Vargas Llosa part 2: Its in the Body

It seems to me that a central way in which our authors have chosen to break down the mystique of the dictator is to show their bodies crumbling. Vargas Llosa shows us the naked “Generallisimo” like Marquez showed us the naked, almost dead Simon Bolivar to start The General in his Labyrinth. Although we never see The Supreme naked in Roa Bastos’ work, the physical degeneration of Dr. Francia is still omnipresent. Ultimately Vargas Llosa and his fellow dictator novelists are trying to show the human side of the dictator; the frail bodies that lay behind the powerful mystique. It also seems that the degeneration that occurs in all three works is an attempt to show the cancerous effect that wielding absolute power has on the body. This isparticularly true of Bolivar, but also of Trujillo and Dr. Francia, as if the authors want to show the natural effects of an unnatural concentration of power in the hands of one individual.

Vargas Llosa’s portrait of the naked Trujillo is an attempt to emasculate him. His body is portrayed as effeminate with a “soft belly” and “hairless legs”. Under his “white pubis” Urania sees his “small, dead sex.” Above these weak features, his eyes, red from weeping, stare down. Even before he loses his erection, Trujillo looks weak and ridiculous in his struggle to undress Urania. He takes Urania to his bedroom not out of lust (although that comes), but to prove his physicality and virility to the world. It does not seem to occur to the dictator how weak he looks, trying to seduce a girl of 14, who is not a women by any physical or mental standard. His impotence enrages him, because it is symbolic of his failing power and the betrayal of his body. Like Bolivar and Dr. Francia, Trujillo is a man who is supposed to control everyone and everything in his domain, yet he fails to even control his own body.

So that’s it then. Feast of the Goat is the last novel in the line of dictator novels assigned in this course. In the end I have to agree with Professor Jon: Augusto Roa Bastos’ novel was the best. Maybe it was the Wikipedia article that made me appreciate its true significance. I think the course was successful in illustrating and exploring the disparate attributes of the dictator novel and also the extent to which writing has great power. However, I am left with one question: what would a Roa Bastos or any of these authors think about the power of writing in the era of blogs and Wikipedia? Jon, your assignment for the summer is to contact each of these authors and get a quality response to my question!

Vargas Llosa Part 1: Crazies and Crazy Dictators

Why do the beginning of both The Feast of the Goat and Asturias’ El Presidente contain mentally insane characters? Both the Zany and Crazy Valeriano dare to challenge the rule of the dictators that rule their country. Both die for their “crimes”. Perhaps it is an effort by both authors to show that not everyone can be controlled. That fear is not an effective tool in dealing with those who lack rationality. Crazy Valeriano’s mockery of Trujillo enrages him because, somewhere, he finds truth in the impersonation. The fact that the dictator feels threatened by the antics of this obviously insane man and his female companion are an indication of his overall sense of insecurity of the dawning consciousness of the tenuous hold that he has over “his” country. The brutal death that he orders for these two makes evident the true extent of his rancor. They are not jailed, relocated or even shot. They are instead fed alive to Trujillo’s sharks. I think that Trujillo feels slightly embarrassed, that he has perhaps shown a sign of weakness, when he decides to free the two insane the next morning (he is too late of course).

Perhaps the insane are symbolic of what the dictator is when stripped of some of his power; he is insane and a mockery of himself. All of the dictators we have seen, short of Asturias’, have lost touch with reality: Bolivar in his fits and fevers at night; The Supreme in his mystical ramblings and visions; and Trujillo’s in his blind and weeping rage at his own impotence. Perhaps dictators have to be crazy. To try to control everyone and everything in their domain, when that is impossibility, one has to be crazy. To believe that one’s rule can extend indefinitely one has to be nuts. To believe that one’s body will last forever, that it can be controlled, like the people around you, is insane. To a certain extent, I think it is the effort to control everything, even when it cannot be done, that drives these dictators crazy.

As for myself, I think I’ll go crazy if I have to read another book about a sadistic, bastardly dictator. These novels, combined with a German literature class themed on war and genocide, have given me enough scenes of brutality to chew on for the summer at least! I think I’ll head for fantasy land with a re-reading of Lord of the Rings when exams are done.