Plot summary: In an isolated tambo between the desert and the jungle, Doña Merceditas, an older woman who lives alone, receives an unexpected and disturbing visit from an ex-convict named The Jamaican, who arrives with a sarcastic and threatening attitude. While he forces her to drink and subjects her to humiliation, it is revealed that he has returned to set a trap for Numa, a man close to the woman. In collusion with the police, The Jamaican turns Doña Merceditas into a decoy: he ties her up and places her in front of the Tambo to lure his target. When Numa arrives to rescue her, he is captured by the hidden agents. Believing he has done his part and expecting his reward, The Jamaican is cruelly abandoned by the Lieutenant and his patrol, who leave with Numa as their prisoner. Alone and surrounded by the latent threat of Numa’s accomplices who have been left free, The Jamaican faces an uncertain fate, while Doña Merceditas bursts into triumphant laughter.
Warning
The following summary and analysis is only a semblance and one of the many possible readings of the text. It is not intended to replace the experience of reading the story.
Summary of A Visitor by Mario Vargas Llosa
In A Visitor, Mario Vargas Llosa develops a disturbing story set in an isolated tambo situated between the desert and the jungle’s edge. The story begins with a description of the arid landscape where Doña Merceditas lives, an elderly, robust, and lonely woman who is accompanied only by a goat. The quiet of the afternoon is interrupted by the arrival of a thin, dark man with a mocking and threatening appearance, whom the woman recognizes immediately: it is The Jamaican.
The visitor, in a cordial tone, asks for food and drink. She, intimidated, agrees. In a tense exchange, he forces her to drink several bottles of beer while he consumes milk and fruit with aplomb. It soon becomes clear that The Jamaican has not come with good intentions. He is looking for something else: he is waiting for Numa, a man with whom he was a partner in crime in the past. The Jamaican’s presence is aggressive; he uses verbal intimidation, a kind of cruel game with which he humiliates Doña Merceditas, gradually subjugating her.
After forcing her to drink and mocking her, The Jamaican takes control of the dairy. When the woman tries to flee to the nearby forest, he finds her, ties her hands and feet, and brings her back. Then, in an act of sadism, he begins to tickle her, causing her to laugh desperately. This moment combines the grotesque with the sinister, revealing the power he wields over her. Shortly after, it is revealed that he is not alone: he has made a deal with the police. The Lieutenant and several guards arrive discreetly at the scene and hide near the Tambo, waiting to catch Numa, who is wanted by the authorities.
Doña Merceditas feels betrayed. She warns The Jamaican that Numa will not fall into the trap. She assures him that his friends will have alerted him to the danger. However, The Jamaican maliciously explains that he spread the rumor that he was looking for her to kill her, with the intention that Numa would come to her defense when he found out. The woman can do nothing but wait, bound and gagged, as night falls. The Jamaican places her at the entrance to the Tambo as a decoy. From his hiding place, he watches her in the darkness. Both hear noises: someone is approaching through the forest. The Jamaican’s suspicions are confirmed when he sees a shadow approaching the woman.
Just as a figure bends down to remove the blindfold from her face, The Jamaican blows his whistle to alert the police and lunges at the visitor. The scene is chaotic: insults, struggles, a revolver to the temple. It is Numa. The guards, led by the Lieutenant, quickly subdue him and tie him up.
The Jamaican demands that they pursue the other men who were supposedly accompanying Numa in the forest. However, the Lieutenant coldly replies that they only came for him. They will not make any other arrests. The Jamaican is stunned. He insists that he has fulfilled his part of the bargain and deserves to be taken back with the patrol. But the Lieutenant, in an act of contempt, leaves him behind. He tells him he is “free” and can go wherever he wants. It is a cruel mockery: the desert, the night, and the threat of Numa’s accomplices surround him.
