The Death of Artemio Cruz

Catalina Bernal Cruz is Cruz’s wife of over 40 years. At age 20, she marries Cruz on her father’s orders. When Cruz first meets Catalina, she has “long, cool chestnut hair” and “amber eyes […] like those of her father, but franker” (34). Cruz compares the memory of Catalina when he first met her to the “young, faded woman of today” (133).

From the beginning of the marriage, though she submits to Cruz sexually, Catalina never shows affection for him. By the end of the novel, she is an embittered stand-in for a wife. She shows outward signs of affection, such as holding Cruz’s hand on his deathbed, but Cruz calls these gestures “useless affection” (22). She even aids in collecting a doctor-ordered urine sample during an especially vulnerable moment. Nevertheless, her marriage to Cruz is representative of the sorts of arranged, loveless marriages that were common among the Mexican aristocracy.

Catalina never narrates in the first person; however, the third-person narration shifts its perspective to hers for the year 1924, soon after the death of her father (and after the she and Cruz have been married for five years). Fuentes gives Catalina a certain degree of depth as the narrator shows her grieving the death of her brother and father. Catalina determines that she can only avenge her brother’s death by “denying [Cruz] the tenderness he would seek in her” (47). Though she is a multidimensional character, she is static, as her behavior and attitude toward her husband do not change.

Regina is a young girl from the north of Mexico whom Cruz meets when he is only 24 years old, in 1913. When Cruz first meets Regina, Cruz finds “infinitive love in [her] young body” (58). Regina is hanged by the federales who storm her village while Cruz is away. Cruz finds her body hanging alongside several others in a ravine after he returns from a skirmish. Cruz’s love for Regina seems young and pure, though it began as rape. It contrasts with Cruz’s marriage to Catalina, whom Cruz pursues for her social position and promise of material assets. Though Regina and Cruz reminisce together about how they met at the waterfront and fell in love instantly, Cruz admits during a bout of grief after Regina’s passing that he forced himself on her, but she surrendered to him willingly, and submitted to him so thoroughly that she made up the fiction about their first encounter herself.

Regina and Cruz only live together for seven months, during which time they share a small home in the village where his battalion is stationed. They do not know how long Cruz will be stationed there, and Regina quickly learns that she must not ask about when or how long his absences will be. Regina is a static character who does not change during the novel. She is part of Cruz’s life for a short time, but her memory endures throughout Cruz’s life, emphasizing that the intensity of an experience does not always correspond to the length of time during which it takes place.

Lorenzo is Cruz’s second child and only son. Lorenzo is only alluded to up until Chapter 6 when Cruz remembers him in sufficient detail that the reader understands that Lorenzo is the figure whom Cruz recurrently pictures on horseback while crossing a river. Lorenzo is a foil for his father. Though Cruz chose him to govern the Cruz estate at Cocuya, Lorenzo feels morally compelled to fight in the Spanish Civil War, where he dies in 1939 (the year of the war’s conclusion) fighting for the losing Republican cause. Lorenzo represents the idealism that Cruz had when he was young, but Lorenzo’s tragic end does not imply Cruz would have been better off if he did not betray Carranza. On the contrary, Lorenzo’s death shows the senselessness of war as a destroyer of youth and idealism. The narrative questions whether there is justice in life, as Cruz betrays his idealism, becomes corrupt, and lives to an old age, whereas Lorenzo and many like him died young.

The only son of Gamaliel Bernal, Gonzalo appears via reference in Chapter 2 when Cruz visits the late soldier’s family. Chapter 7 details Cruz’s meeting with Gonzalo in prison and the actions that follow from their acquaintanceship.

A foil for Cruz, Gonzalo does not surrender to bargain for his freedom. He longs for the early days of the revolution when the cause was stronger. He states: “[I]t was only a short time ago, but it seems so far away […] when the leaders didn’t matter […]. When we weren’t doing this to raise up one man, but to raise up all men” (185). Gonzalo prefers to die for a cause he perceives as just rather than submit to a single individual for personal gain. Another point of comparison is that Gonzalo was the son of a nobleman while Cruz was raised as a peasant. Gonzalo’s (and Lorenzo’s) idealism is not based on his firsthand knowledge of poverty like it is for most of the people fighting in the revolution. Nevertheless, Gonzalo’s disillusionment influences Cruz’s decision to betray his cause.

The father of Gonzalo and Catalina, Gamaliel is a wealthy landowner, but one whose cash resources have run thin since the beginning of the revolution. Cruz sees in Gamaliel’s marriageable daughter, Catalina, an opportunity to inherit the land required to build a fortune, which he does through the duplicitous treatment of the peasants. Gamaliel does not believe Cruz’s story about being friends with Gonzalo, but he accepts Cruz as a husband for Catalina. Gamaliel, who also muses on his aging and obsolescence, is a foil for Cruz later in life.