Judith Butler oral format,Video lectures
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7bkFlJfxyF0
Thursday 19 January 2012
Critical Analysis Of Emmanuel Puig's Kiss of the Spider Woman
DC00385860
Assignment 1 Part 2: Critical
Analysis
I shall critically analyse ‘The
Kiss of The Spider Woman’ , from the subjective viewpoint of Postmodernism. I
shall investigate how metanarrative and simulation
are used within the text and how this creates a deconstructive narrative. I
shall also explore Judith Butler’s theory on performative gender in relation to
this textual analysis.
Before analysing this text it is
important to understand the political implications of how and when it was
written. It is in direct relevance to Manuel Puig’s novel of ‘The Buenos Aires Affair.’
(1973) This novel critiqued Peron and the government in Argentina which led to the
expulsion of Puig from his native country. As according to Esposito;
‘
In 1976, the military deposed Isabel and proceeded to institute one of the most
disastrous, terror-ridden military dictatorships of the twentieth century: a
regime that would make torture and kidnapping into instruments of policy, and
that would reportedly kill 30,000 of its own citizens in just seven years, a
period now known in Argentina as the Dirty War. (Esposito: 2010) Explicitly, ‘The Kiss of The
Spider Woman’ therefore has elements of an autobiographical and political
context, which shall be analyzed in the deconstruction of the text.
We are first drawn to two men who have been
exiled like Puig, from mainstream society and share a cell in a jail in Argentina. Equally
as with Puig, they are ostracized from society because of their political and
sexual preference and the fear of torture like the ‘dirty war’ is real; which takes the form of food poisoning
and mutilation of Valentin within the text. Molina is a gay window dresser, who
is in prison for sexual liaisons with a minor and Valentin, who is a political
prisoner, is anti- government. By using intertextuality we can identify Puig’s
real character with Valentin as he is valorizing his political ostracism from
society by Peron and with Molina by showing the marginal’s of a patriarchal society.
It is the friendship which develops between the men which is the core theme of
the story.
There is no narrative voice and changes in
voices are highlighted by a
dash (-). Dialogism is used to create the
fluidity of the story and to demonstrate the complex personalities of the individual
characters. Yet Dialogism, also gives the effect of reading the text as a play
which is further enforced by Molina’s ‘stream of consciousness as a monologue’
(Teorey:2010)
It
is through the hyperreality of film that both men travel to an escapist ideal away
from their cell and it is here that Molina’s monologue takes over.
Molina’s
stories are filled with images of old Hollywood black and white movies, which become
fiction presented within fiction; through intertextuality these become a
metanarrative; as Molina then proceeds to deconstruct the story by embodying
himself within the female stars of Hollywood.
As according to Bayona; ‘Puig develops the
idea of the Hollywood films as a metaphorical
displacement for Valentin and Molina as they identify or reject themselves with
the film’s characters. (Bayona:2009) This then also
questions
the simulation of the perfect image of Hollywood
movie stars and gender as a performance, which I shall critically analyze next
as a deconstructive text in chapter three.
Molina tells the story of French singer Leni
and her moral and political struggle in wartime Europe.
The occupation of the Nazis and freedom fighters is highlighted and creates a
pastiche with Peron and Puig's exile. He introduces gothic melodrama by
creating the ugly character ‘clubfoot’ and creates an air of romantic mystery with
Leni and a German officer. Through intertextuality, Molina is parodied with
Leni as the fallen heroine who betrays her lover, in comparison Molina helps
Valentin by betraying him too, to the prison guard, for information .Occupied France is a historgraphic metafiction that
ironically satires Peron’s dictatorship of Argentina. The soldiers; ‘Totally blond,
marvelous to look at.’ (Puig 1979:48) Puig is deconstructing the narrative, and
is exploring the political fascist ideals of Peron as according to Pigna, Peron
valorized thee ‘perfectly ordered community, true peoples democracy, the true
social democracy. (Pigna (2008) On initial reading it is easily to candidly
view Molina’s film speak as a right wing propaganda film, but the film must be
viewed as a simulation to understand it as a metanarrative.Puig simulates the Nazi
flag and blonde white idealism, as a parody of fascism in Spain and Argentina .The
music hall again suggests the intertextuality of a gothic film.
‘They’re
all made up black and when they kick they hold onto each other around the waist
and as the camera focuses on them they look like a line of African girls, with
skirts all made out of bananas, and nothing else, but then the cymbals clang
and they turn to the other side, and suddenly they’re blonde, and instead of
bananas they’re wearing little strips.’ (Puig 1979:50)
This
text works in two ways, firstly it deconstructs the narrative as according to
Barry; it is a ‘way of describing this would be to say deconstructive reading
uncovers the unconscious rather than the conscious dimensions of the text’.
(Barry
2009:65) On the theory of the unconscious, firstly black and blonde make us
examine binary divisions of race and the hegemonic racism of seeing and
accepting this hypereality as the norm, as the blonde as the dominant hegemonic
race. The scene is built up on the Heisenburg uncertainty principle (Waugh
1996:3) as we are observing through Molina’s eyes and his objectivity creates a
metanarrative within the film. Thus the mere fact that these binaries exist on
one person deconstructs the idea of racial difference and questions the
identity of a supreme race.
The
camera or picture is already deconstructing the narrative, therefore we are
first drawn to the binary oppositions of race within gender itself and Baudrillard’s idea of simulacra, is further heightened in the blonde white race as a mass media message
of the perfect race of Nazi Germany.
This simulated reality in opposition to the painted faces of African women
would be seen as degenerative, but ironically questions the oppression of women
by patriarchy and opens up the question of homophobia that is also present in
society.
Butler
reinforces this oppression;
“Bound
to seek recognition of its own existence in categories, terms, and names that
are not of its own making, the subject seeks the sign of its own existence
outside itself, in a discourse that is at once dominant and indifferent. Social
categories signify subordination and existence at once. In other words, within
subjection the price of existence is subordination.” (Butler :subjection)
Fundamentally
this text is not just examining race but also as a metanarrative by examining
the social subordination, of women and Puig’s own sexuality. It has absorbed a
pastiche of styles which is shown when Leni visits the German officer’s apartment. The medieval style architecture of
this scene, further creates a pastiche of a film embellished with another film,
a metanarrative. As according to Waugh it is when a text ‘poses questions about
its relationship to fiction.’ (Waugh 1996:2) By creating a gothic genre in this
scene, the text is questioning this relationship. The scene is totally gothicized
,from the white marble , to the ‘ white chiffon curtain billowing in the wind
like a ghost ,and the candles blow out, the only lighting.’
(Puig
1980:55)We are given ‘moonlight’ and the framing of Leni as a ‘Greek Amphora.’ suggesting
connotations of fecundity . (Puig 1996:55) This metanarrative is questioning
the relationship between ‘fiction and reality’ . (Waugh 1996:2) The metanarrative views the
scene as Molina as the director of a film, who valorizes Leni as tragic heroine
of gothic fiction. She has an air of mystery
and is with a German officer in Paris
at night; and the grounds around the ‘house seem silvery, black trees against
the gray sky, not blue, because the films in black and white.’(Puig 1996:55) It
is here that the metanarrative again questions what reality is and what fiction
is as we seem to be railroaded by a bad Hollywood B movie which is embellished
by Molina who sees himself as Leni. It is here that as according to Judith Butler;’
gender and sexuality are performative, rather than fixed or determined by
biology or nature: gender identity is performativeley constituted by the very
expressions that are said to be the result.’(Bennet&Royle 2009:223)It is
through the deconstruction of the narrative that Molina becomes performative as
Leni through the hypereality of film. Thus the narrative is driven back to the
cell and Molina talks of his waiter and homosexual love and desire. The importance
of the reality of the cell and Molina talking of his relationship with Valentin
is the initial setting for the footnotes.Valentin feels ‘curiosity’ and ‘I know
very little about people with your inclination .’ Puig is educating his reader into the social identity of homosexuality and when Molina says ; ‘That’s…how it is when it
comes to really deep feelings, at least I think so.’ (Puig 1996:59) He is
demonstrating his identity, as a clear
emotion and in his last interview with Ronald Christ ,Puig said ‘It does not
matter who you are but how you are.’(Christ 1977) Thus we are all human but are
driven by a desire for social and
sexual acceptance in society. The
footnotes are deconstructive ways of making the reader analyze homosexuality in
this particular chapter, a researcher; D.J.West explores the assumptions about homosexuality from the
causes, such as hormone imbalance, intersexuality, chromoseomes and finds his
research inconclusive. He analyses that homosexuality and heterosexuality are ‘roles acquired
through psychological conditioning, and not predetermined by endocrinal
factors.’ (Puig 1996:64)These footnotes create a revolutionary text as they
explore the political and social facts
of homosexuality and educate the reader .
