Home > The Old Gringo Summary & Study Guide

The Old Gringo | Introduction

The Old Gringo is one of Carlos Fuentes’s best-known works. It is a complex novel that intertwines psychology, mythology, and political events to examine the culture of modern Mexico. At the core of the story is the disappearance of Ambrose Bierce, an American newspaperman and short-story writer. Bierce, who is most remembered for his brutally sardonic parody The Devil’s Dictionary and the often-anthologized short story “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge,” left his job and home in 1913 at age seventy-one and disappeared, never to be heard from again. Speculation has held that he went to Mexico to join Pancho Villa in fighting the revolution, but there has never been conclusive evidence to support this. Bierce is the old gringo referred to in this novel’s title. The story focuses on the relationships the character forms in Mexico with Harriet Winslow, a schoolteacher from Washington, DC, and with General Tomás Arroyo, leader of the revolutionary band that is on its way to meet up with Villa’s army. The three form a triangle, exploring questions of love, respect, and sensuality in ways that highlight the differences between Mexican and American ways of thinking. A few years after the book was published, it was adapted into a motion picture starring Jane Fonda, Jimmy Smits, and Gregory Peck as the old gringo.

The Old Gringo Summary

The Old Lady Remembers
Though the protagonist of The Old Gringo is Ambrose Bierce, and the novel an extended meditation on his possible fate, Bierce’s name is not mentioned until the final pages of the book. The novel takes place within the frame narrative—an old lady remembering. Bracketed by her act of memory, the story of Tomás Arroyo, Harriet Winslow, and the old gringo is pieced together in a dizzying series of multi-layered perspectives, voices, and times. It starts with the gringo’s corpse being disinterred so it can be sent back to the United States. As they uncover his desiccated body, the diggers share their memories of him. He had come to Mexico to die, and no one ever found out who he was.

The Old Gringo Arrives
With the railway bridge burning behind him, the old gringo buys a horse at El Paso and rides off across the border into the deserts of Mexico. He is looking for Pancho Villa and the revolution. He is looking for death. The narrative shifts to the perspective of the revolutionaries, watching him approach. They immediately understand that he has a death wish. Introduced to the General, Tomás Arroyo, the gringo offers his services as a fighter, and is mocked until he proves his marksmanship by shooting a tossed peso through the center. Pedro— then a boy, later one of the voices that remembers the gringo as his body is dug up—is given the peso. Arroyo agrees to let the old gringo stay.

General Tomás Arroyo
The gringo rides with Arroyo in a lavish train carriage—plunder from the revolution. On their way to the Miranda Hacienda, Arroyo’s current base and his past home, the general explains the nature of Mexican history and his right to reclaim the Mirandas’ property. He carries with him a set of ancient papers, sealed by the King of Spain, that granted perpetual land rights to his people. As he explains, he cannot read, so the papers act as an icon that validates and represents his hereditary memory. As they arrive at the hacienda, it is burning to the ground.

Harriet Winslow
The hacienda is decorated with hanged bodies and jubilant crowds. The only thing left standing is the mirrored ballroom, and in a thematically vital moment, the peasants gaze at their reflections, realizing for... » Complete The Old Gringo Summary