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NARRATIVE STRATEGIES OF TWO NOVELS.
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Compares and contrasts Isabel Allende's "THE HOUSE OF THE SPIRITS" and Manuel Puig's "KISS OF THE SPIDER WOMAN."... More...
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Paper Abstract:
Compares and contrasts Isabel Allende's "THE HOUSE OF THE SPIRITS" and Manuel Puig's "KISS OF THE SPIDER WOMAN." Both novelists use of the political and cultural environment of Latin America. Theme of social criticism of each novel. Narrative core of action of Puig's book. Use of dreams and private thoughts of characters. Double narration in Allende's novel; first-person narrative and authorial voice.

Paper Introduction:
This research compares and contrasts the narrative strategies of novelists Isabel Allende and Manuel Puig in The House of the Spirits and Kiss of the Spider Woman, and discusses the means by which each author develops a theme of sharp social criticism in a narrative context of strong dramatic action. A critique of neither The House of the Spirits nor Kiss of the Spider Woman can reach meaning without reference to the political and cultural environment of 19th- and 20th-century Latin America. The sharp divisions between rich and poor, the exploitation by European colonial masters of the indigenous peoples, encounters between indigenous and invading cultures, the role of the Catholic Church in shaping attitudes and social mores, and the clash of ideology and life choices are all aspects of this. In the late 1970s, when Kiss of the Spider Woman was written, and indeed into the m

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ForMolina, these passages initially reveal his solipsism, as well as duplicityand contempt for the Marxist cellmate; however, over the course of theimprisonment, Molina comes to like Valentin and develops something of aconscience, or at any rate wants Valentin to have positive regard for him.That Valentin sexually serves him, possibly out of a skewed sense of socialobligation, is also present in Molina's reluctance to leave his cellmate.For Valentin, these passages reveal his filtering every experience throughthe Marxist-social-action sieve (124cc). Also breaking up conversational narrative are italicized passagesrepresenting dreams and private thoughts of Molina and Valentin. This research compares and contrasts the narrative strategies ofnovelists Isabel Allende and Manuel Puig in The House of the Spirits andKiss of the Spider Woman, and discusses the means by which each authordevelops a theme of sharp social criticism in a narrative context of strongdramatic action. The manifest content of theconversation is dominated by Molina's narration of the plot of movies hehas seen and discussion of the movies with Valentin. . Clara's nine mute years after Rosa'sdeath and adherence to permanent muteness toward Trueba after he beatsBlanca and Pedro Tercero demonstrate the strength of her spirit andcharacter and Trueba's powerlessness before it, despite his bluster andsnobbery. . Nor does he feel anythingexcept entitlement to contempt for his self-abnegating sister Ferula andjealousy of the deep friendship between her and his wife Clara. This is confirmed,although elliptically, when the dialogue between Molina and Valentin isinterrupted by presentation of interviews between "Prisoner," or Molina,and "Warden," who wants a report about what "headway" Molina is making withValentin (15 ). These passages, which have a clinical/analytical voice,link homosexual behavior, invariably articulated as deviant, and thetendency toward sexual repression in societies organized around Westerncapitalism. When Valentin'scomrades retaliate, the junta will capture them all. New York: Alfred A. The House of the Spirits employs two first-person-central narrators, one of them (Trueba) unreliable and the other (Alba)masquerading as a third-person-omniscient narrator. Undoubtedly it is neverTrueba's intention that his self-absorbed, exploitative, authoritarianbehavior toward strangers and family should yield victimization of his owngranddaughter by the repressive regime, and more than that, incest at thehands of his namesake bastard Esteban Garcia, whom he helped raisesocially. The content of irony that suffuses both Kiss of the Spider Woman andThe House of the Spirits is a critique of political fascism in LatinAmerica. Thelate 197 s were well within the ambit of Cold War political polarization,with leftists and rightists characterizing each other as fascists andcommunists and politics as a zero-sum game. Only when Valentin's death dream evokes the image of spiderwoman, is the narrative dominated by magic and spiritualism. The most distinctive breaks from the conversational narrative of Kissof the Spider Woman are extended footnoted passages that referenceselections from psychological and anthropological