NOTE: Free essay sample provided on this page should be used for references or sample purposes only. The sample essay is available to anyone, so any direct quoting without mentioning the source will be considered plagiarism by schools, colleges and universities that use plagiarism detection software. To get a completely brand-new, plagiarism-free essay, please use our essay writing service.
One click instant price quote
... cities. The myth of the machismo, although rarely mentioned explicitly, seems indeed a powerful rationale at work both in the fictions told by Molina and, at large, in the 70 s Argentine society Molina and Valentin live in. Especially in South American societies dominated by the cult of the macho, the myth of the superior man who rules upon women finds its explanation in an unconscious fear of women as dangerous creatures. Unconsciously, men fear in women the archetype of the Terrible Mother who annihilates as well as she creates. The closest correlation of that fear is mens struggle for domination seen as the closest way to maintain their self- preservation an power.
In the movies told by Molina, the relationship between men and women is very deceptive. Women are owned, prostituted or possessed by men who provoke their misfortune. Sooner or later, they will be punished when trying to have a normal life and sexuality with the man they love. The films usually end up with the death of the heroin whereas the hero survives.
This annihilation of womans essential features is explained by an internalization of patriarchal norms inferring that women should blame themselves for their own normal desires. This repression is the safest way to annihilate the power of the archetypal Terrible Mother, the image traditionally associated with women. The subsequent oppression resulting of an immanent fear of women is perfectly captured by Molina who says that type of woman, very sensitive, way too spiritual, whos been brought up to the idea that sex is dirty, that s its sinful, and this type of chick is screwed up, completely screwed up. Inside she got this barrier, theyve made her put up a kind of barrier. (p. 31) The barriere Molina refers to has been erected by society. The events happening in films are a microcosm reflecting the real situation of Molina and Valentin. Similarly to the heroines he describes, Molina is a queen, a woman or Terrible Mother who is seen as dangerous.
According to Jung, the perilous way is often represented by a net with a spider at his center. At the end of the novel, this imagery is explicit. The parallel between Molina and the spider woman becomes obvious. Molina is a (spider) woman, his potential superiority due to his feminine sensitivity is seen as a mark of danger. Therefore, he has to die, his existence in itself being a threat for a male- dominated society.
Nevertheless, Puig manipulates the myth of machismo in order to destroy it. He uses for that an homosexual hero who, by his goodness and self -abnegation, challenges the norms of a society where there is no space for the different. The writer reverses the expectations by focusing his novel on an homosexual character who introduces a crisis of genders. The homosexuality of Molina and his marginality within the society is indeed a way of emphasising that the myth of the machismo is overrated and, above all, based on an irrational fear of women. Puig showed that some men chose the opposite side, wanting to cut off any relations with their own gender. Molina himself said and since a womans the best there is, I want to be one. (p. 19).
Among the elements that Jung found dangerous to a society as a whole were the values traditionally gathered around the concepts of masculinity and feminist. Jung saw a threat to civilisation whenever the organisation of a society was based on a too rigid separation between feminist and masculinity which, in the long run, could conduce to the hegemony of one gender to the detriment of the other. By posing women as alienated by men and depicting them as lonely victims oppressed in a cruel machismo world, Puig used the myth of the ombre superior to reveal it as counterfeit. By doing this, the writer wished to emphasise than, within the system, any break to the patriarchal code could result in the destruction of the weakest character, may it be the virtuous figures of women in films or even the poor jailed Molina. And this very fact contradicts the rules of democracy in which everyone is, or should be, theoretically equal. Comparing the Kiss of the Spider Woman and The Double Hook, it can be said that the use of myth in the two fictions reveals itself as having an aesthetic function which serves the purpose of ornamenting the development of the narrative.
As a result of this emphasis on aesthetics, the two fictions are visually appealing and the novels end up by being a virtual feast for the eyes. The two narratives are indeed enhanced and liven up by these mythical references that infuse their power of imaginary so that to enrich the reality of the bare facts told by the two authors. In Watson or in Puig, the myths called up to enhance the storytelling have this undeniable visual power which turns the whole narrative into a vivid painting. The reader catch the light, the darkness; more largely an entire story full of colours and motion rather than he follows a flat linear development. A new vitality and energy are created. As it is often said, a picture is worth a thousand words.
