The Making of Evita1 essays

The Making of Evita1 essays As I sit here at my computer, I am at a standstill trying to decide where to start. How do you condense a person into ten short pages, and still enable the reader to get to know them. I have decided that the task is nearly impossible, even in the telling of a life that was tragically so short. Evita, as the people affectionately knew her, entered into this world with nothing and left with everything. From a poor peasant girl growing up in the pampas, to a popular media personality, to the First Lady of Argentina. In her short period on this earth she definitely made her mark. To this day, she is still a controversial figure in her native Argentina. She was beloved by the working classes and shunned by the aristocracy. When Eva Pern died in 1952 of cancer, a group of anti-Pernist tried to erase all physical evidence relating to Evita. Her personal notes, diaries, and photos were burned in public demonstrations. Her monuments were torn down and destroyed. Evas body disappeared for sixteen years, in hopes that without the physical body, Eva would be soon forgotten. A group sprang up soon after and flourished in Argentina, the Saint Evita cult. Posters of Evita were on every street corner, in all the villages, and in the peoples hearts. The president, who took office after Juan Pern was overthrown, was kidnapped and murdered by Saint Evita followers who wanted him to reveal where her body had been hidden. Finally, in 1976, Eva Duarte-Pern was interred in the Recoleta Cemetery in Buenos Aires, Argentine. For the first time since her death, she had come home again. Who is this woman, who even in death can incite such devotion? Just as mysteries surrounded Eva in death, so did they shadow her life. The Evita of the Argentine people is straightforward, and there are very few secrets. It is Evas life before Pern that is obscured and ...