In
conclusion, the text embodies many key theoretical devices used in
postmodernism. There is a political irony underlying the story as Puig creates ironical pastiche . It is a text
which uses hypereality, by fusing the films into reality and the footnotes
recreate the same principle later. Fundamentally it is a novel, which the
reader has to deconstruct and look closely at the
metanarratives
to understand its full meaning.
1000 Word Theoretical Analysis
DC00385860
Assignment 1: Part 1
Postmodernism,
is directly linked to the social and historical events after World War ll and
to the technological advancements in the
world. Firstly it rejects modernism and the Enlightenment’s theory on the
subject and self. Internet technology has increased the speed of communication
and created a global community. According To Jameson, he gives a ‘Marxist
analysis on postmodernism and is realistically stating that the 'contemporary
world reflects a new economy-post industrial capitalism.’ Jameson emphasizes
that a global economy is governed by ‘multinational corporations beyond
government control; which creates depthlessness, the image/simulacrum; and the weakening
of Historicity.’ (Jameson 1991) Thus technological advancement has created the
need for a new way of thinking; by drawing on these advancements; it rejects
modernist tendencies or creates extreme forms. ‘Postmodernist thought is
characterized by a principled skepticism about language, truth, causality,
history and subjectivity …it rejects New critism, critical theory and
Psychoanalysis.’ (Castle 2007:145) Yet according to Currie ‘Postmodernists maintain a
stance of incredulity with respect to master narratives ,the unifying and
totalizing discourses…Helgian and Marxian teleological narratives … embraces
the unpredictable …binary functions have little or no relevance to Postmodern
techniques…’ (Castle 2007:145)
What
is evident is that the linguistics, and semiotic methods of discourses are
still the same ,but language is being deconstructed and reanalyzed in terms of
intertextuality .As according to Castle ,‘The postmodern is caught up in the
presentation of the unpresentable,that which can be ignored, occluded or
repressed.’(Castle 2007:145) This is directly linked to Globalization, which is
directly linked to finance and technology and the worldwide fluidity of the
transfer of information and shall look at Baudrillard and his theory on
Simulations (1981) and of how mass media and globalization affect our perception
of reality. To begin with Baudrillard is examining how technology has created
multiple images, simulations of the real object. He is arguing that the
simulation of reality has taken over the distinction of the real. It is through
mass media that this simulation is made real and becomes a hyperreality within
culture and society globally. ‘The hypereal is the abolition of the real not by
violent distinction, but by its assumption elevation to the strength of the
model.' (Malpas 2005:93) Thus Baudrillard
argues in his work on ‘The Ecstasy of Communication’(1988)That a human has become so absorbed in information
and communication that they become ‘schizo’, in terms of that they are being
constantly subconsciously influenced by mass media and technology, that they
are unaware of this influence. Therefore they accept this hyperrealist as the norm.
The Precession of Simulacra is evidently referring to the way that a
simulacrum has preceded the real. A prime example of this is his example of how
Disneyland, ‘which exists in order to disguise the fact that it itself the
‘real’ America.’
(Castle 2007:200) Thus Disneyland has preceded
the real object and shows the precession of simulacra. I shall look at
Baudrillard and the hyper reality of films in my critical analysis later but
secondly I shall look at Derrida .Baudrillard is primarily concerned with the
visual concept of hyperreality while Derrida examines language and
deconstruction and how ‘it constitutes meaning through a lay of differences,
the slippage or ‘spacing’ of the signifier.’ (Castle2007:80)
In ‘Jacques
Derrida -Essay "Structure, Sign and Play in the Discourse of the Human
sciences"(1966) Derrida’s essay is questioning the idea of center, in order
makes us examine the concept of centering as a balance in a structured
environment. It is essentially asking the reader to deconstruct the text .This
process is looking for a new dimension in particular at reading texts .Social
and historical events in essence favour this concept as a new way of reading.
To look beyond the text is inevitably asking us to embrace intertextuality and the
metanarrative.Thus what this process does as according to Barry; it produces
'textual harassment' or 'oppositional reading'. in 'pursuance of its aims ,the
deconstruction process will often fix on a detail of the text which looks
incidental -the presence of a particular metaphor ,for instance and then
use it as the key to the whole text, so that everything is read through
it....The deconstructionist looks for evidence of gaps and discontinuities of
all kinds. '(Barry 2009:71) I shall investigate the three stages of
deconstructive practice later in my analysis and it will be in direct reference
to metafiction.
‘Metafiction
novels tend to be constructed on the principle of a fundamental and sustained opposition:
the construction of a fictional illusion and the laying bare of that illusion.
In other words, the lowest common denominator of metafiction is simultaneously
to create a fiction and to make a statement about the creation of that fiction.
The two processes are held together in a formal tension which breaks down the
distinction between 'creation' and 'criticism' and merges them into the
concepts of 'interpretations 'and 'deconstruction.' (Waugh 1996:6)Therefore
what this process is doing is making us look at postmodern narrative and how it
reflects on itself as a fictional text. In Puig’s novel it will become evident
that this process is making us examine the metadiscourse of what the underlying
statement of the text is about; here Puig’s fight is political and sexual
oppression. This is also directly linked to Judith Butlers work on ‘Gender as a
Performance.’ The performance in the text is absorbed in the hypereality of the
film clips in, The Kiss of a Spider Woman. In her paper Gender Trouble (1990:25)
she is arguing that: 'There is no gender identity behind the expressions of
gender; ... identity is performatively constituted by the very
"expressions" that are said to be its results.' (Butler 1990:25) Thus
she is arguing that gender is a performance which is essentially dictated by
the rules of society and how we should perform as the male and female sex in a
patriarchal hegemonic society. Butler argues that we all perform gender roles
and therefore reinforce this identity and she is asking us challenge this
identity .In Puig’s novel it shall be evident that this gender role is
challenged by Molina and ultimate the conversion of Valentin’s hard edged male identity.
I shall explore these theoretical concepts next in an analysis of Manuel Puig’s
novel, Kiss Of The Spider Woman.
Reference List
DC00385860
ENG 603
Referencing
1. Barry, P. ( 2009) Beginning Theory: An introduction
to literary and cultural theory.3rd ed.Manchester University
Press.U.K
2. Bennet, A &Royle, N. (2009) An Introduction to Literature,
Criticism and Theory.4th ed.Pearson Longman.U.K
3. Butler,
J (1997) The Psychic Life of Power:
Theories in Subjection. Stanford
University Press.
4. Castle, G. (2007) The Blackwell Guide to Literary Theory.
Blackwell Publishing. Australia.
5. Christ. (1991) A Last Interview With Manuel Puig.
(2003)Companion to Contemporary World Literature.Vol 1.
Twayne Publishers.N.Y.
6. Curium.(1995) Metafiction.Longman Group Ltd.N.Y.
7. Denby,M.(2011) Postmodernism, Historical and Critical Contexts.
8.
Malpas, S. (2005) The Postmodern: The Critical Idiom.Routledge.London.
9. Puig,M(1980) Kiss of the Spider Woman.Knopf.N.Y
10. Waugh, P. (1989) Feminine Fictions: Revisiting the postmodern.Routledge.U.K.
Internet Sources
12. Bayona, G, M, L. (2009) The Displacement of identities by a kiss in Puig's Kiss of The Spider Woman.spasmodicleotard.wordpress.com.
