Written in 1976 in Spanish and eventually translated into
English in 1979; Manuel Puig’s Kiss of
the Spider Woman (Kiss) arrived during the height of the Latin American magic
realism trend in popular post modern fiction of the late 1970’s early 1980’s, although it
itself does not fall directly into the magic realism category. Readerships open to writings from this
culture embraced Puig’s unusual style and structure. It
enjoyed a further resurgence upon the release of the film version in 1985, and
the later musical version of the book.
The novel, whose themes include the
‘taboo’ (Titler 1991) subjects of homosexuality, and political revolutionism,
is based in an Argentinean prison. It is
the story of cellmates Molina and Valentin. Molina is an effeminate gay window
dresser with an eye for detail whose has been imprisoned for ‘corrupting minors’.
Valentin has been incarcerated due to his politically activism and revolutionary
views. In order to gain a pardon and his
release from prison Molina makes a pact with the prison authorities to gain
Valentin’s trust and obtain information against him. Titler (1991) considers Molina ‘converts
himself into the Spider Woman, the
seductive spinner of webs who devours her mate after coupling with him’. Although initially skeptical of each other,
Valentin berating Molina for his lack of political conviction and crude
escapism, they form a bond which ultimately leads to a sexual encounter. In an ironic twist after Molina’s release from
prison he is killed as a result of his involvement in politics while Valentin
escapes the pain of torture by retreating into an escapist dream world.
Written in a Bricolage (Merrim 1995) style the novel is an
extensive example of Dialogism as it consists of many different discourses, and
is supplemented with unusual dialogues between the reader and the text itself
in styles that include most unusually footnotes. These footnotes have what I consider a
perplexing effect on a reader, as they appear to give an ‘authoritative’ psychoanalytical
opinion on homosexuality which develops over a series of chapters. Some footnotes are fictional whilst others
are taken from actual academic theories.
Other styles incorporated include prison records, dreams, songs and
letters. I intend to concentrate on the Dialogism
at play within the novel, but also consider the way Puig use what I reflect to
be an alternative dialogic conversation with the screen actresses he has Molina
describe in such detail to Valentin. For
this element I will be considering Mulvey’s 1975 Visual Pleasures, Male Gaze
theory, and aspects of Berger’s Ways of Seeing (1972).
Dunne (1995) investigates the dialogism at play in the text
and identifies several different aspects that hold conversations in a Bakhtinian
double voiced discourse manner. These
range from typographical nuances, characters voices, a reader’s own
interpretation, authorial intervention, and the use of unusual intertexts such
as the footnotes, shopping lists, movies and music. I also see a further element that could be
considered relating to a readers level of knowledge of the context of the
cinematic narrative, and the ideologies at play such as the political/social
context of the setting.
Dunne (1995) is especially interested in the double voice discourse
that can be seen in the non character driven dialogue. I consider a good example of this is Chapter 11
that uses five identifiable polyphonic voices over the course of its 25 pages. The
chapter starts with the ‘official’ styled prison report, a typographical device
of listing the speech between Molina and the prison warden as if spoken in a
play, thus leaving a reader clear as to whom is saying what. The discourse changes to reveal Molina’s
shopping list written in an instructive, clear manor in order to leave it
completely clear to the intended recipient what was needed, and to give the reader
a further understanding of Molina’s character eccentricities. The discourse
change reveals the two characters back in the cell enjoying the items from the
shopping list, and Molina spinning his webs of lies to lay the foundations of
his deceit. The story breaks temporarily
with the characters sleeping, but this is typographically marked with an
asterisks which leads to one in a series of footnotes written in which Puig
himself called ‘the elitist pedantry of style’ (as quoted in Rice-Sayre 253) as
it is voiced in ‘a strikingly alien voice from the discourse of the social
sciences’ (Dunne 1995, p 209). These
footnotes add a further authorative voice, ‘educating’ the readership in the
psychoanalytical complexities of homosexuality.
The placement of this note falls into a natural space where the
characters are sleeping and the reader can almost continue the story while they
sleep on. Upon waking the discourse
alters again to allow Molina to continue recounting a film.
