Mortality primarily features in this story as an antagonist. Though the disaster itself is relentless in demonstrating the impermanence of human life, burying “more than twenty thousand human beings” in its earliest moments (Paragraph 2), the death itself soon becomes so extensive and inescapable that it exhibits its own momentum. Azucena cannot be pulled from the mud pit, in part, because “the bodies of her brothers and sisters” cling to her legs (Paragraph 8). This portrait of the living Azucena beleaguered and trapped by the corpses of her family characterizes mortality as a constant, persistent interloper in the realm of the living. So too does the very presence of the countless other corpses in the mire. In the hours that follow the disaster, decomposing bodies contaminate the clay; the decaying masses threaten the living with potential epidemics. Death here appears as an entity that builds upon itself, so discontented with simply making its presence known in the realm of the living that it actively propagates itself.

If Rolf embodies the everlasting human aversion to death, “determined to snatch” the young girl from her own demise (Paragraph 10), then Azucena exhibits a more traditionally Christian

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