13. Butler, J. (1990) Gender
Trouble http://www.theory.org.uk/ctr-butl.htm
14. Christ, R. (1991)SOURCE: “A
Last Interview with Manuel Puig,” in World Literature Today, Vol. 65,
No. 4, Autumn, 1991, pp. 571-80.15. Episito,S. (2010)The Buenos Aires Affair - The Barnes & Noble Review
bnreview.barnesandnoble.com/t5/Reviews-Essays/The.../ba.../3175 -
16. Pigna, F. (2008) Los mitos de la
historia argentina 4.Buenos Aires.
Editorial Planeta.ISBN
978-950-49_1980-3.
17.Teorey,M.
(2010) Spinning a bigendered lie in Silkos and Puig’s Kiss of a Spider Woman. Source:
Comparative literature studies 47 no2010. pages 1-
www.drhanan.com/macomp/silko&puig.pdf
Bibliography
18.
Dunne, Michael. Dialogism in
Manuel Puig’s Kiss of the Spider Woman. South
Atlantic Review, Vol. 60 No. 2 (May 1995). South
Atlantic Modern Language Association. 08/01/2009
21:16
<
http://www.jstor.org/stable/3201304
>.
19. Post-structuralism
www.ap.krakow.pl/nkja/literature/theory/post-structuralism.htm
Wednesday 18 January 2012
Conclusion
blog analysis
The idea of this blog was to create an online secondary source base ,where I could build ideas and collect information for Assessment 1. This assessment outlined that I needed to understand the concept of postmodernism and to investigate theoretical sources about the subject.These were then to be applied to a close analysis of a set text. I chose to analyse Manuel Puig's The Kiss of The Spider Woman.I have tried to present the blog as a thinking diary and as a blog reader ,you can read the development of ideas and look at information within the blog itself.
I have looked at the learning outcomes and have interpreted what information is required in my final 2 assessments.I have analysed information from texts as well as using on line theoretical sources. I have also learnt that there is an abundance of theoretical information on postmodernism,but what is evidently important is ,using information that shall be relevant to the textual analysis of the Kiss of the Spider Woman.These are the main theoretical ideas I shall be using;
1.The concept of Modernism and what Postmodernism represents and why.
2.Baudrillard-Simulation and hyperreality and in particular the effect of mass media and its simulation of an ideal hegemonic society.
3.Baudrillard and counterarguments .I have looked at the work of Baudrillard and also his comparatives , Fukuyama and Derrida.I wanted to understand the ideology of Fukuyama as an opposition to Baudrillard and what is evident there is no real right or wrong in the deconstruction of a text only interpretation.
4.Derrida ;I have learnt Derrida's idea of centering is in essence about decentrering and looking at a text deconstructively instead of from a centered viewpoint.In other words a text needs to be deconstructed to understand the underlying meaning.This could be taken in the form of a metanarrative and even intertextuality.
5.Metafiction:This was an essential piece of theory as it helped me to understand ,the text and how deconstructed narratives ,highlight it as a piece of fiction as the writer is questioning the reality of his own work.Metanarrative and hyperreality become the fusion point in Puig's novel .
6.Judith Butler : The idea of gender as a performance as suggested by Butler ,makes me as a reader examine how much of this behaviour is underlined by patriarchy and the need to confirm.It shall also be investigated and applied to the final analysis.
7.Dialogism: This was an important pieces of reading, as it was evident in Puig's novel that it works to some extent like a play.As there is no narrative voice ,the reader has to rely on the speakers dialogue to understand and interpret events,which are reflected on by the reader.
8.Bayona's essay on The Kiss of The Spider Woman:This essay 'The Displacement of identities helped me understand Gender Performance and how I could analyse it from my own perspective using the text.
9.Theoretical analysis of 4 postmodern thinkers .(1000 word) Analysis and the social and historical understanding of postmodernism.
10.References -all books and journal articles used.
11. 1500 word textual analysis of the Kiss of the Spider woman.This is my critical analysis
of Chapter three of the text.I have used the theoretical concepts discussed in my blog and applied them to analysis as a secondary source.
I hope you enjoy this blog.
The idea of this blog was to create an online secondary source base ,where I could build ideas and collect information for Assessment 1. This assessment outlined that I needed to understand the concept of postmodernism and to investigate theoretical sources about the subject.These were then to be applied to a close analysis of a set text. I chose to analyse Manuel Puig's The Kiss of The Spider Woman.I have tried to present the blog as a thinking diary and as a blog reader ,you can read the development of ideas and look at information within the blog itself.
I have looked at the learning outcomes and have interpreted what information is required in my final 2 assessments.I have analysed information from texts as well as using on line theoretical sources. I have also learnt that there is an abundance of theoretical information on postmodernism,but what is evidently important is ,using information that shall be relevant to the textual analysis of the Kiss of the Spider Woman.These are the main theoretical ideas I shall be using;
1.The concept of Modernism and what Postmodernism represents and why.
2.Baudrillard-Simulation and hyperreality and in particular the effect of mass media and its simulation of an ideal hegemonic society.
3.Baudrillard and counterarguments .I have looked at the work of Baudrillard and also his comparatives , Fukuyama and Derrida.I wanted to understand the ideology of Fukuyama as an opposition to Baudrillard and what is evident there is no real right or wrong in the deconstruction of a text only interpretation.
4.Derrida ;I have learnt Derrida's idea of centering is in essence about decentrering and looking at a text deconstructively instead of from a centered viewpoint.In other words a text needs to be deconstructed to understand the underlying meaning.This could be taken in the form of a metanarrative and even intertextuality.
5.Metafiction:This was an essential piece of theory as it helped me to understand ,the text and how deconstructed narratives ,highlight it as a piece of fiction as the writer is questioning the reality of his own work.Metanarrative and hyperreality become the fusion point in Puig's novel .
6.Judith Butler : The idea of gender as a performance as suggested by Butler ,makes me as a reader examine how much of this behaviour is underlined by patriarchy and the need to confirm.It shall also be investigated and applied to the final analysis.
7.Dialogism: This was an important pieces of reading, as it was evident in Puig's novel that it works to some extent like a play.As there is no narrative voice ,the reader has to rely on the speakers dialogue to understand and interpret events,which are reflected on by the reader.
8.Bayona's essay on The Kiss of The Spider Woman:This essay 'The Displacement of identities helped me understand Gender Performance and how I could analyse it from my own perspective using the text.
9.Theoretical analysis of 4 postmodern thinkers .(1000 word) Analysis and the social and historical understanding of postmodernism.
10.References -all books and journal articles used.
11. 1500 word textual analysis of the Kiss of the Spider woman.This is my critical analysis
of Chapter three of the text.I have used the theoretical concepts discussed in my blog and applied them to analysis as a secondary source.
I hope you enjoy this blog.
