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The Literary "Hall of James" Favorite Fictional Characters / Teresa Mendoza
The Queen of the South (cover)
Hall of James Summary
Character: Teresa Mendoza
Story: Queen of the South (2002)
Author: Arturo Pérez-Reverte
Life gave Teresa Mendoza lemons and she made lemonade… with a vengeance. Teresa, better known by her alias, “the queen of the south”, took her lemons and squeezed out lemonade using an ingredient mixture of good fortune and even better fortitude. As a result, she transformed from a mild mannered girlfriend of a Sinaloa drug cartel pilot (Güero Dávila) into a mysterious, enterprising femme fatale who would become her majesty of the Mediterranean.
Güero’s antics, one high flying stunt too many, sowed the tart lemon seeds that Teresa soon reaped. She found herself in trouble with the cartel in general and Don Epifanio Vargas in particular. The don, who rose out of poverty by lifting himself up by his bullet straps, was the kind of man other men admire due to his success. Whereas he was a man’s man, Teresa did him one better: for she was a man’s women. She was both soldier and siren wrapped in a deceptively seductive package. Teresa was that invincible combination of admirable and desirable
Lemon Lows and Lemonade Highs
Teresa Mendoza’s biopic included several instances in which she took lemon like crisis and turned these into lemonade like opportunities. The following list includes the primary examples:
Lemons
The cartel kills her boyfriend and then comes after her.
Lemonade
Teresa escapes to Spain where she begins a new life and early on she use her knack for numbers to improve her lot in life.
Lemons
Fate brings her another drug runner boyfriend while in Spain. (Santiago Fisterra) It appears like here she goes again.
Lemonade
Teresa rather than settle for being a sheltered mistress to the life of which her boyfriend was wedded decides to become part of the action. This led her to learn nuts and bolts skills that would prove useful in later adventures.
Lemons
She was marooned at sea, served a stint in prison and endured a harrowing confrontation with a Russian mobster.
Lemonade
She survives, meets people key to her ascent and lays the financial foundation to become LaReina del Sur- Queen of the South.
The strait of Gibraltar links the Atlantic with the Mediterranean and as such linked Teresa's lowly past in Mexico with her ascent to power in Spain.
The Code
The code that Teresa chose to live by provided the secret sauce, lemony nectar that sweetened the drink she made of her life that had as its origins the bitter fruit tossed her way. The code was not base upon morality as such but rather a sense of natural order. Still, her belief in this order made sense of the world and contained a nearly accidental element of morality. Teresa is still relatively young when the kingdom she built upon lemon ruins appears to cease. It appears the world’s foremost lemonade stand owner may have more adventures in more books to come.
Teresa Mendoza can be best described in the mathematical language to which she was so innately drawn: Admirable + desirable = irresistible.
This content reflects the personal opinions of the author. It is accurate and true to the best of the author’s knowledge and should not be substituted for impartial fact or advice in legal, political, or personal matters.
© 2015 James C Moore
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Comments
She sure is beautiful and street smart, too. Way to go, Teresa. What's more, she has the same name as my sister, hahahaha. Very informative and enjoyable article.
I love your lemons/lemonade/lemons/lemonade analysis. It makes the plot simple for someone who hasn't read the book.
Your #4 is my #1, but a good list nonetheless. Thanks for introducing me to Teresa!
Interesting read and very unique!
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