“Tell Them Not to Kill Me” is a short story about Juvencio Nava, who is awaiting execution for murder.

In
the beginning, the only truly obvious thing known about the main character is that he wants to live.
Viewed within the scope of ethics and moral responsibility, Juvencio Nava’s character evolves
throughout the story. Does a person have a good-standing moral character if he or she is a liar, selfish or
manipulative? There’s a questionable worthiness of mercy that surrounds Juvencio’s character, also,
whether or not the afflictions and losses he has experienced in his life earn him any reconcilable merit.
Throughout the story, Juvencio displays vain piety, remorselessness, insensitivity, as well as, acts of
vindication, irresponsibility, escapism, and bribery. The moral fiber, meritoriousness, and constitution of
his character is one that leaves the reader with ambiguity. Juvencio’s demise could be just as
controversial as the much-debated topic of capital punishment itself.

Vainly Pious and Selfish

“For God’s sake,” Juvencio says twice while pleading to his son for him to return to the sergeant and ask
for a death row pardon. The reader cannot help but feel empathetic for a man that wants nothing more
than to avoid execution. “After all, he must have a soul. Tell him to do it for the blessed salvation of his
soul,” Juvencio says to his son, who clenches his teeth at the request his father makes for him to leave
and beg for his life.

Juvencio’s character seems to have a religious faith that believes killing a man is wrong. If he didn’t, why
then would the colonel’s soul need saving? If murdering just any man isn’t bad in the eyes of Juvencio,
then it’s implied that he thinks a senior man deserves preferential pardoning, with his special
instructions to his son to make mention of his age as a reason to spare his life. At this point in the story,
the reader has not been made aware of the charges and crimes of Mr. Nava, but his self-deprecating
comment that he was of little worth fills in a color of humility on the portrait of Juvencio’s personality
that is developing.

He pressures his son to go to the sergeant, apparently, not for the first attempt on his behalf but as one
of a few. His son obviously loves his father or else he wouldn’t have made any previous attempts to get
the charges dropped, but Juvencio’s son is also concerned about his personal safety. He is worried that
the authorities will figure out that he and Juvencio are related and want to kill him, too. In addition to
his well-being, Juvencio’s son considers the survival of his wife and children if he isn’t around to care for
them. Vainly, with no apparent regard for his son’s life or that of his daughter-in-law and eight
grandchildren, Juvencio continues begging for his son to tell them not to kill him.

In the continuation of the story’s introductory dialogue, Juvencio’s belief in God surfaces once more as
he explains that divine providence will care for his son’s family if something should happen to him, but
all that matters is that his son goes to see what he can do for him. A virtuous man is selfless, but
evidently, Juvencio uses God’s name in vain, for it is only his life that concerns him. It only takes a few
words expressing selfishness to add negative dimension to Juvencio’s character.

Vindictive

The altercation between Don Lupe and Juvencio and Mr. Nava’s reaction to Don Lupe’s followed-
through threat to kill the next one of his “skinny animals” that end up on the opposite side of his fence,
showed another side to the previously introduced, elderly, vainly pious, Juvencio -- a murderer. It’s a
matter of ethical debate between the two friends whether or not Lupe should have opened his pasture
to Juvencio during a livestock and income-threatening drought. However, it is an ownership of moral
obligation that Juvencio had to take to respect his compadre’s wishes and consequently respect his
friend’s life. Lupe killing one of Juvencio’s animals is reprehensible, as it was a malicious disrespect of
another person’s property and a thuggish theft –as it took profit away from Juvencio’s business.
Regardless of this fact, Juvencio taking his friend’s life isn’t justified.

Irresponsible and Materialistic

The fact that Juvencio ran away to avoid the summons and his attempts at getting off with manslaughter
by bribing the court and authorities with cattle, residential property, and a hundred pesos, shows
cowardice and an avoidance of responsibility for his actions. It would seem that since he valued tangible
assets over human life, that it would only be characteristic of him to think that he could bribe his way
from off of death row.

The author wrote that “All [Juvencio] had left to take care of was his life, and he’d do that if nothing
else. He couldn’t let them kill him.” Juvencio lost his stock, home, and wife. The author said he fought
for nothing. He doesn’t seem to be remorseful in the least. Everything in Juvencio’s life is egocentrically
a credit or loss to the disregard of anyone or anything else as long as he can stay alive. Mr. Nava knew
that Don Lupe had a wife and two toddlers at home, but none of that mattered more than what was
threatening to the benefit of himself.

Egotistical and Unjustifiable

While it isn’t a governed law to place the well-being of others before yourself, Juvencio’s moral
compass, however, could stand calibration; lethal vandalism -- which was what Don Lupe did by killing
one of Juvencio’s stock -- didn’t warrant death. The revenge carried out didn’t match the crime, and the
egotistical characteristic of Juvencio’s personality showed itself when he killed his friend; it didn’t add
proportionate stasis to the issue. He murdered Don Lupe, in essence, over a destruction of property.

Remorseless

Juvencio thought that he could escape to the mountains, along with his criminal past, into the lapse of
time -- 40 years. However, he was wrong. It is his final hour when he is theoretically brought face-to-face
with the now a colonel -- once orphaned -- surviving son of Don Lupe. It’s only minutes before Juvencio’s
execution. He grovels at the sound of the colonel’s voice “on the other side of the reed wall” and
appeals to the invisible authority to let God pardon him “at least.” Just as he had instructed his son to do
earlier in the story, Juvencio calls upon the colonel to let him die of old age and begs for mercy as he
feels that his life for the last forty years has been punishment enough.

Juvencio pleads for his life, but even then in the presence of someone whose life he detrimentally
wrecked by killing his father, he offers no apology or sensitivity – only an addendum to his appeal that
he doesn’t deserve to “die like this.” If his character didn’t implicate a lack of humanity by now, Don
Lupe’s son reveals, in morbid detail, for the first time in the story how Juvencio carried out his father’s
murder. Saying “I’m sorry” wouldn’t bring Don Lupe back to life, resurrect the colonel’s mother -- whom
they said died from grief – nor, would it heal the wounds of the colonel’s life up until the confrontation
with Juvencio. However, it would have been a gesture worth considering, especially, at such a crucial
moment in Juvencio’s life. The colonel didn’t give Juvencio the dignity of being in his presence and
looking him in the eye as he ordered his death. However, as merciless as the method of murder was that
the colonel described, he still offered an almost painless death for Juvencio. He told his subordinates to
get Juvencio “drunk, so the shots won’t hurt him.”

At the start of “Don’t Let Them Kill Me,” Juvencio is introduced merely as a frightened father wanting his
life spared. However, it isn’t long before any undeserved pity or sympathy dwindles as the nature of
Juvencio’s character evolves. It isn’t revealed by the author what the final thoughts of the elderly, God-
fearing, yet lying, egotistical, selfish, cruel, vindictive and cowardly Juvencio were before his death.
However, one has to wonder if he considered how it would have probably been better to have taken the
profit loss forty years ago. Perhaps, if he had let it go, and instead, settle the feud with his friend, he
could have avoided living more than half his life “hiding like a leper” only to die forcefully liquored up
and pierced with bullets.