Saturday 14 January 2012
Dialogism
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Essay on The kiss of The Spider Woman is love interest. Aside from attracting attention to the effects of media on the middle and lower class society, Manuel Puig as the plot maker, uses this opportunity to create some sort of unifying force for the two otherwise disparate characters. Through their constructive conversation on films, Valentin and Molina have found a connection even though they experience different realities and express different views on it. 1 dialogical—of relating to, or characterized by dialogue (Merriam-Webster). To set the story straight, both characters are born with a complete set of male anatomical parts. Luis Molina is a middle-aged homosexual who is jailed for sexually corrupting a minor. Valentin Arregui, on the other hand, is a young activist who is jailed for publicly demonstrating his opposition on the current government of Argentina. Aside from individual public (or private) denouncement of male ego and lack thereof, both characters also have different worldly views. Molina is the male homosexual who feels he is a woman and along with that feeling comes a need for self-expression through his favorite films. Valentin is the heterosexual leftist who expresses himself in rhetoric of Marxist ideology. Meanwhile, Puig used the prison cell as the setting for Kiss of the Spider Woman because it reflects the oppression in Argentine culture and the duo’s powerlessness against it (Tuss 3). The moment Molina and Valentin were confined in this tiny cell, they are isolated from the other inmates and from the prying eyes of social scrutiny. Puig develops the idea of the Hollywood films as a metaphorical displacement for Valentin and Molina as they identify or reject themselves with the film’s characters. In a way, the retelling of the movies has become a medium for exposing 2 somnambulism—an abnormal condition of sleep in which motor acts (as walking) are performed (Merriam-Webster). their selves to each other. To note, revealing their innermost feelings is something they would not do otherwise if they were not in that situation of isolation from the rest of the world. With this, Molina is seen as the heroine and Valentin as the male love interest. This identification process is mainly regarded through the readers’ point of view depending on the reader’s own identity. Barbara P. Fulks in the Reference Guide to World Literature (3rd Edition) accepts this notion and generalizes that the reader only sympathizes with the character he can understand clearly or someone whom he can relate to. Furthermore, that character elicits the reader’s sympathy mostly because of his or her gender and the reader’s ideology. But what if the reader is neither homosexual like Molina, nor heterosexual like Valentin? Would the reader still sympathize with any of the characters? The fact that Puig used a pair from the list of marginalized dichotomies as his protagonists creates the flaw in Fulks’ generalization. On Puig’s Style and Structure Robert Coover finds the way the novel is accomplished “not very innovative.” (Coover 15) Although the novel touches on the themes of repression and liberation, beauty versus goodness, strange or unusual women, somnambulism2, heroism, love, fear, change and “desire for Hollywood endings,” according to Coover, the homosexual is simply an old movie buff and that there is not much substance other than the film synopsis of Molina’s telling. Coover also criticizes the novel’s translation into English by Thomas Colchie. He finds the rendition fairly adequate yet seems stiff and hasty and, therefore, calls for a more relaxed revision seeing as Puig’s translated work fails to capture the author’s easy colloquial flow and the voices of the two very different protagonists are not distinguished. But based on a personal approach, Robert Coover is disagreeable on two accounts. The first is his denouncement of Puig’s employment of film in his subplots as “not very innovative.” The use of movies as a motif for his novels has become his trademark style and the very core of his fiction. Therefore the implementation of movies as the general theme is clearly distinct and something original. In the first chapter Coming Attractions, Jonathan Tittler analyzes how Puig changes his writing style from the traditional narrative of modern issues. Unlike Coover, he finds the use of mass-entertainment products as “innovative” since it eliminates the hierarchy of the narrative. This way, it also attacks the society and its power structures. Also, in chapter four titled Odd Coupling, Tittler contrasts homosexuality as a social practice and revolution as a political activity while film as a culture and writing itself. Dialogism in Manuel Puig’s Kiss of the Spider Woman analyzes the use of text and ideas in the novel. Here Michael Dunne defines the basic plot situation as “undeniably dialogic” while highlighting the symbolism of seemingly ordinary objects in the novel (Dunne 1). In doing so, he reveals the literal and figurative meanings of the materials to promote the overall thematic of Manuel Puig’s drama. In light of Holquist’s remarks, the author Puig can be seen to dialogically engage in political power like his characters (qtd. in Dunne 1). The main stylistic strategies of the novel consist of: overcoming boundaries of both the socio-political and aesthetic, meeting the other person as subjectivity equal to one’s own. In a school review, Teresa Ana San Pedro of Montclair State College comments that Puig’s style allows his readers to respond in an intellectual and creative manner (San Pedro 74). This comment is not efficient since the level of response in readers vary indelibly. How the audiences react to the play is dependent on their capacity to take in what the characters talk about. For instance, if the readers cannot relate to the subject matter because their exposure to such is limited, their reactions toward the play cannot be considered intellectual or creative in nature. Furthermore, there might not be room for an intellectual or creative response (as San Pedro puts it) to take place since Puig’s manner of writing seems confusing to begin with. Indeed Puig is a master of narrative craftsmanship, but Clara Claiborne Park reiterates that Kiss of the Spider Woman is no mere concoction. She points out that there is no exposition at all and that the dialogue must work hard not only to develop the characters but also to tell the story. On the overall plot of the story, Park concludes that “The relationship which has made Valentin more of a woman has made Molina more of a man, and we recognize both these changes as a gain” (Park 576). True, there is no exposition but Puig makes up for the details of an exposition by interweaving fabrics of Molina’s and Valentin’s identities into their conversations. The dialogue is efficient yet somewhat confusing still, especially if the reader is not familiar with the films that Molina mentions. This may be what Park refers to as she stresses that the dialogue needs improvement. Michael Wood shares that Kiss of the Spider Woman is an example of Latin American fiction with a new stance, angle, tone, twist, and mode of narrative. “Movies are not true to its dreams of glamour it is usually associated with but to the emptiness and solitude the dreams are supposed to disguise” (Wood 43). Mr. Wood finds it a slightly more cheerful work compared to The Buenos Aires Affair because it concentrates more on the hidden truths rather than the acts of hiding that the main character in the other novel did. Puig is especially interested in the notion that homosexuals imitate the defects of heterosexuality. On another note, the plots are actually deeper than what they appear to be. As Valentin begins to appreciate the stories of the heroines and villains in the movies that Molina fabricate, he finds himself not only enjoying them as Molina does he gradually comes to see the rags of humanity in these tales—something that his extremist Marxism could not have taught him. In the end, after Molina and Valentin shares the kiss, Puig manages to reel away the story from becoming one of Molina’s romantic movies. The author avoids too much sentimentality by concocting something unpredictable and ends it that way. On Novel Content Raymond Williams finds a connection between Kiss of the Spider Woman and Manuel Puig’s other novel, Pubis Angelical, which is in both cases his characters deal with the sexuality of politics and the politics of sex (Williams 70). William Herrick exploits that Manuel Puig is a Marxist as he is Freudian: “Young people who embrace Marxism often find within it their means to deny the necessity for any further exploration of their psyche” (Herrick 1). The values that Valentin has learned in Marxist ideology have somewhat encapsulated his thoughts. Puig is an artist, though, and his portrait of two men grappling with their suffering is “exceedingly moving” and “brilliantly done”. In a review Allen Josephs finds that Kiss of the Spider Woman as in the previous experiments that Manuel Puig made in his other novels, things are not as simple as they first seem. The mutual fantasies and dreams begin to create a subconscious bridge between the unlikely psychic castaways Mr. Ramirez and Larry in Puig’s Eternal Curse on the Reader of These Pages. This ability to connect polar personalities with a mutual means is also seen in Kiss of the Spider Woman. Josephs adds that Puig’s