The island-woman. Female as release in El beso de la mujer araña by Manuel Puig

Abstract

Through El beso de la mujer araña it proposes a status quo characterized by the relationships of domination of some over others, status that is not exceeded only through the political revolution, but must involve the release of the bodies through the sexual revolution. Molina, a woman trapped in a man’s body and in the representations that society makes on that body, and Valentín, a political prisoner, shielded by island-woman, are moving toward the possibility of realization, learning or becoming: Molina toward a becoming into a woman; Valentín, toward a becoming into person, into sexual polymorphous. El beso is a symbol of communion between both characters and the gathering of political and sexual revolutions. But in the book there is no room for political utopia: the system still controls the bodies, outside the island-woman reign death and torture, a world that is still waiting for the revolution; instead, sexualities have been released and satisfied.