But Shaffer uses this game as a symbol for the wider picture of culture. And when he knows nothing about poverty we feel both amazed at his ignorance and his unbelievable ability to have created a utopian society free of poverty.
When he cries out though over the thought of his dying people we see a personal and moving response, almost like a cry for help than shock. It adds sensitivity to his persona which is very attractive and rather than being weak and futile and adds a robust strength to his diminishing figure. I feel the way Atahuallpa confronts Pizarro directly and firmly about the fate of his people to be a very bold move for what should be a prisoner. The prisoner is in control and ordering his capture around, even threatening him “You can’t hide from me”. This when Pizzaro greets him warmly we see he is in a very different mindset and must have been thrown aback with Atahuallpa’s “You want gold” hello, which is suprising perceptive and intelligent of him to figure out, especially after he understood the worth of gold minutes earlier. We find Atahuallpa to still be a strong figure, or leader, as now Young Martin calls him “Sir”.
We definatley see an improvement in his english now being able to string comprehendible sentences together showing the audience how he is growing and constantly adapting to his environment.
The audience sees how possibly Atahuallpa has become desperate and gives away to the invading Spaniards all the riches of his people in exchange that he is set free. It seems rather sad that for his life the Sun God will sacrifice the “sweat” of his country in order to free himself, sweat being a metaphor for gold. Using sweat shows to the audience that this gold is more than just money but it is the hard work of him, the Sun, and his people. We also see how he knows Pizarro well, knowing that he doesn’t have a word “and you have no word to give”, and he knows this by the sense of what Pizarro is like “No, its is in your face”. In the end we’re not so sure whether he believes Pizarro or not, however he does seem to trust him and gives away his country.
We see this in Atahuallpa’s last great speech of the scene where seems to call on all of his strength and calls “Bring him gold. From the palaces. From the temples. From all the buildings in the great places.” We see here and so does the audience how Atahuallpa calls all the gold for Pizarro and not for himself, defacing the country for the enemy and it is like he is calling on the evil spirits to do this job for him because he cannot.
Pizarro enters followed by his second in command and greets Atahuallpa his prisoner with “My lord”. Instinctively we know that then something peculiar is happening because the social hierarchy of the situation means that Pizarro should be leader but he calls himself a servant of Atahuallpa. This means that the audience begin to feel Pizarro is weaker and less significant than Atahuallpa.
Pizarro is torn between two of his desires – gold and the idolism of Atahuallpa. He seems desperate to both gain the gold for his men but to keep Atahuallpa alive and friendly with him. He is memorised by how Atahuallpa is able to defeat time and to command his people so that they do what he says so passively. So even though materialistically Pizarro is Atahuallpa’s capture in their minds Pizarro is Atahuallpa’s servant.
De Soto remains by Pizarro while he battles with his own conscience to decide what exactly he should do. He is the voice of reason and logic not marred by desire or lust. He stands by Pizarro reminding him constantly about the consequences of the action he is about to make but we see him being very obedient and not challenging Pizarro to far, “General, you can only give your word where you can keep it.” He is the loyal second in command as Shaffer wants us to believe but we also see him losing faith in his leader, “Pray God we don’t pay bitterly for this” and he leaves ashamed.
Young Martin is a very minor character in this scene and has more practical use than any real use. The audience can see that he is still but a young boy eager to impress his commander. This is useful because it is in stark contrast to Old Martin who is cynical and dark and we have glimpses of how things must turn out in the future for this young boy so full of life to end up like this.
So in conclusion we see that Shaffer has shaped the audiences responses to each of the characters through a mix of language, stage directions and literary devices. We see how everyone seems to fit into place and helps each other meld into one smooth running scene. We see later on in the play we see the large repercussions of this very small scene ending up in the death of very many people and of course the complete changing of the audience’s perception of these characters.