characteristic ‘virtuosity’ has not failed him and because of this, devotees of psychological fiction will no doubt appreciate his work (Josephs 9). However, the novels reliance on psychology and too much dialogue are more reminiscent of the theater of the absurd than of his earlier passionately Latin ones. Like the characters in Eternal Curse on the Reader of These Pages, the fates that Valentin and Molina eventually met reveal the sad truth about life in Argentina. As Gilbert Sorrentino views it, Kiss of the Spider Woman is developed almost entirely as a splintered colloquy3 between two unlikely companions. It is also a “structural failure,” very much like his previous novel, and pretty much for the same reason: the conclusion comments on and ‘explains’ the otherwise mysterious text. In doing, Sorrentino believes that Manuel Puig has sabotaged the richly ambivalent nature that the author has strung up until that point altogether dispersing the aura of distinction that had stirred up in the dialogical plot. It is as if, as Sorrentino puts it, Puig had lost his nerve and decided to serve his general audience what they have had before. In this case, he gives them a book that “before it is read by anyone…been read by everyone” (Sorrentino 1). This critique also admits that “it’s too bad” since Puig does have something to show and tell from his wonderful sense that the essential element of life is its serious “things.” But most of these are already considered as impartial ingredients of the daily forms of drama such as soap opera, sitcoms, and B-movies. Thus, his novels fail because Puig holds his content or the core substance of his stories simply as it were, a set of ideas. Eroticism and its Environment In A Last Interview with Manuel Puig, Ronald Christ assimilates one of the main topics of the novel which is: “Can people change their eroticism after a certain age?” Manuel Puig believes it is impossible, saying “those sexual fantasies have crystallized during our adolescence and imprison you forever.” (Christ 850). In that cell, there are two men but Christ finds that it “is just a plaque on the surface.” What the characters are, therefore, are two men and two women. Quoting Theodore Roszack, “the woman most desperately in need of liberation is the woman every man has locked up in the dungeons of his own psyche.” This applies greatly to the stoic Valentin who at first does not feel comfortable with the idea of a discourse on his sexual identity. Molina, on the other hand, uses the melodramatic possibilities offered to him by the new times. He takes the opportunity to become the underground heroine in real life. Molina’s homosexuality is a product of the revolutionary. It is during this new age that everything feels more liberated but still confined, though subtly, within social norms and expectations. The general regard on sexuality is greatly influenced by social gender than biological sex. The first one is viewed as the way people see it as a daily norm that guides how males and females should particularly act or behave as opposed to the latter where they are just given what they are naturally born with. In other words a man is a man because he acts like one and not that he is born with a physical anatomy of a man. But gender is not simply the natural consequence of anatomy as nature planned. It is a large social construction of patterns “we adopt, scripts we read, movie roles we imitate” (Zimmerman 3). Shari Zimmerman shares that Kiss of the Spider Woman is something that invites us to imagine identity in a new perspective, to ‘escape the web of gender.’ Great Latin American literature enlists Manuel Puig along the pages with José Donoso, Carlos Fuentes, Severo Sarduy, Mario Vargas Llosa, and Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Although Puig’s fiction is greatly simulated by political and social tensions in Latin America, he and his contemporaries show commonalities: experimentation with the literary form, concern with unconscious and irrational forces of human life and lastly, portraying the lower classes of Latin America. Manuel Puig’s works are mostly narrative but some of his contemporary works reveal a dialogic medium. This tactic allows individuals to supplant emotions with their film counterparts, providing the room for readers to relate with the characters in retail fiction. However bold his ideas are, Puig’s plots (as in Kiss of the Spider Woman) cannot help but resemble clichéd serials and detective stories. On one hand, most critics do find Puig’s treatment of complex issues like politics, sexual power, homosexuality, and violence as superficial. But generally, his works are regarded as insightful and moving (CLC: Vol. XXVIII 369). Character Dichotomies Kiss of the Spider Woman creatively illustrates the ways in which the customs of authority and the socially-induced modes of thinking shape and inhibit individual experiences. In this novel, the author Puig focuses on the restricted psychosexual identities of the two men. Shari Zimmerman of Hofstra University incorporates the scripted piece as a means through which the two men, Molina and Valentin, “read each other, reveal themselves, become friends, and finally lovers.” (Zimmerman 3) Aside from this, Zimmerman considers the work as an exploration of traditional male behavior and customs. The novel also provides a critique of male and female patterns that challenge biological sex and gender issues. Critics David Bost and Jonathan Tittler concluded that Puig’s purpose in creating his most famous work Kiss of the Spider Woman is to give voice and mainstream for the acceptance of the previously marginalized groups (Drozdo 1). Despite the fact that Manuel Puig particularly chose a homosexual and a political revolutionary as his main protagonists, his goal is much more universal. Puig simply uses the two as representatives of the other unprivileged groups. The most prevalent dichotomies of Western civilization: man/woman, good/evil, heterosexual/homosexual etc. One half of the dichotomy necessarily relies in the other for its definition. According to Derrida, “they are distinguished simply as the two faces of one and the same leaf.” Therefore, there is no difference between the signified and the signifier (Derrida 23). According to critics Maria Mercedes Velasco, Elias Miguel Muñoz, and Fernando Reati, there is a strong binary system incorporated in Kiss of the Spider Woman (Drozdo 1). Both characters, Molina and Valentin, have different ideologies that they developed individually. With this in mind, Maria Mercedes Velasco argues that the characters of Molina and Valentin show a “projection of Marianism and masculinity” (Velasco) by directing their identities through stereotyping Woman. She proposes the existence of a dichotomy of man and woman within the novel. She believes that the acceptance of this binary system, wherein masculinity and femininity is defined and entwined, provides a sense of wholeness or completeness within the novel. Meanwhile, Elias Miguel Muñoz proposes that Manuel Puig entertains the idea of dual-centered ideology: “by the end of the novel, Valentin has liberated the ‘woman’ whom he carries inside of him.” This ideology presents the possibility of Puig’s Utopian liberation wherein the possibility of a new sexual being is entertained. However, Steffany Drozdo disagrees with these two critics saying, “it is precisely these two binary ideological structures that Puig destroys in Kiss of the Spider Woman.” The two critics say that Puig uses the dichotomies to create a totality that harmonizes, incorporates, and equalizes both parties. However, in Deconstruction of Binary Ideological Structures in Manuel Puig’s Kiss of the Spider Woman, Steffany Drozdo argues that it is precisely this structure that Puig destroys in his novel. In Kiss of the Spider Woman, both Molina and Valentin accept the ‘inadequate’ meaning of the other’s ideology. Valentin, a heterosexual, enters into a homosexual union with Molina without ‘becoming’ a homosexual. Molina, although uninterested in political subversion, agrees to take part in Valentin’s political activity without actually subscribing to his particular ideology. This is one ambiguity present with regard to all violent hierarchies: the actions of both men contradict their personal identities and beliefs. (Drozdo 6) Homosexuality and heterosexuality, being a popular and prevalent dichotomy in society, both depend on each other for their definition. Generally, one is defined by using the other. This is similar to the character Valentin as he reveals his inner self in order present a sexual identity that contrasts that of Molina’s. In a sense, it is by defining Molina’s homosexuality that Valentin’s heterosexuality is contrasted and then revealed. The analysis of social dichotomies is where the aforementioned Freudian views on sexuality are blurred. In a sense, the characterization of man defines the woman and consequently, the homosexual to the heterosexual. Puig did not implement a specific date for the setting of Kiss of the Spider Woman because this way allows the reader to expound on the “universality” of the novel—that it can happen anywhere or any time since it also reflects similar events and situations worldwide. It also creates an atmosphere of a possibility of it happening to people outside Argentina (Drozdo 4). “In fact, the ultimate coupling of Molina and Valentin and the aftermath of their union symbolically destroy each of these dichotomies” (Drozdo 4). Their