Seasoned Savages: Hypermasculinity and the Autophagic Dictatorial Machine in Kettly Mars's Saisons Sauvages

Abstract

For nearly thirty years, from 1957 to 1986, François and Jean-Claude Duvalier imposed a brutal totalitarian dictatorship that privileged tactics of fear, violence, and terror. Through their instrumentalization of terror and violence, the Duvaliers created a new hegemonic masculinity articulated through the nodes of power and domination. Set during this harrowing period, Kettly Mars's Saisons sauvages (2010) portrays the precarious lives of the Leroy family under dictatorship. This article argues that through the figure of the Tonton Macoute, Kettly Mars interprets Macoute masculinity as a performance of hypermasculinity. Then, the concept of the autophagic dictatorial machine is introduced. Like Macoute masculinity, the autophagic dictatorial machine is a voracious force that seeks total annihilation for the singular objective of amassing power, yet it is doomed to collapse on itself. This article aims to critically assess the varying and fragile constructions of masculinity under dictatorship.