“Three-fingered jack” the legendary bandit of Joaquin Murieta’s band: his metamorphosis in dramatic texts until Pablo Neruda

Abstract

This article examines the evolution of Three-Fingered Jack, the lieutenant of Joaquin Murieta, who is depicted in Murieta’s literary saga as a bloody and fearsome bandit, but who is reshaped, just like Joaquin, according to contextual variables and to the writer´s subjectivity. We have selected plays from the saga to follow the course of his transformation up until the publication of Pablo Neruda’s play Splendor and Death of Joaquin Murieta. Here, the bandit is purged of his negative traits, and emerges as an important dramatic force to fulfill a new mission that Neruda embodies in the iconic Joaquin, in light of the geopolitical situation of Chile and Latin America at the time. Three-Fingered Jack is chosen to carry out the mission.