literature having to dowith homosexuality. A critique of neither The House of the Spirits nor Kiss of the SpiderWoman can reach meaning without reference to the political and culturalenvironment of 19th- and 2 th-century Latin America. Thus thenarrative is a commentary on the Argentine junta's preoccupation witheconomically/capitalistically "developing" Argentina while repressingdeviance; the commentary is ironic inasmuch as the developmental methodeschews such norms -- associated with the feminine (2 8)--as human decencyand tolerance in favor of purely economic and authoritarian goals --associated with the masculine. Reference is also made to evidence that, sostrong are the normative social cues of Western civilization, sociallymarginalized homosexuals internalize the power-ratio values of bourgeoiscapitalism: "heterosexual bourgeois models for conduct participate--duringinfancy and adolescence--and later on at the point of adoptinghomosexuality itself, "bourgeois" models for homosexual conduct" (212-13;emphasis added). Why the reader knows Clara'sthoughts and motives turns out to be, not the voice of the author, butrather the voice of Alba, Blanca's daughter, who has reclaimed Clara'sdetailed journals. The sharp divisionsbetween rich and poor, the exploitation by European colonial masters of theindigenous peoples, encounters between indigenous and invading cultures,the role of the Catholic Church in shaping attitudes and social mores, andthe clash of ideology and life choices are all aspects of this. As well, it cites the view that societies arecivilized and developed (uncivilized and underdeveloped) according as theyhave (have not) adopted sexual repression as a dominant norm. Balancing, correcting, and competing with Trueba's account is the(apparently) authorial voice that explains the mental processes of Claraand her quasi-magical ground of being. That stretch of narrative is notextensive but is decisive, the logical outcome of a brutal culturemasquerading as civilized and--significantly--embodied by Trueba. The junta withdrawsthat plan. The clinical voicecites the view held by "radical Freudians" that "'human nature' is no morethan what has become the result of centuries of [sexual, social]repression" (Puig 154). That, of course, is the narrative core of action: Molina has made adeal with the rightist government to obtain information about Valentin andhis associates in exchange for a reduced sentence. In Kiss of the Spider Woman, set in Argentina, the politics emerge outof the conversation between Molina, a homosexual imprisoned for eight yearsfor seducing a minor (Puig 1 5), and Valentin, a political prisoner andsocial activist with whom he shares a cell. Thesepolitical dynamics not only inform but are central to both Kiss of theSpider Woman and The House of the Spirits, even though the emphases of eachnovel in developing narrative action are quite distinct. The effect of these passages is, on one hand, to highlight Molina'ssociopolitical vulnerability owing to his sexual orientation, and on theother to explain the social disempowerment, or repression, that motivateshim to align himself with power and betray Valentin. That's why I can't go along with my granddaughter's story about class struggle. . The unsuspectingValentin provides such details, including the fact that he and hiscolleagues use elaborate codes to further their work under the repressiveregime. But such acquiescence is portrayed asirrelevant and ironic; the junta releases him for ineffectuality.Nevertheless, Molina has been perceived as effectual by Valentin's comrades-- a multiple irony because the junta originally plans to leak the storythat Molina has extracted a confession from Valentin. New York: Vintage/Random House, 1978. Trueba's self-assessmentcaptures the dynamic: No one's going to convince me that I wasn't a good patron. Allende, by way of narrating theenactment of values embedded in consciousness, focuses on how a countryhaving the manifest attributes of Christianity arrives at a situation thatmanifests latent repressiveness and cruelty: This is how and why we becamefascists. [T]hose poor peasants are a lot worse off today than they were fifty years ago. He even argues with Molina forequity in sexual relationships. Though the narrative strategy of Kiss of the Spider Woman is notentirely straightforward, its bleakness is consistent with the principlesof naturalism. Yet -- illustrated by the narrative of the police report onMolina after his release -- Valentin's comrades do gun him down as aninformer. Thomas Colchie. Molina reveals something of the lifestyleangst associated with his homosexuality. His narrative is unreliable; he doesnot morally interrogate his rights over the peasants, even though he refersto his "bad character" as a social being (48). . Agrarian reform ruined things for everyone (Allende 46). Molina does most ofthe talking, and the