In Chap­ter IV of “The Life of Lazaril­lo of Tormes,” the nar­ra­tive takes a dra­mat­ic turn as Lazaro recounts the unfore­seen chap­ter of his life in which fish­er­men, seiz­ing an oppor­tune moment, decid­ed to exhib­it him across Spain under the sanc­tion of the Inqui­si­tion. This deci­sion comes after Lazaro mirac­u­lous­ly sur­vives an encounter that he likens to the bib­li­cal sto­ry of Jon­ah and the whale, express­ing pro­found grat­i­tude towards divine inter­ven­tion for his unex­pect­ed deliv­er­ance. Notably lack­ing in swim­ming skills and knowl­edge for self-res­cue, Lazaro humor­ous­ly acknowl­edges his sheer luck in sur­viv­ing the ordeal.

The fish­er­men, resolved to recoup their loss­es, gain per­mis­sion from the min­is­ters of the Inqui­si­tion to parade Lazaro as a marine curios­i­ty, pre­sent­ing a nov­el spec­ta­cle to the Span­ish pop­u­lace. Dress­ing Lazaro in a man­ner that empha­sizes his bizarre ordeal—he is adorned with a mossy wig and beard, mak­ing him resem­ble a liv­ing stat­ue, wrapped in sea­weed to fur­ther accen­tu­ate his sup­posed aquat­ic origin—Lazaro becomes a sym­bol of both won­der and mis­for­tune. Dis­tressed by his cir­cum­stances, Lazaro philo­soph­i­cal­ly laments his fate, crit­i­ciz­ing for­tune for its cru­el and fick­le nature, ele­vat­ing men to dizzy­ing heights only to plunge them into the depths of despair.

His solil­o­quy on fate is abrupt­ly inter­rupt­ed by one of his cap­tors, who threat­ens him with even worse treat­ment should he con­tin­ue to protest or claim his human­i­ty. The fish­er­men are instruct­ed to take Lazaro through var­i­ous vil­lages and towns, pre­sent­ing him as a “mon­ster of nature” to the awe and curios­i­ty of the peo­ple. Despite Lazaro’s protests of his ordi­nary human nature and his insis­tence that his pres­ence in the ocean was mere­ly the result of an acci­dent, the fish­er­men dis­miss his pleas, firm­ly entrenched in their mis­sion to exploit his mis­for­tune for their own gain.

This chap­ter insight­ful­ly blends humor with a cri­tique of human nature and soci­ety’s fas­ci­na­tion with the extra­or­di­nary, encap­su­lat­ing Lazaro’s ongo­ing strug­gle with adver­si­ty, mis­for­tune, and the fick­le­ness of fate. Through Lazaro’s eyes, the read­er wit­ness­es the capri­cious­ness of human des­tiny, under­scored by the irony of his situation—a man turned into a spec­ta­cle, jour­ney­ing through Spain not as a vic­tor but as a vic­tim of cir­cum­stance.