Setting

Menchú's story begins with the story of her parents, her orphaned father and her abandoned mother, who both matured under the same impoverished conditions as Menchú herself. In her narration, Menchú takes the reader from the dreadful conditions of the finca to the difficult but fulfilling communal life.

Point of View

The book is written in first person, from the point of view of Menchú, who has learned to speak Spanish through immersion. She is in her early twenties when she dictates her story to ethnographer Burgos-Debray, and she describes not only her life story, but the stories of her father and mother, other villages, and the evolution of the CUC (The United Peasants Committee).

Symbolism

There are two salient symbols which Menchú weaves through her narrative: maize and talk. Maize (corn) is the center of the Indian economy; they eat, sell...