El Lugar Sin Limites Research Articles

Animalized Others in El lugar sin límites

Jose Donoso’s novel El lugar sin limites is a fictional portrayal of a small agrarian town in Chile in the midst of transformation. The end of the novel suggests that the outdated landowning system will soon be replaced by the emerging middle class, but it is also clear that traditional, reductive categories of economics, gender and sexuality will remain in place. This article explores Donoso’s use of animal symbolism depicting don Alejo as a rooster, La Manuela as both a female dog and hen, and Pancho as a violent dog. The repeated use of symbols serves as a way of calling attention to the hierarchy of the town and the “othering” of marginal characters including La Manuela, the homosexual transvestite, and the other prostitutes in the brothel. Many of the male characters, and especially Pancho, are depicted as dogs that mistreat the prostitutes and ultimately punish Manuela’s transgressions. Overall the novel serves as a metaphor of hell on earth for those marginal figures who fall outside of the conventional expectations defined by the powerful figure of don Alejo.

Fear of the Trannies: On Filmic Phobia of Transvestism in the New Latin American Cinema

The transvestite, as a fi gure that contests both heteronormativity and machismo, has remained in the cinema of Latin America, unlike its literature, a rather unexplored theme. Although some fi lms have attempted to deal with such a fi gure, they have devoted very little diegetic time either to the process of physi- cal and psychological transformation from man to woman or to showing trans- vestism as the externalization of the character's self-perceived gender identity. This article aims to show that the lack of on-screen transvestism in Arturo Rip- stein's El lugar sin limites (1978), Miguel Barreda's Simon, el gran varon (2002), and Karim Ainouz's Madame Sata (2002) is caused by a kind of het- eronormative fi lmic fear to depict the fl uidity of sexuality beyond the biologi- cally oriented binary man-woman. I suggest that Latin American audiences do not respond positively to transvestitic images (i.e., the cinematic acknowledg- ment of transvestism) because they transgress the fi xity of gender roles within heteronormativity. In Latin American popular culture (especially its literature), the trans- vestite has become a fi gure that functions to destabilize the heteropatri- archal system. He crosses the boundaries that divide the hegemonic con- structs of femininity and masculinity; yet for him the act of crossdressing not only permits the transgression of heterosexual normativity but also allows for the intersection of other social and cultural discourses such as those of race, class, and politics. As Ben Sifuentes-Jauregui (2002, 10) rightly points out in his analysis of transvestism in Latin American lit- erature, the fi guration of the Latin American national subject involves the selection of desirable fragments to compose 'identity.' Likewise, transvestism might involve picking and choosing desirable objects to create a gender effect. He observes that for the Latin American male subject, to make sense of his own persona, he must choose those aspects of the given culture that best fi t his idea of the self in much the same way that transvestites articulate their own feminine persona through a collection of feminine elements that will re-create a sense of wom- anliness. The articulation of the transvestite character's feminine per- sona allows for questioning of the fi xity of the sexual parameters with

Fantasizing the Feminine: Sex and Gender in Donoso's El lugar sin límites and Puig's El beso de la mujer araña

THICK with tensions surrounding issues of sex and gender, both Jose Donoso's 1966 novel El lugar sin limites and Manuel Puig's 1976 novel El beso de la mujer arana have biologically male protagonists that identify themselves as and create definitions of womanhood that would include them. Their struggle for acceptance in a society resistant to accepting them on their own terms reveals the stereotypes and assumptions linked to sex, gender, and sexual orientation. Both novels question traditional gender roles and types, as the concepts of feminine, masculine, and woman are all reconfigured in the light of marginalized characters' struggles to find a place in a society unwilling to accommodate them as part of the mainstream. El lugar sin limites is the of la Manuela, a transgender prostitute in a decrepit town with little hope for the future. El beso de la mujer arana tells the of two cellmates in prison for very different reasons--Valentin for revolutionary activity and Molina for seducing a minor. While some critics prefer the label of homosexual in their studies of these protagonists, I prefer the use of transgender, as I feel it is more accurate in discussing characters who truly do identify more with women interested in pursuing relationships with men, rather than identifying themselves as men attracted to other men. This distinction is especially helpful when we consider that both characters use female pronouns and adjectives when describing themselves in relation to the men in their lives. The two novels also share other commonalities that facilitate a comparative consideration of their respective representations of sex and gender. Both works are products of the Latin American literary boom of the 1960s and 70s. Both novels have storylines that conclude with the death of the transgender protagonist and both reflect the social, political, and economic realities of the times, as well as a very present critique of the persecution of sexual behavior deviating from the societal norm. Lastly, these characters' identification with women is not with typical women but rather with extraordinary women, extremely women, alluring women, strong and sexy and yet fragile women. La Manuela models his own feminine behavior on the figure of the flamenco dancer, while Molina is inspired by the great actresses of classic films from the 1940s. The relationships in both novels are complex and cannot be captured by traditional dichotomies of sexual identity and orientation. La Manuela experiences a mix of fear and desire for Pancho, a brutish man whose imminent arrival inspires a simultaneous sense of anticipation and dread. Pancho's violent temper hides a profound sense of insecurity, and he, too, feels a mix of fear and desire for la Manuela. While la Manuela fears Pancho's abusive nature, Pancho fears his own attraction to la Manuela, as it calls into question his own sexual identity and manliness. In El beso de la mujer arana, Valentin identifies himself as straight, is still in love with an ex-girlfriend, and yet is able to engage in sexual relations with Molina that stem from a real emotional connection between the two. None of these characters fits traditional definitions of sexual identity. Both Donoso and Puig make deliberate and conscious efforts to break with traditional categories of sex and gender, just as they break with traditional modes of narration. El lugar sin limites has a storyline that spans roughly a day but includes flashbacks and multiple perspectives, which round out the narration and give us a more complete representation of the main characters' personal histories. El beso de la mujer arana is likewise an innovative text, as it omits the third person omniscient narrator altogether and tells its story through dialogue, internal monologue, and through official documents circulated amongst prison officials and government authorities. …

JOSÉ DONOSO O EL EROS DE LA HOMOFOBIA

This article underscores the significance of Jose Donoso’s “Papers”, in the custody of Iowa University, in connection whith Julio Ortega’s ideas about them, as made known by the newpaper “La Tercera”, in Chile. In addition, a reading of homophobia as expression of a surreptitious eros, is made in the novels “El lugar sin limites” and in “El obsceno pajaro de la noche”. In contrast to the homoerotic discourse that Ortega detects in Donoso, the narrators in the two best known novels of the Chilean writer express a constant rejection of the marginal characters, or otherwise expose sodomy as a form which expresses the inferiority of the underling.

La imaginación enfermiza: La ciudad muerta y el gótico en Aura de Carlos Fuentes

This essay represents an approach to the novel of Carlos Fuentes' The deterioration of the house, in contrast to the technological progress, is linked to the decrepit body of the old woman, Consuelo. The dark within the building correlates to the obscurantism and witchery that will lead to the alienation of Felipe Montero. On the basis of the grotesque as expounded by Wolfgang Kaiser, and the sinister, as propounded by Freud, the idea is to emphasize the significance of Aura in the Hispanic American tradition, which proposes a dissident narrative against the novel of progress and technological advance. This tendency also includes novels like J. Donoso' El lugar sin limites , J. Rulfo's Pedro Paramo , and M. Otero Silva' Casas muertas . Aura , a novel which explores the re-writing of the gothic, and above all, the relation of the dead city to the abandoned town, in the perspective of the apocalyptic space understood as the parallel disintegration of the space, of the bodies and the minds.