El beso de la mujer araña by Manuel Puig

El lugar sin límites is the story of la Manuela, a transgender prostitute in a decrepit town with little hope for the future.

Both novels question traditional gender roles and “types,” as the concepts of “feminine ,” “masculine,” “man” 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. 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. YYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY FANTASIZING THE FEMININE: SEX AND GENDER IN DONOSO’S EL LUGAR SIN LÍMITES AND PUIG’S EL BESO DE LA MUJER ARAÑA JESSICA BURKE THICK with tensions surrounding issues of sex and gender, both José Donoso’s 1966 novel El lugar sin límites and Manuel Puig’s 1976 novel El beso de la mujer araña have biologically male protagonists that identify themselves as “women,” and create definitions of womanhood that would include them. Despite their differences, the novels have a great deal in common, however, including a condemnation of patriarchal repression, a re-inscribing of stories often left out of official histories, and, most notably-the theme that will be addressed in this chapter-a shared love of popular culture.In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content: The novel’s main protagonists are women, including the narrator Celaya ‘Lala’ Reyes and the Awful Grandmother, a character revered by Lala’s father, but feared or hated by the rest of the family. Caramelo is a sprawling multigenerational family drama that spans the era from the Mexican Revolution to 2002 and is set in Mexico, Spain, and the United States.

Its protagonists, Marxist Valentín Arregui and gay window dresser Luis Alberto Molina, are diametrically opposed characters forced to share a prison cell. Puig’s novel is set against the backdrop of the violently repressive military dictatorship of the late 1970s and early 1980s in Argentina. Manuel Puig’s El beso de la mujer araña (1976) and Sandra Cisneros’s Caramelo (2002) would initially appear to have little in common. Add this article to your Mendeley library

El beso de la mujer araña by Manuel Puig