Cecile Pineda

On Face

The novel Face is the story of a young Brazilian man whose own face is disfigured in an accident. This unfortunate person is named Helio Cara. Interestingly, the Spanish and Portuguese word "cara translate into English as "face." Helio Cara doesn't expect that people will react so apathetically to him, especially his girlfriend. Thus the man finds rejection from society and his family. He never thinks he will feel so many kinds of rejection and disgust from people. People do no want to accept him the way he looks. They forget that his is a good person with feelings. Most of the people panic after seeing his face, even his girlfriend who says horrible words to him. Helio is hurt by what she says, enough to beat her badly, sending her to the hospital. After that, the lady decides to leave him. Helio tries to find professional help but he even finds rejection with the hospital. All he can do is try to survive and to forget his problems, but he can not forget his disfigured face. Everywhere he goes, the people do not accept him. HE can not even work because his coworkers are afraid of his face. Eventually he is fired. At one point, Helio's shack is burned down, perhaps by his girlfriend's brother. Helio tries to get his ex-girlfriend's forgiveness, but he can not because she runs away. After all this suffering, he finds a doctor who is willing to really help him, but Helio has to leave the city. On his own, he needs to buy many medicines to reconstruct his face by himself. When his face is reconstructed, he doesn't look the same as before. He knows that he can start a new life with a new face, but he will never forget all the injustice that has had to overcome. In fact, Pineda tells us in this novel that people only want to care about what they see as familiar and common. Most of the time, people do not care about the feelings of others. They only care how others look. The meaning is that appearance is all that matters. The most important message in this novel is how Helio perseveres within a society of rejection and injustice. Also Pineda tells us that good can come from the suffering. We can find favorable results from pain; it can be redemptive

By Marlene Navarro (spring 1999)

Cecile Pineda's Face is a novel where the author portrays a variety of issues through vivid descriptions of events and emotions that keep the audience from closing the book. Pineda's view of society's way of judging according to appearance and financial status can be seen throughout. The issue of survival, and human will is also seen through the author's words. Vivid and powerful descriptions such as when Helio decides to cure him with little medical knowledge and a very little supply of medicine. The author allows the readers to feel the pain and suffering the character undergoes as if we were assisting Helio cure himself. The loss of his loved ones, and the frustration he has within causes his personality to change, becoming obsessive with the issue of changing his life, isolating himself from the rest of the world. Face is a novel that may say that we live in a world where everyone wears a mask. This mask may represent our culture, background, personality, religion, or education and it allows us to survive in society. If we remove this mask, we change our society's way of life by showing everyone else something different. We, as human beings, are afraid of change and we usually keep away from those who bring about change to our lives.

Family culture plays an important role among Latin writers. In order for a character to have a prosperous life, he or she must have a strong relationship with his or her family. In Face, Helio returns to his homeland, and even though his mother has passed away, it is crucial for Helio to go back to his roots and find his identity. I believe Pineda portrays the important idea of family support, the importance of having a helpful hand from a relative in such difficult times. The readers of Face can appreciate and see human struggle and the desire to overcome social rejection.

By Ricardo Vidal (spring 1999)

In Face, one of the issues that I found interesting was the fact that if a person looks different from anyone else, that person will be treated differently. Because of his face, Helio did not get any respect and was treated very unfairly. This is true in today's society; people won't give a person the time of day if the person has a deformity in his or her face. People should not judge a book by its cover. It's unfortunate that a person is forced to do certain things to survive. For example, Helio is compelled to eat out o dumpsters, because he is not given a fair chance to show his talent as a barber. Without a job, he has no money to purchase food, so he eats out of garbage cans. In Face, Helio loses his job, his girlfriend leaves him, his house gets burned down, he gets shot at, people always look at him and talk about him behind his back -- all because of the disfiguration of his face.

By Carlos Soler (spring 1999)

Helio Cara is a man who had an accident in which his face is mutilated. This causes a lot of troubles for him. He is looking for support and all he finds in rejection. He loses his job because his boss tells him that he is scaring the customers in the barbershop. People in the streets become afraid of him.

I think that Helio is very persevering and determined. He tries to survive. He never stops trying to reconstruct his face. He uses needles, threads and razor blades to reconstruct his own face. In the end, he has a new face.

By Juan M. Colon (spring 1999)