Similarly, it could be stated that the fantastic images the mythical referents bring to the consciousness are worth the most scholar discourses. The Kiss of the Spider Woman is exemplary regarding that concern. The six stories told by Molina carries with them a powerful pictorial element that transform them into as many paintings in motion. In the first film, the myth of Dracula injects its gloomy atmosphere full of mystery into the first narrative level which relates the two sorrowful life of Argentine prisoners. In the following films, the telling of the old romantic myths flatters the quest of beauty every reader is searching for. The plots are indeed set in idealistic places such as Vera Cruz, Central Park when the snow is slightly falling or in the French Alps where a wild and beautiful nature is flourishing (footnotes).
Similarly, in Watson, this romanticism that pleases every human mind is also present in sentences such as outside, the world floated like a moat in a straight shaft of glory. Novels such as the Kiss of the Spider Woman or The double Hook help the reader to escape the daily reality and jump into as world full of beauty and perfection, may it be unreal and vain. At least, using the myths and creative imagery, the two authors have responded to the basic purpose of literature which is the function of entertainment. And the two journey into the fantastic worlds of Watson and the films of Molina are worth a thousand of scholar books.
Moreover, the use of myth in the two fictions helps to highlight the message conveyed by the writers since the mental imagery arisen by the myth capture the essence of the novels meaning, reaching a degree of depth that the language is sometimes unable to transmit. In others words, the meaning in fiction always owns a great part to the myth. The modernist genre, especially, focuses its attention on matters of meaning asking questions such as what is the overall meaning of the novel? Which truth the author aims to convey? The myth is a subtle yet efficient answer to these questions. The Double Hook and Kiss of the Spider Woman are two texts in which the authors support a given cause, using for that the myth as a subterranean tool for denouncing inequalities and injustices.
Puig, for example, uses the picture of archetypal women who are victimized in order to demonstrate the sexual oppression at work in the 70 s Argentina. He demonstrates how the myth of the Terrible Mother is absurd and to what extremes it may lead when taken literally. The author often mocks male stupidity, choosing instead to give the lead to a homosexual, a man who deliberately calls himself a Queen. Sexual and political oppression are paired, giving rise to a society that the author see as frightening taking into account the respect of human rights. Even the myths contained in the mise en above when Molina narrates the story of the island inhabited by zombies denounce the political system at work in these times. Indeed, the story of the young bride who sees these poor slaves working night and day could be a pretext revealing something deeper; that is, the social oppression of workers the zombies - by the capitalist system and its alienating power.
All this political content is pictured in the novel by means of a tale in which the zombies represent the workforce manipulated by invisible and dangerous forces, this process being the essence of the capitalism. Through subtle references to myth, Puig seems to be asking for the liberation of a given community- the Argentinean society. Watson uses a similar process, referring to the mythical element to ask for the liberation of another community which is the indigenous population. The references to the waste land, the valley and the dust metaphorically represent the loss of identity undergone by American Indians in Canada when missionaries societies- among whose French Catholics- came and provoked the breakdown of an entire civilisation who lost its cultural roots. In an interview in the early 1980, Watson herself identified this political and social contempt in her novel. Bibliography.
Donna Penn. Essays on Canadian writing. Canadian Letters, Dead referents: reconsidering the critical construction of the Double Hook. Winter 1993 / Spring 1994. Level Mark. University of Toronto Quarterly p, 680 - 698.
Tall Cows and tapestries: a perspective on the English- Canadian canon. Summer 1998. Marilyn Sanders Mobley. The cultural functions of narrative. 1952. Pamela Baccarisse.
The implications of the cultural references in the Novels of Manuel Puig. 1993 Pamela Bacarisse The necessary dream: a study of the novels of Manuel Puig. 1988 Annis Prat. Archetypal patterns in womens fiction, 1981. (Chapter 8, notion of rebirth and transformation) William Righter, Myth and Literature, 1975.
Free research essays on topics related to: worth a thousand, spider woman, spider, myth, molina
Research essay sample on Worth A Thousand Spider Woman
