious and got into a bad way. This means he thought rules were made to be
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broken at that time. He went to prison as a thief and hustler, and there was a big event, "I saw

the owner of the Mercedes walking over, his one-hundred-dollar bill stuffed in my hand. I

ducked back down to pick up the wallet, and in my panic, my big, heavy foot punched the

accelerator. The Mercedes plowed into Javier, slamming his head into the support bar of the

windshield, sped onto a side street with a forty-five-degree-angle incline, then flipped

through the air at a center divider, ramming into an island of streetlights" (112). Through this

part, we can know he broke the social rule and acted rebelliously. However, spending a long

time in prison made it possible to think about his situation and turn around his life. Also, it

was enough time to be changed. His incarceration led to an experience of loss, which in turn

made him value the life outside prison walls more and appreciate his life, which is shown in

“Beautiful, ain't it? I wrote Cristina that in a letter. Cons make the best letter writers because

inside every man is a poet” (?). Even though he is the Rebel, he has some possibility to

change. This story shows effectively a reflection between Freddy’s prison experience and

personal change.

One of the reasons that Freddy became rebellious was the social environment and

crime around him. Freddy has some discontent in his town, Echo Park. Once, he explained

about Echo Park and how bad is that place, “Fuck, more than that if you live in Echo Park.

Easy as sin to break into a conversation, too. Walk down the street with a twelve-pack, chat

someone up, give ‘em a few beers, smoke some weed, and boom, you got the score” (?). A

lot of crimes occur often and public order is bad in Echo Park. While young people are

growing, they cannot easily avoid contact with crimes. The social and economic environment

is very important for growing children, but they will get some bad effects in Echo Park. It

was also the same with Freddy. When he was young he stole money for the first time, “One

night, a guy forgot that he put a couple of loose dollars on the counter. I palmed the bills and

told him they’d blown onto the ground. I tried it again and again, that night, improving my
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technique. More like inventing my technique” (109). I do not think this idea cannot be easily

come out of the child’s head. This kind of crime would be common during that period in

Echo Park. Freddy would watch many similar things and learn from them. Such as this case,

the characteristics, and the personality can be affected by the environment.

The behavior of the Rebel can be a result of some situations in the social community.

One day he captured the Night Stalker that was famous in Echo Park, “I grew up over in

Boyle Heights, where we caught the Night Stalker on East Hubbard Street, near Whittier

Boulevard” (104). After capturing the Night Stalker, Freddy notes how the

Mexican-American community celebrated, hoping for improvement in their neighborhood.

However, he expresses disappointment, “But nothing happened. I sure never saw any reward

money from catching that fucking Mexican and wasn't it just like a Mexican to be caught, on

foot, running. Fucking maricón” (?), that nothing changed and no reward money was

received. This reflects his hopes and subsequent disillusionment with the development of

Echo Park. Without expectations and hopes, he could not disappoint on it. The Echo Park

community created an atmosphere suggesting that those who helped capture the Night Stalker

did so without expecting any reward. The Rebel does not always behave rebelliously for

everything. When they are faced with some situation that they think is wrong, they desire

revolutions.

Sometimes, personal choices in life and the community bring some change in

personality or society. When people encounter a very big obstacle, they just give up, and the

Rebel has no difference. Upon his release, Freddy returns to Echo Park to find Cristina but

discovers her death and is rejected in his attempts to resume criminal activities, Freddy faces

violence from newcomers. By these events, he felt defeated. Then he just wanted to rest and

leave Echo Park and go anywhere alone. The Rebel has a goal to overturn what is not

working, but the Rebel struggles a lot, they want to stop doing everything. The author shows
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how Rebel behaves in this case through Freddy’s act after being defeated, "The nearest

shelter is Downtown, about a mile or two away. I'm not sure what direction I want to go in,

though" (123). Another element that changed Freddy’s mind was gentrification in Echo Park.

His criminal actions not only affect his own life but also to the larger societal changes. He

was surprised by the change in Echo Park when he came back after he released, “‘What

happened to the guy you was married to? What was his name?’ ‘I told you a lot of things

changed’” (?). In those two cases, the first Freddy that his personality was like the Rebel, and

lost his will, and the second his choices indirectly enabled the neighborhood transformation,

showing the relationship between personal choice, personality, and society very effectively.

Through Freddy’s character, the author shows the concept of change of personality.

His journey illustrates the complex relationship between personal choice and social rebellion.

His experience in limited years spent in prison expressed his identity as a Rebel. By Freddy,

Skyhorse effectively reflects how external circumstances and internal conflicts can result in a

personality change, impacting both individuals and their communities. The main point of

Freddy's story that we have to focus on is the enduring struggle between individual desires

and societal constraints.

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Works Cited

Skyhorse, Brando. The Madonnas of Echo Park. New York, Free Press, February 2011.

Jung, Carl. “Archetypal Criticism” 12 Common Archetypes, Pp. 4-5