Leticia Neria PhD thesis - Research@StAndrews:FullText ...

One last example from Los Agachados appears on the front page of issue 71. ‘El
Mesías’, a hermit and preacher who gives speeches on all kind of subjects, says
‘¡Parásitos!’ while the Licenciado Trastupijes scolds him by telling him: ‘Óigame! ¿Qué
se trae usted con los diputados?’ 77 Without more context, Trastupijes connects parasites
to diputados, meaning that the diputados live at other people’s expense, weakening
them without killing them. His unreasonable and exaggerated reaction surprises the
reader, since nobody claimed that the diputados were parasites, and it is Trastupijes
himself who is ascribing this adjective to them. But this is in fact a confusion, a
common element for comedy, and El Mesías is using ‘parásitos’ as a noun, referring to
the microorganisms that live in our stomachs, and not as an adjective since the whole
issue is about stomach parasites, their danger and their prevention. But we draw
pleasure from this mistake. We enjoy the fact that someone has referred to the diputados
in the way we might think of them, even if we do not express our views directly. We
live in a community of social rules. Society as a whole, and those in power repress our
desire to insult figures of authority.
The subject is repeated in Hermelinda Linda. Hermelinda prepares a magical
concoction in front of the man who requested it. While doing so, she recites the
ingredients that she is using, and one of them is ‘las cenizas de un pañuelo de diputado
activo’. When she says this, her client replies: ‘¡Eso es casi imposible!’ 78 This situation
contains incongruity, not only because they are preparing a magical potion, but also
because of the ingredient itself, which seems unreasonable. To state that it is almost
impossible to find an active diputado is an exaggeration as well. The whole situation
allows the reader to express what he/she might think since, as discussed previously,
77 Los Agachados, 71, front page.
78 Hermelinda Linda, 366, p. 7.
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