Desperate, The Jamaican tries to stop them, pulling on the Lieutenant’s horse’s reins and begging. However, the officer pushes him away and gives the order to leave. The soldiers laugh as they ride away. Mrs. Merceditas, on the ground, also begins to laugh loudly, mocking the traitor whose fate seems sealed. When she manages to calm down, she shouts to Numa that she will bring him fruit on Sundays, a gesture that combines tenderness, loyalty, and resignation. In the silence that follows, a rustling sound is heard in the forest: someone is still there, watching and waiting.
The story ends with The Jamaican abandoned in the darkness, surrounded by a latent threat.
Characters from A Visitor by Mario Vargas Llosa
Doña Merceditas is the first character to appear and is a central figure in the story. She is an older woman, robust, with smooth skin despite her age and the owner of a small hut lost in the middle of the sand. She lives in isolation, accompanied only by a goat, and her character seems to reflect the harshness of her environment. She is a mixture of mistrust, dignity, resistance, and a form of loyalty that is not without fear. When faced with The Jamaican, she first shows submission, then quiet hostility, and finally stoic firmness. Her forced submission to drinking, her attempt to escape, her silence in the face of abuse, and her subsequent verbal defiance reveal a woman hardened by life but still emotionally attached to Numa. In the end, caressing Numa and offering him a cigarette is not only an act of tenderness but also a way of reaffirming their bond. And her final laugh, when the Jamaican is abandoned, is an outburst of personal justice, an expression of victory after having been humiliated.
The Jamaican is undoubtedly the most disturbing character in the story. Tall, thin, dark-skinned, with a mocking attitude and a voice that alternates between honeyed and sarcastic, he embodies the power of the veiled threat. From the moment he appears, his presence is unsettling. He has just been released from prison and, as it is revealed, has come to set a trap for Numa. His character is volatile: he swings from forced courtesy to barely contained aggression, mocking, ordering, and cruelly toying with Doña Merceditas, imposing himself not with physical force but with a mixture of psychological intimidation and verbal dominance. The fact that he forces her to drink, ties her up, and plays with her body without sexually assaulting her but subjecting her to physical humiliation reinforces the notion of his sadism. However, The Jamaican is also a fragile character. He has negotiated his freedom in exchange for betraying Numa, but this apparent advantage becomes his downfall. In the end, when the police abandon him, he completely breaks down. His desperate insistence that they do not leave him alone, his anguished pleas, and his disbelief reveals that behind his violence and arrogance lies a creature cornered by his fear.
Although Numa only appears physically at the end of the story, he is a central character from the beginning because of his latent presence. He is the reason for The Jamaican’s visit and the police ambush. When he bursts into the Tambo to free Doña Merceditas, he does so silently and cautiously, which shows his loyalty to her. He offers no resistance when captured, maintaining his composure and speaking in a calm and subdued tone. His only visible concern is the woman’s well-being. This profile contrasts sharply with that of The Jamaican: Numa represents honor and loyalty, even in defeat. There is no gesture in him that denotes resentment or humiliation despite the betrayal he has suffered. His humanity is confirmed by the resigned silence with which he accepts his fate and the way he accepts the cigarette offered to him by Doña Merceditas: a moment of communion between two characters united not by words but by a deep bond.
Finally, the Lieutenant represents formal authority: a small, sweaty, authoritarian, and resentful man. Although he is in a position of power, his relationship with The Jamaican reveals an ambiguous tension: he despises the informer but needs his help. He treats him with hostility and impatience and finally takes his moral revenge by leaving him to his fate. He shows no compassion or sense of justice beyond fulfilling his assignment: to catch Numa. His decision not to pursue the other men in the forest, despite The Jamaican’s pleas, reflects a mixture of disinterest, professional arrogance, and political calculation. Deep down, his contempt for the informer is greater than his duty to capture all the suspects.
