The National Teachers College
Quiapo, Manila
School of Advance Studies
Master of Arts in Education Major in English
ENG 303 – Literary Masterpieces
In partial fulfillment of the requirements in
ENG 303 – Literary Masterpieces
Submitted by:
Bernardo E. Espiña
Submitted to:
Dr. Arnold Gatus
March 15, 2014
QUEER LITERATURE
POETRY: Conversations
AUTHOR: Danton Remoto
CONVERSATIONS
(For my friends at the HIV workshop)
Danton Remoto
And so we talk,
our words trying to capture
pain caroming
like the balls of ivory.
Our voices rise
and fall
as we sit in a circle,
tracing our other lives,
the beginnings
of love
rich and red
as the felt on the board.
But poised in the air
we always remember
the cue stick –
with one swift stroke
always ready to hit us,
drive us down
the board's secret pocket
covered with net.
(1992)
Analysis:
The poem is a moving force of what it seems to be a life mirror reflecting the undeniable truth of imminence of death after the long-suffering of sickness and isolation.
These isolated people who seek companion, place and acceptance group themselves in a conversation to at least feel their existence and spend the remaining days of their lives in the comfort of their fellows whom also have the same condition – HIV patients and people whom have association with such disease.
From the point of their conversations, these people are trying to recall and reminiscing their lives and somewhow console one another of what is remaining important for them - life. It is this imminent fact that in a glimpse of hope against hope, one has to say goodbye and face death.
The poignant truth on the second stanza marks the revelation that these people have had colorful lives as pertaining to the description – of love rich and red. But these lives in one way or another does not embark on the quality but on the quantity of affection and affair which results to the misfortune of betraying one's life to live longer but instead suffer.
The poem is a compelling hit-the-mark warning of whoever lives a pervasive life may suffer the consequence itself. The "cue stick" reminds us that life on the board's secret pocket has an end and is fast approaching and once it hits anyone (ivory ball) then death comes.
Conversation is a reflection of each other's life on love and affection.
One has to live life that is warned and refrained from promiscuity or suffer the consequences.
QUEER LITERATURE
Novel: The Kiss of Spider Woman
Author: Manuel Puig
Plot:
Two prisoners, Luis Molina and Valentín Arregui, share a cell in a Buenos Aires Prison. It is estimated that the timeframe in which the story takes place is between September 9, 1975 through October 8, 1975. Molina, an effeminate gay window-dresser, is in jail for "corruption of a minor," while Valentín is a political prisoner who is part of a revolutionary group trying to overthrow the government. The two men, seemingly opposites in every way, form an intimate bond in their cell, and their relationship changes both of them in profound ways. Molina recounts various films he has seen to Valentín in order for them both to forget their situation. Toward the middle of the novel the reader finds out that Molina is actually a spy that is sent to Valentín's jail to befriend him and try to extract information about his organization. Molina gets provisions from the outside for his cooperation with the officials with the hopes of keeping up appearances that his mother comes to visit him (thus making a reason for him to leave the cell when he reports to the warden). It is through his general acts of kindness to Valentín that the two fall into a romance and become lovers however briefly. For his cooperation Molina is parolled. On the day he leaves, Valentin has him take a message to his revolutionary group outside. Little does he know that he is also being followed by government agents, trying to find the location of the group. Molina dies in a shootout between the police and Valentín's group. In the end of the novel we are left in Valentín's stream of consciousness after he has been given an anesthetic by a doctor following a brutal torture, in which he imagines himself sailing away with his beloved Marta.
Analysis:
The compelling drama of bridging aesthetic and reality has exemplified in Manuel Puig's The Kiss of the Spider Woman. It entails a story of two souls whom destiny and opportunity considerably evolve to understand the harsh realities of life. Molina, one of the other protagonists reflects what the life most people desires who deniably accepting the truth by embracing the beauty and any romantic inclinations and associations through escapism – by which he endures difficulties of life. While Valentin, who personifies the person whom struggles beyond struggles tries to live life by fighting what is right through his political idealism.
The central theme focuses on the struggle between personal relationships, conflicts and desires versus political idealism and activisms. Both characters conjure the benefit of having each other from the time they are together and gains respect from one another through opposing forces make them understand life has to offer. The aesthetic value helps Valentin to appreciate life beyond its beauty that Molina concocts through his imaginations while political idealism and truth about life's difficulties make Molina understands the essence of life as demonstrates through the principles of Valentin.
The title of the novel epitomizes whom a representation of life which desires encompasses to survive life thus The Kiss of the Spiderwoman reveals the "kiss" that Molina is longing to give to Valentin – a relationship which develops beyond understanding between opposing forces of beauty and struggle.
