Che's Challenges

Reading Che Guevara's translated autobiography has been an interesting experience so far.  It is quite evident that the author has some strong political thoughts and wishes for the reader to subscribe to his ideologies.  Che attempts to appear as though he is offering a fair and balanced point of view by self-critiquing, but when he reprises his ideology he uses phrases like "Were we too uncompromising...?".  He also recriminates supervisors and glorifies laborers.  On the oceanic leg of Che's journey he compares the "drunk captain" with "the sailors, who were the best".  Che obviously detests the "absurd idea of caste" and sympathizes with the plight of the honest, healthy, hardworking, average South American.

Che wrote this book to stir his fellow South Americans to action, or at least political consciousness.  The book is peppered with colloquialisms and Latin-American cultural idiosyncrasies that necessitate footnotes to clarify Che's metaphors or parables to outsiders.  Furthermore, the book was written solely in Spanish and only distributed to Latin Americans.  Che attempts to enlist the reader's emotions for his own cause by describing the plight of average Latin American workers, laborers and poor.  The author assumes the reader will empathize with Che's examples of the downtrodden worker because the reader is a downtrodden worker or lives in close proximity with one.  Che's message would not be nearly as powerful if he did not include these cultural familiarities with which the intended reader likely identified with.

Che is an expert in argumentation.  He subtly utilizes Ethos by offering a firsthand account of the corruption and classism of South America.  He offers a Bathos-ic appeal by describing how peaceful things were before governmental and societal exploitation of the common worker and illustrates a glorious future in which egalitarianism in all its glory is restored.  He uses Pathos by describing desperate situations that the reader might find himself or someone close to him in.  Peers are easier to empathize with than any other social group, and Che knows this.  Che obviously resents capitalism, governmental and societal corruption and despotism, and desperately wishes to overthrow the current system and install a more equal society.  Through effective argumentation and a compelling message, Che attempts to spur the common man into action and political revolution.