Analysis Of Miguel Piñero's 'Short Eyes'

1. Introduction

What makes Miguel Piñero stand out from other authors is how he intertwined a colorful world of his with an artistic world. Even though he was a child of wealthy Puerto Rican immigrants who lived in the New York City, his father departure from the family left Piñero struggling for food which lead to petty crimes which caused him to end up in famous prison, called Sing Sing during the early seventies.
Most unfortunate events can lead a true artist to create something exquisite and that was the case with Piñero’s troubled past. Short Eyes is the prison play that Piñero wrote during the playwriting workshop in the notorious prison. After his parole in 1973, Short Eyes reached the stars among the readers and the same year won an Obie Award for the best play of the year and New York Drama Critics Circle Award, as seven nominations for Tony Awards soon followed. Miguel Piñero came to be the first Puerto Rican whose play ended up on Broadway.
Short Eyes is a graphic portrayal of life between inmates behind the bars, the play is about life and death and above all, about survival. The play

The “rule kill or be killed” is not only applicable in the wild nature but among prisoners whose primitive nature comes on surface once thrown among the criminals. The instinct to protect yourself and preserve your peace is often the very cause of violence in the prisons. Just like in Miguel Piñero’s Short Eyes, the “peace” of inmates is disrupted once an intruder from outside comes among them. Since there are many already established clashes in the prison, such as the ethnic clash between the different ethnic groups, clash between the victims and sexual offenders everything seems to perish once an intruder of human race comes in the picture. Seems like all the differences disappear when among criminals comes a man who committed the ultimate despicable