Character Study in Manual Puigs Kiss of the Spider Woman Essay

Character Study in Manual Puigs pet of the Spider Wo soldiery On the surface, Manual Puigs Kiss of the Spider Woman is slightly politics and oppression. Caged literally and figuratively in an existential cell, both Molina and Valentin are wards of a police state and are therefore powerless to change their circumstances. But the novel is really about how spiritual freedom is cultivated and made manifest by Molinas retelling of his favorite movies. Because the substance of the films is first filtered through Molinas perspective, his perversion of the characters and plots reflect his own feeler from an oppressed prisoner to a heroine who freely chooses the path to her own death. That Molina identifies himself with the heroines in the films is unmistakable by the end of the novel. In the first movie he tells to Valentin, a woman who involuntarily changes into a panther whenever she kisses a man is parallel to Molinas life as a homosexual man in a society that condemns him . The panther womans love is dangerous, and so is Molinas. His fatalistic judgment of his place ...