unity and oneness in the end is the catalyst that Puig used in order to “destroy” the limitations conditioned by each of their social norms. This very act of defiance is the main basis that Steffany Drozdo expounded on for her argument in Deconstruction of Binary Ideological Structures. Valentin and Molina represent different hierarchies that their individual environments have formed them to take part in. Ultimately, their union is an act of defiance to the society that shaped what they were before the aftermath of the kiss. “In the end it is impossible to discern not only that which is homosexual or heterosexual, but also that which is masculine and feminine, as gender becomes confused and as the merger of Molina and Marta (the woman) creates a new sexual being” (Drozdo 6). This is very much connected to the aforementioned thesis statement: the Freudian view on sexuality is so roughly described that no definition can fully capture the essence of the new sexuality that has merged. ) Furthermore, reality and fantasy become so intertwined that it becomes impossible to delineate and, consequently, define either one. The film or movie aspect that Puig implemented in his writing style resurfaces in the ending as Valentin had a dream of Molina carrying Marta inside him (qtd. in World Literature 798). “Puig proposes that the irrational state is a closer approximation of reality than the rational state, because binary systems falsely perpetuate oppressive dichotomies. Ambiguity…enables the reader to find and consider a new dialectic” (Drozdo 7). It is not by placing one half of the dichotomy to a position of superiority and the other half below it, rather by deconstructing each of the elements of the dichotomy. In doing so, Puig dissects the inner substance of an unprivileged, marginalized group to help the reader redefine the group. Consequently, the identity that the group has taken place is not affiliated with the dichotomy it is arranged with as Velasco argues. Norman Lavers (1988) attests that Puig’s greatest artistic achievement in Kiss of the Spider Woman is shown in the structure of the novel and that the conversations between the two protagonists contain much of the bulk of the narrative (Tuss 1). The vagueness of the stand on homosexuality contributes to the inability of most to define and differentiate it with other sexes. Furthermore, the lovemaking scene is the part where they “exchange” selves. The scene also paves the way for the characters’ transcendence into what Valentin describes as an “existence without oppression” (qtd. in World Literature 775). This becomes another act of social defiance to achieve liberation from their individual identity. In a sense, to fully understand the multi-faceted characters in Manuel Puig’s Kiss of the Spider Woman, one must involve in a deconstruction of their identities. Essentially, Manuel Puig has a desire to deconstruct the culture that enforces its conceptions on everything from political dissent to sexual conduct to conventional gender roles. In doing so, he manages to displace the identities of his characters rather than ratify them in the binary system of dichotomies that the critic Velasco presents. Finally, this desire was accomplished with the aid of his writing styles in a non-narrative form with dialogical content and the allegorical reference to Hollywood movies into his plot—a stratagem which he ultimately sealed with a kiss. WORKS CITED An Encyclopedia of Gay Histories and Cultures. NY: Garland Publishing, Inc. 2000: 69-71 Encyclopedia of Latin American History. NY: Bobbs-Merrill Co., Inc.1968: 22-25, 260-263 New Encyclopedia Britannica Vol.9:791 Allen, Bruce. The Hudson Review Vol. XXVII, No. 1. The Hudson Review, Inc. Spring, 1974. Alter, Robert. The New York Times Book Review. New York Times Company. 5 September 1976. Christ, Ronald. A Last Interview With Manuel Puig (1991). Companion to Contemporary World Literature, Vol. 1. NY: Twayne Publishers, 2003: 846-849. —-. Fact and Fiction. Review 73. Center for Inter-American Relations, Inc. 1972. Fall, 1973: 49-54. Common Complaint. The Times Literary Supplement. USA: The Times Newspaper Ltd. 31 Aug. 1973: 1007. Clemons, Walter. Rev. of Kiss of the Spider Woman, by Manuel Puig. Newsweek, Inc., 1971. 25 Oct. 1971 Coover, Robert. Old, New, Borrowed, Blue. New York Times Book Review. April 22, 1979: 15-31. De Feo, Ronald. Laying the Evidence. National Review. NY: National Review, Inc. Vol. XXVII, No. 41. 29 October 1976: 1194-1195. Drozdo, Steffany. The Deconstruction of Binary Ideological Structures in Manuel Puig’s Kiss of the Spider Woman. University of Kent. Dunne, Michael. Dialogism in Manuel Puig’s Kiss of the Spider Woman. South Atlantic Review, Vol. 60 No. 2 (May 1995). South Atlantic Modern Language Association. 08/01/2009 21:16 < http://www.jstor.org/stable/3201304 >. Fulks, Barbara P. Kiss of the Spider Woman (El beso de la mujer araña) Novel by Manuel Puig, 1976. Reference Guide to World Literature Vol. 2. USA: Thomson and Gale 2003: 1341. Gallagher, David P. in Modern Latin American Literature. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1973. —-. New York Times Book Review. NY: New York Times Book Review, 1973. 16 Dec 1973: 14-15. Herrick, William. Alienated Within and Without. The New Leader © 1982 by the American Labor Conference on International Affairs Inc., Vol. LXV, No. 13. June 28, 1982: 19-20. Levine, Suzanne Jill. Manuel Among the Stars (Exit Laughing) (1991). A Companion to Contemporary World Literature, Vol. 1. NY: Twayne Publishers, 2003: 856. Mendelson, Phyllis Carmel and Riley, Carolyn., ed. Contemporary Literary Criticism Volume 5. Michigan: Gale Research CO., 1976: 354-356. Merrim, Stephanie. For a New (Psychological) Novel in the Works of Manuel Puig. NOVEL: A Forum on Fiction, Vol. 12 No. 2 (Winter, 1984) pp. 141-157. Novel Corp., Brown University. 08/01/2009 21:22 . Mirsky, Mark Jay. Three to Tango. Book World—the Washington Post. 25 November 1973: 1. Park, Sarah Claiborne. A Review of “Kiss of the Spider Woman,” in the Hudson Review Vol. XXXII No. 4. NY: Hudson Review, Inc. (Winter 1979-1980): 575-577. Riley, Carolyn., ed. Contemporary Literary Criticism Vol. 3. Michigan: Gale Research Co., 1974: 407-408. San Pedro, Teresa Ana. On Manuel Puig by Jonathan Tittler. Hispania Vol. 77 No.1 (March 1994): 74-75. Sorrentino, Gilbert. South American Fantasy, Obsession, and Soap Opera: ‘Eternal Curse on the Reader of These Pages’. Book World: The Washington Post, August 1989. American Association of Teachers of Spanish and Portuguese. pp. 1-2. 08/01/2009 21:24 . Tuss, Alex. Deconstructing and Reconstructing Masculinity in Manuel Puig’s Kiss of the Spider Woman. Men’s Studies Press. 22 March 2000 01/2009 . Williams, Raymond L. PUIG, Manuel. Encyclopedia of World Literature in the 20th Century Vol. 3: L-R. St. James Press, 1999: 610-611. Williams, Raymond L. A Review of “Pubis Angelical”. World Literature Today Vol. 55 No.1, Winter 1981: 70. Wood, Michael. “The Claims of Mischief”. The New York Review of Books Vol. XXVI Nos. 21 and 22. January 24, 2009: 43-47. Zimmerman, Shari. Kiss of the Spider Woman and the Web of Gender. Pacific Coast Philology, Vol. 23 No. ½ (Nov. 1988). Pacific Coast Ancient and Modern Language Association. 08/01/2009 21:19 < http://www.jstor.org/stable/1316690>. WORKS CONSULTED Borinsky, Alicia. Castration: Artifices, Notes on the Writing of Manuel Pug. The Georgia Review. ( ©1975 University of Georgia) Spring, 1975: 95-114. Byfonski, Dedria., ed. Contemporary Literary Criticism Vol. 10. Michigan: Gale Research Co., 1974: 420. Filer, Malva. Manuel Puig: Cae la Noche Tropical. Companion to Contemporary World Literature, Vol. 2. 1990: a Selection of Book Reviews, 1977-2001. NY: Twayne Publishers, 2003: 1599. Krisman, Claire, ed. Contemporary Authors Volumes 45-48. Detroit, Michigan: Gale Research Company, 1974. 435. Stine, Jean ,. Gale Res
THE DISPLACEMENT OF IDENTITIES BY A KISS IN PUIG’S SPIDER WOMAN
By Leslie Marie G. Bayona, EN12 R17
Argumentative Research Paper No. 1, February 9, 2009
Manuel Puig showcases the dialogical1 conflict between Molina’s sexual tensions and Valentin’s political desires in Kiss of the Spider Woman
to reflect the brutality of Argentine military regimes in that era in
light of questions regarding homosexuality and the stand between
individualism and the state.Argumentative Research Paper No. 1, February 9, 2009
The intrusion of films into Molina and Valentin’s conversations permeates through various literary levels. Firstly, it reflects Manuel Puig’s style of writing—he liberally sprinkles his plays with profuse references to mass entertainment products: these symbolize Molina’s obsession with fiction; his means of escaping the boredom of reality. Throughout the play, Molina shares his fantasy by narrating to Valentin the movie plots and describing the characters. In the process of doing so, his imagination flows freely, making up some of the details while adding his own characters. As they discuss the film, Molina envisions himself as the heroine in one of those cinemas and Valentin as his love interest. Aside from attracting attention to the effects of media on the middle and lower class society, Manuel Puig as the plot maker, uses this opportunity to create some sort of unifying force for the two otherwise disparate characters. Through their constructive conversation on films, Valentin and Molina have found a connection even though they experience different realities and express different views on it.
