Gaucho stereotype

There was a gaucho axiology characterized by the following values: courage; loyalty and hospitality, therefore in Argentina, Uruguay and southern Chile the phrase “make a gaucho” totally opposed “to make a gouache” – a gesture means of nobility or a good attitude. For part of the aristocracy and the urban bourgeoisie of the nineteenth century, the gaucho was a “dangerous wild” and the word gaucho was almost an insult.  An example of the idiosyncrasies of the gaucho s XIX is reflected by Jose Hernandez (who grew up with gauchos).

Writer and rancher Ricardo Guiraldes felt emotionally compelled to give his tribute to the gauchos (in the beginning of XX s reduced to the job category of “pawns”, i.e. of rural laborers). Despite this location in the “social ladder” Guiraldes is compelled to acknowledge, with great nostalgia, the values of the gaucho. These values are put into the character of a gaucho, which symptomatically is called “Don Segundo Sombra,” and who feels he owes them his initiation as a man.

Don Segundo Sombra is his mentor, and gives you ideas of a special honor and respect for others, teaches you to deal with nature, even (and this is key) is the one who protects you from your fears and phobias bourgeois. This is one of the reasons why Guiraldes, whilst very young, stated after they fired Don Segundo, “I saw him go over the horizon (…) and I went as one who is bleeding.”
The legendary Gaucho
Argentinean culture strongly emphasizes the mythical image of the gaucho pampas. His role in the history of the country and the gaucho literature has helped to build that image. Analyzing the works, notably Martin Fierro by Jose Hernandez, tries to understand what the characteristics of the Argentine gaucho are and the character that he is associated with. We are also interested in their links with the myth of the American cowboy or vaquero.
Gaucho in literature

Bartolome Hidalgo is considered the “first poet gaucho”, his patriotic Dialogues (1822) initiated the gaucho literature, Estanislao del Campo in El Fausto Criollo (1866), Hilario Ascasubi in his work about Santos Vega (1870), Antonio Lussich and Jose Hernandez, Martin Fierro (1872), presents a gaucho idealized, noble-minded, respected by the peasants for their physical and moral strength. Sarmiento, a gaucho’s son, has a love-hate relationship towards the gaucho.

Some might think that this distinction between the gaucho ‘good’ and ‘bad’ within the myth is also very important because it enables us to understand the paradox of this myth. Sarmiento stressed the existence of the nomadic gaucho in its ability to survive in the Pampas, whose mysterious beauty fascinated him, but identifies the particular inhabitant of the Pampas as being uncivilized, as opposed to progress compared with the refined people “who wear European clothes, living in civilized life … are the laws, ideas of progress, the means by … etc.”
The image of the “bad gaucho” is also in the Juan Moreira (1880), a novel by Eduardo Gutierrez. This text recounts the life of an existing character and is typical of the traditional Pampean landscape of Juan Moreira. She says the games brave this “Robin Hood” Argentine, whose nobility in contrast to a trail of horrific crimes and deaths is insidious.  Violence has a reason to excuse the gaucho. In the work of Gutierrez, the gaucho, a victim of society, turned bad for the injustice to which they are subjected, it is for this reason they rebel against the law.

His cunning and recklessness are the basis of the myth Creole (initiated by Martin Fierro). Their social inferiority and his bad reputation forced him to isolate the gaucho, becoming violent and antisocial. Gaucho will call this expression as “gaucho Matrero.”
Ricardo Guiraldes in Don Segundo Sombra (1926), returns to transform the area into poetry.   To idealise the gaucho with lyrical hints of virtue and heroism in a relationship of harmony with nature, nurtured the concept that created the stereotype of the evoked gaucho in Argentine folklore.
If we wanted to tell the story of the bad gaucho, we should start with the Santos Vega where the gaucho is evil and guilty, and continue where Martin Fierro is forced by the unjust into killing and fighting “the game”, but is incorporated finally into the system.  In contrast to Moreira, the gaucho Matrero becomes a super hero fighter who, mortally wounded by the police, finally dies.  Yet there does not end the line of the rebel hero of the myth.  We found, almost at the present time, the bandit-hero Mate Stitching, pursued by the police, is loved and protected by the villagers because it robs the poor thus is a way of avenging the oppressed.

We must consider, however, Juan Moreira and Mate Stitching were real people and not just literary characters, as is the case of Martin Fierro. As for Santos Vega, the literary character seems to be based on someone who actually existed, but almost nothing is known.  Throughout the twentieth century there has been a decline of gaucho literature (although still alive, especially in payadas and the lyrics of folk songs).