El Matadero

They represent the masses, the people who submitted to the will of the government without presenting opposition. They go to the slaughterhouse without rebelling.

Crowds of black scavengers of achuras, like prey caracaras, disbanded through the city like so many other harpies ready to devour whatever they found edible (Simile).

Through this simile, which compares the women who are looking for achuras with caranchos, we can appreciate how the narrator seeks to highlight the state of animalization of an uneducated and violent society. On the other hand, he later compares them to harpies, beings from Greek mythology who had the faces of women and the bodies of birds of prey, and who, precisely, stole food.