The Supernatural Is One Step Away

Luis Zavala

Kayla Burner

Engl-231

May 21st 2024

 Mental Health Decline In “Chac Mool”

The supernatural and the paranormal have always been two topics that I’ve been interested in. Up until recently, I haven’t read many horror/scary/supernatural books. I used to read science-fiction, fiction, and some books about the history of music, and wrestling. In recent years, it’s when I have started to read scary books. 

 “Christine” and “Pet Sematary” by Stephen King, “The Haunting Of Hill House” by Shirley Jackson, “Psycho” by Robert Bloch, and “American Psycho” by Bret Easton Ellis. It’s safe to say that it’s a genre that I’ve barely stepped into.

This is the 2nd time I’ve read “Chac Mool” by Carlos Fuentes. The first time I belive was  last year and I didn’t understood what was happening in the story, I found it confusing. But now that I’ve read it around3 to 4 times, the themes, topics and main plot seem clear to me now. The topics that I saw the first time around, weren’t the same as they are now.  

 Those topics are Mental Health and Supernatural events. But since I thought FIliberto drowned by accident or that it was planned by someone who had it against him, these aren’t the feelings I got as I read the first three pages of the story. Because it seemed like something you could find in a crime and thriller book, and not in what I thought would be a fiction book.

But by the first half of the book, we start to see how this everyday story unravels into a scary event that will cost him his life. You could argue that it starts when Filiberto acquires the artifact in Chac Mool. 

But the moment that I consider to be the start of Filibertos’s Mental decline is the following passage “Maybe I’d find what caused him to neglect his duties, why he’d written memoranda without rhyme or reason or any authorization. The reasons, in short, for his being fired. His seniority ignored and his pension lost” (pg 1). This quote shows what is going to happen as the story progresses, but one thing is made clear to us (the reader/s), Filiberto was fired because he was ignored and wasn’t offered any help by his job and/or company. 

Filiberto acquired Chac Mool because since he was a young kid he began an interest in Mexican Indian art. “Pepe knew that ever since I was young I’ve been mad for certain pieces of Mexican Indian art. I collect small statues, idols, pots” (pg 3). 

Chac Mool is one piece that has eluded him, but thanks to his friend Pepe he knows where to get one at the flea market. As soon as Filiberto brings Chac Mool to his home, things start to get weird and suspicious. A part of his house was flooded because his pipes burst and he left the water running in his kitchen, which by the way it is written, it is implied that Filiberto closed the faucet. “I awoke to find the pipes had burst. Somehow, I’d carelessly left the water running in the kitchen; it flooded the floor and poured into the cellar before I’d noticed it” (pg 4).

The next day he hears moans but he lives alone, and the pipes burst again. But the event that solidifies that Chac Mool is supernatural is when he slowly starts to become a living being. He is no longer just an ordinary artifact, he now is a stone that has come to life. 

“Again I felt the Chac Mool. It’s firm, but not stone. I don’t want to this; the texture of the torso feels a little like flesh; I press it like rubber, and feel something coursing through that recumbent figure… I went down again later at night. No doubt about it: The Chac Mool has hair on it’s arms” (pg 5).

Maybe there was a reason Filiberto found Chac Mool in a cheap pawn store, because when someone possesses a haunted item they will want to get rid of it as soon as possible. Ironically, at least in movies and in some books, the artifacts, and objects that families bring to their homes are the reason why their house is haunted. Sometimes the object carries a curse or just bad luck. 

In the case of Chac Mool, I believe it carries a curse, a supernatural curse. This makes Filiberto’s life change for all the wrong reasons. 

It all stemmed from being fired from his job. Because in the second half of the story, we are told that Filiberto locked himself in a mansion, with no visitors, half the doors/rooms locked, and looking like nobody has inhabited the mansion in a long time. As I mentioned earlier, Filiberto was fired from his job because he was accused of theft and being mad as in madness.                      

 And because he didn’t receive any help or therapy, he decided to acquire Chac Mool without doing his research about the artifact. He decided to acquire it, he decided to bring it home, and he decided that what was happening at his home was normal, it wasn’t until he saw that Chac Mool came to life that he realized what was happening. Unfortunately, it was already too late.

 I consider “Chac Mool” by Carlos Fuentes to be a story that serves as a cautionary tale, in the same vein as the Fairy Tales. But in this case it’s one that is more relatable than an Fairy Tale.

That tale is, if someone needs help with their mental state they should get that help. Sometimes it only takes a friend, so that person can talk it out with them, and not necessarily a therapist. Because if we don’t ask nor receive help we won’t get better, and we may end up doing things that we may regret, like what happened to Filiberto. Especially it shouldn’t be a reason to fire anybody, nor a reason to label them as “mad”, or “Crazy”.

Work Cited

                  Fuentes, Carlos. Chac Mool. Salvat. 1973.