1 dialogical—of relating to, or characterized by dialogue (Merriam-Webster). |
Puig develops the idea of the Hollywood films as a metaphorical displacement for Valentin and Molina as they identify or reject themselves with the film’s characters. In a way, the retelling of the movies has become a medium for exposing
2 somnambulism—an abnormal condition of sleep in which motor acts (as walking) are performed (Merriam-Webster). |
On Puig’s Style and Structure
Robert Coover finds the way the novel is accomplished “not very innovative.” (Coover 15) Although the novel touches on the themes of repression and liberation, beauty versus goodness, strange or unusual women, somnambulism2, heroism, love, fear, change and “desire for Hollywood endings,” according to Coover, the homosexual is simply an old movie buff and that there is not much substance other than the film synopsis of Molina’s telling. Coover also criticizes the novel’s translation into English by Thomas Colchie. He finds the rendition fairly adequate yet seems stiff and hasty and, therefore, calls for a more relaxed revision seeing as Puig’s translated work fails to capture the author’s easy colloquial flow and the voices of the two very different protagonists are not distinguished. But based on a personal approach, Robert Coover is disagreeable on two accounts. The first is his denouncement of Puig’s employment of film in his subplots as “not very innovative.” The use of movies as a motif for his novels has become his trademark style and the very core of his fiction. Therefore the implementation of movies as the general theme is clearly distinct and something original. In the first chapter Coming Attractions, Jonathan Tittler analyzes how Puig changes his writing style from the traditional narrative of modern issues. Unlike Coover, he finds the use of mass-entertainment products as “innovative” since it eliminates the hierarchy of the narrative. This way, it also attacks the society and its power structures. Also, in chapter four titled Odd Coupling, Tittler contrasts homosexuality as a social practice and revolution as a political activity while film as a culture and writing itself.
Dialogism in Manuel Puig’s Kiss of the Spider Woman analyzes the use of text and ideas in the novel. Here Michael Dunne defines the basic plot situation as “undeniably dialogic” while highlighting the symbolism of seemingly ordinary objects in the novel (Dunne 1). In doing so, he reveals the literal and figurative meanings of the materials to promote the overall thematic of Manuel Puig’s drama. In light of Holquist’s remarks, the author Puig can be seen to dialogically engage in political power like his characters (qtd. in Dunne 1). The main stylistic strategies of the novel consist of: overcoming boundaries of both the socio-political and aesthetic, meeting the other person as subjectivity equal to one’s own.
In a school review, Teresa Ana San Pedro of Montclair State College comments that Puig’s style allows his readers to respond in an intellectual and creative manner (San Pedro 74). This comment is not efficient since the level of response in readers vary indelibly. How the audiences react to the play is dependent on their capacity to take in what the characters talk about. For instance, if the readers cannot relate to the subject matter because their exposure to such is limited, their reactions toward the play cannot be considered intellectual or creative in nature. Furthermore, there might not be room for an intellectual or creative response (as San Pedro puts it) to take place since Puig’s manner of writing seems confusing to begin with.
Indeed Puig is a master of narrative craftsmanship, but Clara Claiborne Park reiterates that Kiss of the Spider Woman is no mere concoction. She points out that there is no exposition at all and that the dialogue must work hard not only to develop the characters but also to tell the story. On the overall plot of the story, Park concludes that “The relationship which has made Valentin more of a woman has made Molina more of a man, and we recognize both these changes as a gain” (Park 576). True, there is no exposition but Puig makes up for the details of an exposition by interweaving fabrics of Molina’s and Valentin’s identities into their conversations. The dialogue is efficient yet somewhat confusing still, especially if the reader is not familiar with the films that Molina mentions. This may be what Park refers to as she stresses that the dialogue needs improvement.
Michael Wood shares that Kiss of the Spider Woman is an example of Latin American fiction with a new stance, angle, tone, twist, and mode of narrative. “Movies are not true to its dreams of glamour it is usually associated with but to the emptiness and solitude the dreams are supposed to disguise” (Wood 43). Mr. Wood finds it a slightly more cheerful work compared to The Buenos Aires Affair because it concentrates more on the hidden truths rather than the acts of hiding that the main character in the other novel did. Puig is especially interested in the notion that homosexuals imitate the defects of heterosexuality. On another note, the plots are actually deeper than what they appear to be. As Valentin begins to appreciate the stories of the heroines and villains in the movies that Molina fabricate, he finds himself not only enjoying them as Molina does he gradually comes to see the rags of humanity in these tales—something that his extremist Marxism could not have taught him. In the end, after Molina and Valentin shares the kiss, Puig manages to reel away the story from becoming one of Molina’s romantic movies. The author avoids too much sentimentality by concocting something unpredictable and ends it that way.
On Novel Content
Raymond Williams finds a connection between Kiss of the Spider Woman and Manuel Puig’s other novel, Pubis Angelical, which is in both cases his characters deal with the sexuality of politics and the politics of sex (Williams 70). William Herrick exploits that Manuel Puig is a Marxist as he is Freudian: “Young people who embrace Marxism often find within it their means to deny the necessity for any further exploration of their psyche” (Herrick 1). The values that Valentin has learned in Marxist ideology have somewhat encapsulated his thoughts. Puig is an artist, though, and his portrait of two men grappling with their suffering is “exceedingly moving” and “brilliantly done”.
In a review Allen Josephs finds that Kiss of the Spider Woman as in the previous experiments that Manuel Puig made in his other novels, things are not as simple as they first seem. The mutual fantasies and dreams begin to create a subconscious bridge between the unlikely psychic castaways Mr. Ramirez and Larry in Puig’s Eternal Curse on the Reader of These Pages. This ability to connect polar personalities with a mutual means is also seen in Kiss of the Spider Woman. Josephs adds that Puig’s characteristic ‘virtuosity’ has not failed him and because of this, devotees of psychological fiction will no doubt appreciate his work (Josephs 9). However, the novels reliance on psychology and too much dialogue are more reminiscent of the theater of the absurd than of his earlier passionately Latin ones. Like the characters in Eternal Curse on the Reader of These Pages, the fates that Valentin and Molina eventually met reveal the sad truth about life in Argentina.
As Gilbert Sorrentino views it, Kiss of the Spider Woman is developed almost entirely as a splintered colloquy3 between two unlikely companions. It is also a “structural failure,” very much like his previous novel, and pretty much for the same reason: the conclusion comments on and ‘explains’ the otherwise mysterious text. In doing, Sorrentino believes that Manuel Puig has sabotaged the richly ambivalent nature that the author has strung up until that point altogether dispersing the aura of distinction that had stirred up in the dialogical plot. It is as if, as Sorrentino puts it, Puig had lost his nerve and decided to serve his general audience what they have had before. In this case, he gives them a book that “before it is read by anyone…been read by everyone” (Sorrentino 1). This critique also admits that “it’s too bad” since Puig does have something to show and tell from his wonderful sense that the essential element of life is its serious “things.” But most of these are already considered as impartial ingredients of the daily forms of drama such as soap opera, sitcoms, and B-movies. Thus, his novels fail because Puig holds his content or the core substance of his stories simply as it were, a set of ideas.
Eroticism and its Environment
In A Last Interview with Manuel Puig, Ronald Christ assimilates one of the main topics of the novel which is: “Can people change their eroticism after a certain age?” Manuel Puig believes it is impossible, saying “those sexual fantasies have crystallized during our adolescence and imprison you forever.” (Christ 850). In that cell, there are two men but Christ finds that it “is just a plaque on the surface.” What the characters are, therefore, are two men and two women. Quoting Theodore Roszack, “the woman most desperately in need of liberation is the woman every man has locked up in the dungeons of his own psyche.” This applies greatly to the stoic Valentin who at first does not feel comfortable with the idea of a discourse on his sexual identity. Molina, on the other hand, uses the melodramatic possibilities offered to him by the new times. He takes the opportunity to become the underground heroine in real life. Molina’s homosexuality is a product of the revolutionary. It is during this new age that everything feels more liberated but still confined, though subtly, within social norms and expectations.
