her. All the while, there is a funeral procession occurring while the midwife is expressing her concerns to the schoolteacher. She refers to La Maestra as “my child”. Sargento: This character is the police sergeant. He acts as though he is superior to the other characters. He is the character to whom La Maestra speaks with the most during the play. After the funeral procession, the sergeant confers with Peregrino Pasambú, the schoolteacher's father, who makes is appearance on his knees. While the sergeant looks down on Peregrino Pasambú, he refers to him as “the big chief here”, because La Maestra's father is the current mayor of the town. Because the sergeant is standing and Peregrino Pasambú is on his knees, the sergeant has power over the mayor. Peregrino Pasambú never replies to the sergeant's statements or questions; he doesn't have any lines in the play; the schoolteacher replies for him. The sergeant asks if the schoolteacher's father got his land because of politics, to which the school teacher recounts that this was not the case; her father got their land because he was one of the founders of the town. The sergeant says that he is going to overrun the town and redistribute the land because “this land ain’t divided right.” He represents the authoritative power that the military held during this time in Colombian history. To this, the schoolteacher says that when her father assumed power as mayor, “the town was a jungle.” The sergeant complains to her father that the jobs weren't distributed properly either, and proceeds to ask him if his daughter is the schoolteacher. La Maestra responds to him by saying that she was indeed the schoolteacher and she taught the child catechism and the country's history. The sergeant grows angry at the schoolteacher and says that he was given orders to reassess and reorganize the town. He shoots Peregrino Pasambú and he and other soldiers subsequently rape La Maestra. El Viejo or Peregrino Pasambú: This is La Maestras’ father. He is spoken to by the police sergeant, but doesn't reply. Anything spoken to Peregrino Pasambú from the police sergeant is replied to by La Maestra. He helped assemble the town and land where La Maestra has lived her entire life. He is shot by the police sergeant. Themes The play deals with the ideas of life and death and how they are intertwined. A