It is in the detail that Molina ‘embroiders a little’ (Puig:p18)
the female characters of the films that gives the opportunity to consider
Berger (1972) ‘ways of seeing’. Molina
subjects the female heroines to the concept of men looking at women and women
watching themselves being looked at. To
highlight this aspect in Chapter 3 Molina recounts the story of the Nazi propaganda
film. In the film of the book (Kiss of the Spider Woman (1985) this
scene shows the actress in her dressing room, looking at herself through a
mirror. Berger describes this phenomenon
in relation to the many works of art of Susanna and the elders, where Susanna
is pictured with a mirror and given the subtitle of vane, but no consideration
is given to the ‘elders’ who are seen spying on her, not unlike the cinema
audience to the fictional film character. The novel does not mention mirrors, although
the word dressing room conveys an image, in the mind of mirrors and lights, an
example of the dialogism of the associations worlds have with their past use. Mulvey (1975) would consider the heroine as an
example of her ‘male gaze’ theory. For
example after her performance the heroine is shown - ‘and while taking her bows she exchanges a few
quick looks with the German officer’ (Puig:p51). Not only the German officers, but also the
cinema audience, including Molina, who is then opening this view to Valentin
and us as readers, are gazing at the actress.
However, Mulvey theory does not take account of what Richard Dyer
described in detail in his Heavenly Bodies (2004) work, the ‘Judy Garland
effect’. Chandler (2012) comments on
this aspect of Dyer’s work which highlights the queer theory of gay men’s
idealisation of the female form. Dyer
considers that some movie stars receive a cult status from gay men who
appreciate the female form in a different way from Mulvey’s ‘Gaze’. Molina is exceptionally detailed in his
descriptions of his female movie stars, using an unfamiliar, almost feminine
eye, commenting on her clothing, hair, skin tone, but appearing unfamiliar with
how to reply when asked about her figure in a sexual way. For example on page 50:
Valentin: ‘ how is her figure?
does she have a good build, or is she more on the flat side?
Molina: ‘….she’s very tall, with
a good build, but not stack stacked, because what was in fashion back then was
the low slinky profile…’
He appears to be unsure as to how to describe her breast
size, commenting ‘stack’, but then immediately ‘stacked’ in an attempt to try
to appear knowledgeable of the fact, when it is in fact the whole look of her
which appeal to him more than her body image. It could be considered that if Mulvey’s theory
was to be used to describe the characters Molina would take the fetishistic
scopophilia gaze and Valentin the voyeuristic.
The discourse voice changes again abruptly on page 209 and 214
when part way into the film narrative a sentence, apparently unconnected to the
story, is shown in italics. This appears
as a further dialogic conversation, as if the stream of conscious thoughts of both
Valentin and Molina. Merrim (1985) comments in her Freudian interpretation of
the story that these episodes ‘endcoded through condensation and displacement’
(p224) are the characters thoughts as they digest the film narratives and are
influenced by their ideologies. Valentin’s
political convictions appear as he considers the plight of the islanders from
the film, and Molina’s subconscious foreshadows Valentin’s death. Merrim considers the films act in the same
psychoanalytical way as dreams, which have been filtered via the conscious to
play out the characters repressed subconscious. Merrim sees the Zombie movie of Chapter 11
as the political consciousness of Valentin and the latent issue of homosexual ideologies
that Molina faces.
The chapter ends with the sexual encounter. This could be a further voice as it opens a
potential new experience to a reader, especially at the time of publication as
by telling the act rather than showing it as an encounter between two
consenting adults, opening a discourse in the public mind about homosexuality.
In conclusion, the novel benefits from a Bakhtian reading of
its polyphony and when considered alongside the approach of Mulvey, Berger and
with the alternative approach of Dyer it opens further polyphonic conversations
with the text that I had not considered upon first reading. This novel develops and converses with its
reader on so many different levels and benefits from being read and read again
as the story grows with each insightful read.
Puig, M. (1991) Kiss of the Spider Woman. New York: Vintage Books.
Bibliography – Kiss
Berger, J. (1972) Ways
of Seeing. London.: Penguin.
Chandler, D. (2012) Notes
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Christ, R 1991, A last interview with Manuel Puig, World Literature
Today, 65 (4) p. 571, [online] Literary Reference Center, EBSCOhost,
[viewed 7 January 2013.] available from http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=lfh&AN=9610180290&site=lrc-live
Dunne, M. (1995) Dialogism in Manuel Puig’s Kiss of the
Spider Woman. In: Gupta, S. and Johnson, D. (eds) (2005) A
Twentieth-Century Literature Reader: Texts and Debates. London: Routledge.
Dyer, R. (2004) Heavenly Bodies: Abingdon: Routledge
Kiss of the Spider
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Merrim, S. (1995) Through the Film Darkly: Grate B Movies
and Dreamwork in Kiss of the Spider Woman. In: Gupta, S. and Johnson, D.
(eds) (2005) A Twentieth-Century Literature Reader: Texts and Debates. London:
Routledge.
Mulvey, L. Visual Pleasure and
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Oxford University Press.Puig, M. (1991) Kiss of the Spider Woman. New York: Vintage Books.
TW19751 (2012). John Berger / Ways of Seeing , Episode 1
- 4 (1972) .. [online]. Available from:
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