The general regard on sexuality is greatly influenced by social gender than biological sex. The first one is viewed as the way people see it as a daily norm that guides how males and females should particularly act or behave as opposed to the latter where they are just given what they are naturally born with. In other words a man is a man because he acts like one and not that he is born with a physical anatomy of a man. But gender is not simply the natural consequence of anatomy as nature planned. It is a large social construction of patterns “we adopt, scripts we read, movie roles we imitate” (Zimmerman 3). Shari Zimmerman shares that Kiss of the Spider Woman is something that invites us to imagine identity in a new perspective, to ‘escape the web of gender.’
Great Latin American literature enlists Manuel Puig along the pages with José Donoso, Carlos Fuentes, Severo Sarduy, Mario Vargas Llosa, and Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Although Puig’s fiction is greatly simulated by political and social tensions in Latin America, he and his contemporaries show commonalities: experimentation with the literary form, concern with unconscious and irrational forces of human life and lastly, portraying the lower classes of Latin America. Manuel Puig’s works are mostly narrative but some of his contemporary works reveal a dialogic medium. This tactic allows individuals to supplant emotions with their film counterparts, providing the room for readers to relate with the characters in retail fiction. However bold his ideas are, Puig’s plots (as in Kiss of the Spider Woman) cannot help but resemble clichéd serials and detective stories. On one hand, most critics do find Puig’s treatment of complex issues like politics, sexual power, homosexuality, and violence as superficial. But generally, his works are regarded as insightful and moving (CLC: Vol. XXVIII 369).
Character Dichotomies
Kiss of the Spider Woman creatively illustrates the ways in which the customs of authority and the socially-induced modes of thinking shape and inhibit individual experiences. In this novel, the author Puig focuses on the restricted psychosexual identities of the two men. Shari Zimmerman of Hofstra University incorporates the scripted piece as a means through which the two men, Molina and Valentin, “read each other, reveal themselves, become friends, and finally lovers.” (Zimmerman 3) Aside from this, Zimmerman considers the work as an exploration of traditional male behavior and customs. The novel also provides a critique of male and female patterns that challenge biological sex and gender issues.
Critics David Bost and Jonathan Tittler concluded that Puig’s purpose in creating his most famous work Kiss of the Spider Woman is to give voice and mainstream for the acceptance of the previously marginalized groups (Drozdo 1). Despite the fact that Manuel Puig particularly chose a homosexual and a political revolutionary as his main protagonists, his goal is much more universal. Puig simply uses the two as representatives of the other unprivileged groups. The most prevalent dichotomies of Western civilization: man/woman, good/evil, heterosexual/homosexual etc. One half of the dichotomy necessarily relies in the other for its definition. According to Derrida, “they are distinguished simply as the two faces of one and the same leaf.” Therefore, there is no difference between the signified and the signifier (Derrida 23).
According to critics Maria Mercedes Velasco, Elias Miguel Muñoz, and Fernando Reati, there is a strong binary system incorporated in Kiss of the Spider Woman (Drozdo 1). Both characters, Molina and Valentin, have different ideologies that they developed individually. With this in mind, Maria Mercedes Velasco argues that the characters of Molina and Valentin show a “projection of Marianism and masculinity” (Velasco) by directing their identities through stereotyping Woman. She proposes the existence of a dichotomy of man and woman within the novel. She believes that the acceptance of this binary system, wherein masculinity and femininity is defined and entwined, provides a sense of wholeness or completeness within the novel.
Meanwhile, Elias Miguel Muñoz proposes that Manuel Puig entertains the idea of dual-centered ideology: “by the end of the novel, Valentin has liberated the ‘woman’ whom he carries inside of him.” This ideology presents the possibility of Puig’s Utopian liberation wherein the possibility of a new sexual being is entertained. However, Steffany Drozdo disagrees with these two critics saying, “it is precisely these two binary ideological structures that Puig destroys in Kiss of the Spider Woman.”
The two critics say that Puig uses the dichotomies to create a totality that harmonizes, incorporates, and equalizes both parties. However, in Deconstruction of Binary Ideological Structures in Manuel Puig’s Kiss of the Spider Woman, Steffany Drozdo argues that it is precisely this structure that Puig destroys in his novel.
In Kiss of the Spider Woman, both Molina and Valentin accept the ‘inadequate’ meaning of the other’s ideology. Valentin, a heterosexual, enters into a homosexual union with Molina without ‘becoming’ a homosexual. Molina, although uninterested in political subversion, agrees to take part in Valentin’s political activity without actually subscribing to his particular ideology. This is one ambiguity present with regard to all violent hierarchies: the actions of both men contradict their personal identities and beliefs. (Drozdo 6)
Homosexuality and heterosexuality, being a popular and prevalent dichotomy in society, both depend on each other for their definition. Generally, one is defined by using the other. This is similar to the character Valentin as he reveals his inner self in order present a sexual identity that contrasts that of Molina’s. In a sense, it is by defining Molina’s homosexuality that Valentin’s heterosexuality is contrasted and then revealed. The analysis of social dichotomies is where the aforementioned Freudian views on sexuality are blurred. In a sense, the characterization of man defines the woman and consequently, the homosexual to the heterosexual.
Puig did not implement a specific date for the setting of Kiss of the Spider Woman because this way allows the reader to expound on the “universality” of the novel—that it can happen anywhere or any time since it also reflects similar events and situations worldwide. It also creates an atmosphere of a possibility of it happening to people outside Argentina (Drozdo 4). “In fact, the ultimate coupling of Molina and Valentin and the aftermath of their union symbolically destroy each of these dichotomies” (Drozdo 4). Their unity and oneness in the end is the catalyst that Puig used in order to “destroy” the limitations conditioned by each of their social norms. This very act of defiance is the main basis that Steffany Drozdo expounded on for her argument in Deconstruction of Binary Ideological Structures.
Valentin and Molina represent different hierarchies that their individual environments have formed them to take part in. Ultimately, their union is an act of defiance to the society that shaped what they were before the aftermath of the kiss. “In the end it is impossible to discern not only that which is homosexual or heterosexual, but also that which is masculine and feminine, as gender becomes confused and as the merger of Molina and Marta (the woman) creates a new sexual being” (Drozdo 6). This is very much connected to the aforementioned thesis statement: the Freudian view on sexuality is so roughly described that no definition can fully capture the essence of the new sexuality that has merged. ) Furthermore, reality and fantasy become so intertwined that it becomes impossible to delineate and, consequently, define either one. The film or movie aspect that Puig implemented in his writing style resurfaces in the ending as Valentin had a dream of Molina carrying Marta inside him (qtd. in World Literature 798).
“Puig proposes that the irrational state is a closer approximation of reality than the rational state, because binary systems falsely perpetuate oppressive dichotomies. Ambiguity…enables the reader to find and consider a new dialectic” (Drozdo 7). It is not by placing one half of the dichotomy to a position of superiority and the other half below it, rather by deconstructing each of the elements of the dichotomy. In doing so, Puig dissects the inner substance of an unprivileged, marginalized group to help the reader redefine the group. Consequently, the identity that the group has taken place is not affiliated with the dichotomy it is arranged with as Velasco argues.
Norman Lavers (1988) attests that Puig’s greatest artistic achievement in Kiss of the Spider Woman is shown in the structure of the novel and that the conversations between the two protagonists contain much of the bulk of the narrative (Tuss 1). The vagueness of the stand on homosexuality contributes to the inability of most to define and differentiate it with other sexes. Furthermore, the lovemaking scene is the part where they “exchange” selves. The scene also paves the way for the characters’ transcendence into what Valentin describes as an “existence without oppression” (qtd. in World Literature 775). This becomes another act of social defiance to achieve liberation from their individual identity.
In a sense, to fully understand the multi-faceted characters in Manuel Puig’s Kiss of the Spider Woman, one must involve in a deconstruction of their identities. Essentially, Manuel Puig has a desire to deconstruct the culture that enforces its conceptions on everything from political dissent to sexual conduct to conventional gender roles. In doing so, he manages to displace the identities of his characters rather than ratify them in the binary system of dichotomies that the critic Velasco presents. Finally, this desire was accomplished with the aid of his writing styles in a non-narrative form with dialogical content and the allegorical reference to Hollywood movies into his plot—a stratagem which he ultimately sealed with a kiss.
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