áez expedition, will serve as a basis for disparity. Also crucial towards an accurate interpretation of events is an understanding of how an author's interpretations affect his experiences, or "reading between the lines." Often looked over by historians is the art behind personal accounts – the language used, the emotional reactions embedded inside the words. Adorno argues the loudest of all emotions is fear. Utilizing its frequent occurrence throughout literature concerning the European/Amerindian interaction, she plans on studying Cabeza de Vaca‘s control of his own fear, the fear inspired by his presence, and the negotiation of these fears fluctuating between nightmarish slave hunters and the promise of peaceful resettlement.
- Ahern, Maureen. "The Cross and the Gourd: The Appropriation of Ritual Signs in the Relaciones of Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca and Gonzalo Fernandez de Oviedo's Illustrations." Early Images of the Americas. Ed. Robert Lewis and Jerry Williams. T
- Ahern explores the way Europeans and Amerindians in their early contacts interact culturally through the "appropriation of ritual signs" (215). Her focus on Cabeza de Vaca involves an analysis of the symbolic power of the ritual gourd, the calabaza, that is mentioned several times in Cabeza de Vaca's Relacion. Ahern notes that Cabeza de Vaca and his fellow survivors used the calabaza "as a symbol of healing prowess and knowledge" and as a symbolic means of securing safe passage "from tribe to tribe through the Greater Sonoran Desert" (215). The focus of her essay is an examination of the way Cabeza de Vaca appropriated Native symbols and signs as "a bridge for cultural mediation" (216). She traces the passages that relate the healing practices of Cabeza de Vaca among the tribes and suggests that "two referential systems are operating in the text" -- the language of the Christian gospels and native shamans (219). Ahern notes that Cabeza de Vaca writes about the healings in a manner that is suggestive of the healing accounts in the New Testament but uses native ceremonial objects, such as the calabaza which emphasizes native shamanic authority and power.
- Arroyo, Silvia. "Alvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca, or the Construction of a Hero through His Travels in The Journey of Alvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca." The Image of the Road in Literature, Media, and Society. Ed. Will Wright and Steve Kaplan. Pueblo: Society for the Interdisciplinary Study of Social Imagery. Pueblo: Colorado State University, 2005. 78-81.
- Arroyo compares Cabeza de Vaca to a prophet whose journey has many parallels to Christianity. She argues that Cabeza de Vaca's main goal is to appear as an improved man, since on the surface his expedition failed. The Journey serves as a personal validation of the growth Cabeza de Vaca has experienced in spite of his apparent failures.
- Bishop, Morris. The Odyssey of Cabeza de Vaca. New York: Century,1933.
- Bishop's book is a biographical sketch of the life of Cabeza de Vaca that includes a retelling of Cabeza de Vaca's Relacion y Comentarios. Bishop sets his story in a historical context and includes a variety of illustrations including maps, the Cabeza de Vaca family coat of arms, and a facsimile of Cabeza de Vaca's legal appeal after his arrest. Bishop writes his work in the style of a non-fiction novel but takes most of his material from primary sources and historical documents.
- Bruce-Novoa, Juan. "Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca." The Heath Anthology of American Literature. Ed. Paul Lauter et al. 2nd ed. Vol.1. Lexington: Heath, 1994. 129-39.
- Bruce-Novoa's focus in this essay is in affirming Cabeza de Vaca's Relacion as "a fundamental text of Chicano literature" (4). He suggests a dual analysis of the work to affirm the meaning of Cabeza de Vaca's place in the Chicano literary heritage. First, he asserts the need for a "refocus" of traditional critical analytical approaches. Second, he says that Chicano critics need to "demonstrate how the text exerts a creative force on Chicano letters" (4). Bruce-Novoa is also concerned that the defining characteristics