Fear. Mission. Failure. “The Censors” is a short story that tells the troubling and suspenseful story of Juan who is setting out on a mission, but is detoured due to fear of the Censorship Division. Juan begins with writing a letter to his love Mariana, but fears the letter will be intercepted by censors and that he or she would suffer the consequences. In order to try and salvage Mariana and his safety, Juan joins the Censorship Division in order to push his letter through the Division in order to communicate with his beloved. Due to overworking and forming habits, Juan ruins his one chance to accomplish his inspiring operation, and is executed for it. In the short story “The Censors,” Luis Valenzuela explains Juan’s actions through foreshadow …show more content…
About a week into his new job, Juan decides to report a man organizing a strike to his boss in order for a promotion and tells himself, “You don’t form a habit by doing something once” (Valenzuela 742). Juan’s foreshadowing gives a glimpse into his fear of forced habits in the future that includes him censoring the letter to his dear beloved, which is the only reason for him taking the job. By constantly being in a state of fear and neglect towards bad habits, Juan puts himself in a position to where he doesn’t think and just does. His addictions are getting to the point where he is in constant fear of disobeying the job and didn’t recognize or take advantage of his main objective when it mattered most. In addition, the Censorship Division has a sound mindset when hiring and they use foreshadow to hint at Juan’s luck of actually having his hands on his letter. Juan beats the odds …show more content…
Juan is a fellow stricken with a work-first mentality and is forgetting about what really matters, such as health. Due to lack of sleep and nourishment, Juan’s mom shows her mother’s intuition when Valenzuela writes, “Only his darling mother worried, but she couldn’t get him back on the right track” (Valenzuela 743). Juan’s mother is worried for her son’s safety and well being due to his fear of not constantly working and looking for the retrieval of his letter. This constant fear and hard-work for promotion after promotion is breaking Juan, and he’s forgetting his reason for working in the first place and pays a terminal punishment in return. Furthermore, the work environment the Censorship Division provides isn’t helpful towards Juan’s objective of pressing importance. Valenzuela describes the treacherous actions that take place inside the Censorship Division building when she tells the story of a fellow colleague of Juan’s: “It’s true that on the third day, a fellow worker had his right hand blown off by a letter, but the division chief claimed it was sheer negligence on the victim’s part” (Valenzuela 742). Juan’s future view is affected by this story as he now comes to fear the environment and focuses on putting his head down and working along with safety. The fear caused by the