Analysis of A Visitor by Mario Vargas Llosa
A Visitor is a short story that explores tension, fear, and violence through a precise and silent narrative economy. What Vargas Llosa constructs here is not only a story of betrayal but also a disturbing portrait of human relationships marked by threat, abuse of power, and loyalty put to the test. Set in a desolate space between the sand and the jungle, the story takes place in a single setting, reinforcing the feeling of confinement. Although the hut is situated in the middle of an open plain, what predominates is claustrophobia, isolation, and the domination of one over the other. Space is essential: it is not decorative but an active part of the conflict, a territory from which there is no escape.
The story revolves around a planned ambush. The Jamaican, recently released from prison, has arrived at Doña Merceditas’ Tambo to set a trap for Numa, his former partner. The woman becomes an unwitting instrument in this trap: she is tied up and forced to remain in plain sight while The Jamaican waits for his prey. What appears to be a controlled operation becomes increasingly ambiguous as events unfold. Vargas Llosa plays with power reversals: The Jamaican has the initiative but depends on the police; the police need The Jamaican but despise him; Doña Merceditas seems defenseless, but her final attitude shatters any idea of passive submission. There is no balance of power. The story shows how roles of power are continually reversed and betrayed. One of the keys to the story lies in the way violence and silence are administered. Vargas Llosa does not resort to explicitly brutal scenes: tension is created through gestures, words, and innuendo, through small acts laden with meaning.
The Jamaican humiliates Doña Merceditas by forcing her to drink, tying her up, and exposing her, but he never hits or rapes her. His cruelty is more psychological than physical, although the reader perceives the full intensity of the threat. This use of language and action is deliberate: the author makes us feel the violence without explicitly showing it, thus reinforcing its impact. Furthermore, the humor that occasionally emerges, such as The Jamaican’s taunts or the woman’s final laugh, not only fails to relieve the tension but makes it even more disturbing. Laughter here is not a relief but a form of revenge or a sign of desperation.
The figure of The Jamaican is constructed with a level of ambiguity that prevents him from becoming a simplistic villain. He is violent, arrogant, and treacherous, yes, but he is also vulnerable. In the end, when he begs not to be left alone, the reader perceives his fear and smallness. He has used every one, and everyone has used him. The Lieutenant despises him so much that he does not even consider him worthy of protection. The final scene, in which he is abandoned in the dark, surrounded by an invisible threat, is the real punishment: the wait, the knowledge that they will come for him, the certainty that he has no allies. It is a form of justice that is not governed by the courts but by the moral logic of those who have been betrayed. Numa, though defeated, retains his dignity. He does not curse or despair. His relationship with Doña Merceditas, marked by a profound silence, conveys a bond of mutual trust and silent care.
Doña Merceditas, for her part, is the most complex character. Her role goes far beyond that of a victim. She is a witness, a key piece in the trap, but also a figure of resistance. She does not betray Numa or negotiate with The Jamaican, and her final attitude is one of reaffirmation. She laughs because she understands that, despite everything she has suffered, she has witnessed the fall of the traitor. Her laughter is a form of justice. In her silence, there is determination, and in her passivity, a kind of strength. She does not act with violence or cunning, but she resists without breaking, and that resistance is the emotional center of the story.
Vargas Llosa’s language in this story is restrained and direct, without stylistic excesses. The author does not seek to dazzle with obvious literary devices but instead uses a sober, clean, and highly visual narrative that allows the reader to immerse themselves in the scene easily. The descriptions of the landscape, the sounds of the forest, the heat, and the silence are crafted with precision.
Ultimately, A Visitor is a story about power: who has it, how it is exercised, and how it is lost. But it is also a story about time: the time of confinement, the time of waiting, the time of punishment. Nothing happens quickly, and that is part of its logic. The slowness of the story reflects the tension between what is expected and what ultimately happens. Ultimately, no one truly benefits. There are no heroes or redemptions. There are only individuals facing extreme situations where every gesture has consequences, and every word can be a weapon. The most disturbing aspect of the story is that it doesn’t require big explosions to leave its mark: all it takes is a lamp left on, a goat staring, a woman laughing, and a traitor abandoned in the night.
