The Mission essays

The Mission essays Father Gabriel is a Jesuit priest who enters the South American rainforest with the intention of building a Christian mission. His challenging task is the conversion of a small tribe of native Amazon Indians called the Guarani. Gaining their trust, Father Gabriel is able to teach his new friends about his faith learning about the Indians' culture and language along the way. Spanish army officer turned slave trader Rodrico Mendoza out of jealousy murders his own brother. Stricken by grief he joins Father Gabriels mission and eventually converts and becomes a Jesuit priest. The two Jesuit missionaries come together to defy Spain and Portugal to save the Guarani Native tribe from slavery. The two men unite to save the mission when they proceed to negotiate the boundaries in the area that would affect both the natives and the Jesuit missionaries who have set up safe havens for them. Individually the characters of the film have little to do with actual history. They are more symbolic figures in the movie that represent the leader or myth of glory that helps the flow of the movie. They also symbolize the represent regions as a whole and other missionary that underwent the same thing during the time period. Overall, the history of the movie lies between the old world Spain and Portugal and the new world Indians. The movie did not go into the detail about the difficulty that the Jesuit priest went through to learn the Indians culture and start to convert them. Skipping this made it seem like the Indians accepted the religion automatically and without struggle. The Indians though established first are considered on European territory so naturally the Europeans want to overtake them and use them as labor on their plantations. The natives are influenced strongly by the interaction with the new world gaining a full religion and new ideas of violence and cultur e. Historically speaking, Spain was harsher and more agg ...