Gender Roles in Manuel Puig's The Kiss of the Spider Woman Essay

Gender Roles in Manuel Puigs The Kiss of the Spider Woman - Essay ExampleSo, the reservoir continues,En cambio, un paederastic, con fijacin femenina, si, todava, puede defender esa ideologa, porque, como desea ser mujer, pero no puede realizar la experiencia de sea mujer, no puede llegar a desengaarse y sigue el engavio, en el sueiio de que la realizacin de la mujer esta en encontrar un hombre que la va a guiar y que se va a ocupar de ella, lo cual es buscar un padre y no un compaero (Osario, p. 53).Puig subtly unfolds another aspect of his project piece about a homosexual. It does not stop surprising us how or why this aspect of his writing has to be grounded with an explanation beforehand That is, by physique the homosexual character of the novel, Molina, first, as a womanly character who still believed in the existence of a superior man and, then, as a homosexual, with feminine fixations, Puig is showing us a certain anxiety regarding homosexuality in his writing. Puigs presen tation of Molina is an excuse. It is important to highlight this particular moment in the authors explanation (or excuse) for the homosexual subject because, after presenting such a brilliant feminist reading of the homosocial valorisation of the superior macho, he almost obsessively and uncritically positions the homosexual within the heterosexual person matrix as produced by the Oedipal complex--the Freudian structure of which he is critical in the footnotes of El beso. How do we reconcile both of the authors positions--on the one hand, his more repugn perspective that informs the construction of masculinity as the fantasy of the homosocial on the other hand, a reductive and misogynist reading of anthropoid homosexuality as a desire to become and appropriate .the feminine Moreover, how do we read homosexuality outside the Oedipal complexWhen we consider the question of sexuality in the text, we must(prenominal) note not simply at writing about homosexual themes or a homosexua l character in a popular novel, but--and more importantly--the authors aver gayness. A consideration of sexual difference as epistemology illuminates our critical reading of a text (Sedgwick, 1991). Along these lines, a reading of El beso de la mujer araa must not only focus on the construction of Molinas sexual identity, the homosexual with feminine fixations as a performer of transvestism but, also, analyze the transvestitic performance of Valentin as a Marxist. This essay will show that ideology--in this case, oppositional revolutionary politics-signals a transvestitic performance and, that this ideological transvestism necessarily sublimates the homoerotics of any heterosexual male encounter. That is, every male event connotes a hidden homosexual embrace. The politics of denying this embrace shamelessly produce the language of sexism and homophobia.The structure of the El beso de la mujer araa is simple Valentin, a governmental prisoner, and Molina share a cell where Molinas r etelling of B-movies make the time spent there easier. Before looking at some of the stories told by the prisoners, I would like to adjudicate the importance the prison takes as a site of narration. One cannot help thinking of an Arcipreste de Hita or a Cervantes who wrote his masterpiece in/from prison. The architectural design of a prison influences Molinas fantastic story-telling the close walls must be transcended with complex narratives and performances (Merrim, 1981).If spaces can be labelled heterosexual, lesbian, educational,