whole effect of the conversation is the growth ofcomity between the prisoners. Periodically, however, he asksquestions deliberately designed to encourage Valentin, who describeshimself as a Marxist involved in political struggle (27-8) to revealpersonal details about himself and his fellow activists. Clara's strength is also a corrective to Church platitudes, a keyindex of social values in Latin America. Meanwhile, Valentin turns out to be anidiosyncratic radical with misgivings: "I don't want to be a martyr, adright now I wonder if the whole thing hasn't been one terrible mistake onmy part" (177). . The setting for The House of the Spirits is an unnamed South Americancountry, not a situated one as in Kiss of the Spider Woman. But themythical country is fusion of Argentina and Chile, each of whichexperienced protracted fascist junta rule in the 197 s and 198 s. In the late197 s, when Kiss of the Spider Woman was written, and indeed into the mid-198 s, when The House of the Spirits appeared, the political cleavages ofLatin America either had posed or were posing leftist regimes againstrightist rebels and leftist ideologues and revolutionaries against the one-party-rule regimes in such countries as Chile (where in 1973 the USgovernment was implicated in the overthrow and murder of a socialistpresident and installation of a military junta), Nicaragua (where the USgovernment supported a rightist guerrilla movement against a leftistregime), El Salvador (ditto), Peru (where Maoist guerrillas waged politicalanarchy), Argentina (where a rightist regime routinely "disappeared"political dissidents), and Colombia (where "la violencia" was visitedmainly on civilians while leftist guerrilla factions, military elites,conservatives, moderate conservatives, and liberals competed for power,leaving many assassinations and rights suppressions in their wake). The House of the Spirits. His narrative conveyshis racial prejudice, retrograde politics, and multiple moralimperfections, as well as his capitalist ethic, even though it turns outthat it was he who proposed working with Alba to write the family history(366). Trans. . Herationalizes his infidelities to Clara with prostitutes, putting them in acategory different from casually raping Indian girls. Magda Bogin. As well, they mark the tendency of such societies to exploitsexually defined social vulnerabilities in the service ofcapitalist/heterosexist and/or socially authoritarian goals. And the junta resorts to brutish torture of Valentin, whose dyinginterior monologue closes the novel. However, this novel does not adhere to a singularnarrative presentation. Puig focuses on the effects of establishment authoritarianpolitics on its citizenry by way of the unfolding consciousness of twocitizens: This is how we are as fascists. So egregiously did somepolitically motivated actions violate commonly accepted standards offundamental human rights, and so morally entitled did the actors feel tosuppressing political opposition, that compromise seemed impossible. The House ofthe Spirits has a more straightforward narrative structure, suffusedthroughout with the supernatural (Clara's clairvoyance and kinetic power,Ferula's hauntings). Molina's cooperation with the junta can be explained ashis acquiescence in social norms. Theimportance of explanation is why most of the narrative focuses on thebackground for that outcome and on its irony. Kiss of the Spider Woman. Together, these threepoints of view, which do not strictly agree with one another and which to alimited extent interpret one another (Trueba speaks of his needs andloneliness; the other cites his casual rape of Indian women), convey thesaga of the Del Valle and Trueba families -- and Latin American politicalhistory -- over the course of much of the 2 th century. Theaction of The House of the Spirits is not confined to the modern period butbegins in the last part of the 19th century, when Latin American nation-statism was largely a matter of postcolonial social conservatism andinternal bourgeois capitalist exploitation. The journals are never directly "quoted" in thenarrative but are to be perceived as having been Alba's narrative source.Until the last chapters, which she narrates directly, Alba intrudesperiodically as the chronicler "I." Alba's imprisonment and torture at the hands of the junta are thefundamental argument of the novel. I was like a father to them. Knopf, 1985.Puig, Manuel. Trueba's first-person narrative gives the account of how his innatesense of privilege and entitlement vis-à-vis the indigenous peoples --especially the multiplicity of Indian women he forcibly impregnated --fitted him perfectly for ultraconservative modern politics and positionedhim as the very fundament and enabler of, though not direct participant in,the fascist takeover of his nation. Trans. Works CitedAllende, Isabel.

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