Rosaura A Las Diez

David Réguel’s testimony serves as a direct juxtaposition to Mrs. Milagros, both in terms of voice and content. Réguel has an entirely different set of values and concerns than Mrs. Milagros, and this difference is reflected in the way he talks about Camilo and Rosa. The most glaring difference is his unabashed hatred of Camilo, but beneath this hatred lies a complex set of motivations and ideologies. Espada-Brignoni writes that “As a law student, David Réguel represents, almost as much as the police, the field of power and its relationship to knowledge” (Espada-Brignoni 116), tying his academic background directly to the references he makes and the attitudes he takes towards others. He asserts himself as an intellectual authority who is more qualified to understand the case than others because of his background, thereby justifying his biases and inferences as though they were objective.

This authority is exerted time and time again through the use of obscure references in his testimony. These references are often multilayered and dense, rendering them difficult to interpret for even the most culturally well-versed reader. In one essential example, he says to the inspector “I am […] the seeing Coryphaeus in the midst of heroes blinded by destiny. In other words, the Tathagata… What? The Tathagata? Tathagata is one of the other names of Buddha Siddhartha” (105). Likening himself to the chorus of a classical Greek play and to the Buddha in one breath, Réguel obscures his own meaning behind showy metaphors, so much so that the inspector asks him to clarify. Behind the smoke and mirrors, his statement is nothing more than a self-aggrandizing boast with little basis other. By forcing the inspector--and by extension the reader--to ask for more simple language, Réguel achieves a sense of intellectual superiority in his testimony. This extends to how he interacts with all of the other characters.

Réguel’s weaponization of self-superiority is most often aimed at women. He is derisive of Mrs. Milagros and her daughters, calling them, “decent, but ignorant, people; people who haven’t read, who haven’t gotten below the surface of things, who've never ventured beyond the little plot of ground they were born on” (107) despite the fact that one of the daughters is college educated. He even belittles Rosa, a woman he supposedly holds in high intellectual regard, suggesting that she only fell in love with Camilo because of her limited exposure to the outside world. His disgust for Camilo is also an extension of this sexism since he takes constant aim at the painter’s more effeminate affect: “Camilo hated Rosa,” he asserts, “because, by appealing to his manhood, she obliged him to discover that he wasn’t a man, since he couldn’t return her feelings” (120). The way that Réguel treats every character, therefore, is predicated on his misogynistic worldview; he holds everyone to strict ideals of masculinity and femininity and belittles anyone who either transgresses those ideals or comes up short in his estimation.

The combination of elitism and misogyny that characterizes David Réguel’s version of events renders him an unreliable narrator. He frequently makes crucial assumptions that are derived from these biases and are, as a result, inaccurate. For example, based on his own self-image as Rosa’s chivalrous savior, he infers that Camilo is endangering her and must therefore be guilty of her murder. While it is later revealed that Camilo did indeed briefly attack Rosa, Camilo is not guilty of the murder, but Réguel levels the accusation with absolute confidence. Even though his perspective and values contrast heavily with Mrs. Milagros’s, this assumption indicates that the two characters share an overconfidence in their worldviews that leads them astray, epitomizing The Faulty Nature of Presuppositions.