1. “Bernardo took him by his second arm and practically carried him to the coach. Later Tomas de Romeu asked Diego why he had challenged Moncada if he was not prepared to shoot him. Diego replied that he had never intended to carry a death on his conscience; all he wanted to do was to humiliate him.” Bernardo is Diego’s milk brother and most loyal friend and ally; however, Bernardo is considered the level of a servant because of his Indian blood. After a rival, Moncada, struck Bernardo as he was talking to one of Moncada’s servants, Diego proudly requested a duel with Moncada. All of the other Dons and high society members, including Moncada and Diego’s family in Spain find Diego the object of laughter. Who would place such high stakes on the account of a servant? This illustrates how passionate Diego is about justice and lays the foreground for him becoming the legendary Zorro. In addition to Diego’s loyalty and compassion for others, he is not overwhelmed with the desire for revenge, only justice. This can be seen in how Diego refuses to kill or even wound Moncada, who has hurt his milk brother and has tried to swoon Diego’s lady-friend, Juliana.

2.  “Only after their victims were gone did Zorro recover his senses and look around him. There were pools of blood on the floor, blood splattered on the walls, blood on his sword…blood everywhere.‘Holy Mother of God!” he exclaimed, frightened.” This quote embodies the turning point from Diego de la Vega into Zorro. Before Diego was innocent and naïve about his idea of justice and swordplay, however now that he has seen the consequences of being a hero he has become Zorro. The repetition of the word “blood” stands for the fate of Diego de la Vega that began even before he was born. Although the blood is that of his enemies, Zorro is so naïve and kind that he is horrified at the sight of blood drawn by his sword.

3. “Sudden wintry blasts penetrated to the bone, and chill winds kept them shivering beneath wet mantles. The horse, also affected by the cold, seemed phlegmatic. Nights were longer, the fog denser, their progress slower, the front heavier, and the journey more difficult, but the landscape was breathtakingly beautiful. Green and more green, hills of green velvet, enormous forests in every shade of green, rivers and waterfalls of crystalline emerald green water.” Allende uses a series of descriptive phrases separated by commas to convey the tremendous and numerous struggles which Diego and the de Romeo family experience during their march. The use of commas in this sentence structure serves to create a sense of both hopelessness and eternity. Furthermore Allende juxtaposes the group’s ongoing struggle with the beautiful landscape which surrounds them. In addition the repetition of the term “green” indicates two things; firstly it symbolizes rebirth, life, and hope and secondly it reinforces the theme of eternity in this sequence.

4. “Diego spent those forty hours in the open, tied up like a sausage, without food. The pirates took the medallion and what few coins her had in his pocket; they gave him a little water from time to time and a kick or two if he seemed too active.” Allende uses a simile to convey irony in this passage from Zorro. She says that Diego was “tied up like a sausage” but he himself was without food. Furthermore, the compassion with Diego to a sausage is humorous because he is described as being thin, muscular, and boney. The sausage also represents the pirates’ false impression of Diego being raised in luxury and being refined.

5. “Unless you are very inattentive readers, you have undoubtedly divided that the chronicler of this story is I, Isabel de Romeu. I am writing this thirty years after I met Deigo de la Vega in my father’s house in 1810, and many things have happened since then.” Allende directly addresses the audience in the closing statement of the book in some irony. Allende, the whimsical author who she is, has put herself in the story as one of the characters. It is ironic how she Isabel Allende is paralleled in the character of Isabel de Romeu. In doing so, Allende weaves the story as if it were her own and brings the audience into the fantastical world that she created around the legend of Zorro. With her notoriety of writing in magical realism Allende outdoes herself when she becomes part of that world.