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Mary Fanelli Ayala
Department of Languages and Literature
Eastern New Mexico University

(This is a short version, without Endnotes and a list of Works Cited, of the essay originally published in Readerly/Writerly Texts, Volume 2, Number 2 [Spring/Summer 1995]. The pagination for the quotations in English here corresponds to the pagination of the Spanish version of the novel. This English version of the quotations might differ from that of the translation of Irene by Ollie O. Oviedo and Angela McEwan, published by Research University Press in 2000. The complete Spanish version of this essay was published in J. E. Pardo’s Obra Completa de Jorge Eliécer Pardo: 19776-1997 [Bogotá, 1995].)

Irene, the best-selling novel by the Colombian author Jorge Eliécer Pardo (Bogotá: Plaza y Janes, 1986; other editions,1994, 1997), relates Octavio Sarria's poignant "search for identity" in modern Latin America. Although the plot of this narrative revolves around its male protagonist, it is also evident that women—and their marginalization—provide a central focus for the work. Indeed, the persistence of this focus might strike the reader as remarkable precisely because, in Latin America, what Elizabeth Meese terms a "gender-based literary tribalism" ("Sexual Politics and Critical Judgment," Twentieth-Century Literary Theory 273) has traditionally prevented readers from "learning what women have felt and experienced, but [rather] only what men have thought women should be" (Elaine Showalter's "Towards a Feminist Poetics," Twentieth-Century Literary Theory 269). In Irene, Pardo weaves a web of frustration which dramatizes his protagonist's search for identity , and he uses a highly fragmented, often surrealistic structure to underscore the complexities of Sarria's dilemma. This metaphor of a "web" is particularly apt since the one image which repeatedly draws us into the novel is that of the "migala" or giant spider, which has become Octavio's obsession. Furthermore, Pardo has created a protagonist who is often overtly "literary" in a metafictional sense, one who dares to challenge the authenticity of his own existence, which in turn parallels that of other literary characters whose lives are "read" but never fully experienced. The author calls into question classical and contemporary myths, the extraliterary texts which have defined his character's world, and especially Latin American societies. By doing so, the author forces us to challenge the validity of some of our most basic beliefs and premises.

Jorge Eliécer Pardo attests to the importance of women in his novel from the outset by the very choice of its title, Irene. His work, a novel with the dark undertones of an endless nightmare, questions the traditional roles of women in his society, and he repeatedly points to the significant contributions of women in shaping and molding culture. Moreover he does not, as one might expect of a male Latin American writer, build his characters around the typical stereotypes and dualities embodied in Mary and Eve, central figures in the Hispanic perception and definition of "femininity." His protagonist, Octavio Sarria, is obsessed by the primal importance of the female figures in his life. Indeed, although the protagonist is male, all of the other important characters in the novel are female. It is not Sarria who accomplishes things in the novel, but the women around him. They women are strong figures, and the protagonist is portrayed as a self-confessed weak man who lives in constant fear: for "terror covered him like a spider's web" (Irene 27). He describes himself as a solitary individual who has been forced to live as an outsider in "a city that was not his own" (Irene 14).

Although Sarria, a college professor, has gone through all of the motions of political activism and involvement, he realizes there is an enormous gap between his professed ideals and his actual commitment. Despite his experiences with the violence of a repressive government, Sarria admits that "at the heart of his convictions, he wished that the world would change without having to sacrifice himself" (Irene 18). He is not motivated to act, and therefore his life is reduced to a mere routine, so he goes through the everyday motions like a mindless, lifeless automaton; he "dedicated himself to growing old, to dictating his seminars on research, and publishing, according to his colleagues, important documents" (Irene 15). Instead of looking for the path to a more authentic existence, Octavio Sarria seeks refuge in an alcoholic stupor and in the memories of the women who have so strongly affected him. Throughout his life it has always been the women who have acted, been decisive, and taken control of their destiny, grabbing the proverbial bull by its horns. These women, like the caretaker of his apartment, survive and support (financially and emotionally) extended families, lovers, and sometimes even strangers (as in the case of nurse Nancy's patients).

It is not Octavio, but his lover, Nereida [a "guerrillera" and "a real refugee" (Irene 20)], who dies for her ideals, and the memories from Sarria's childhood center around his obsessions with a powerful grandmother and a mother who dared to run off with her lover while her cuckolded husband stood by meekly observing their escape. It was his grandmother who pushed him toward a courage that Octavio never came to possess and tried to convince him that "you are beginning to become a man and fear only exists for cowards" (Irene 96). Yet Octavio cannot outrun his fears and the only "escape" or "refuge" that the protagonist realizes is a temporary release from his loneliness: "he fled in search of his students and colleagues to invite them to lunch, because the solitude of a table exploded in his chest" (Irene 15).

Indeed, the protagonist's relations with women gingerly occupy a space somewhere between admiration and fear. This is consistent with Toril Moi's suggestion that "the obverse of the male idealization of women is the male fear of femininity. The monster woman is the woman who refuses to be selfless, acts on her own initiative, who has a story to tell—in short, a woman who rejects the submissive role patriarchy has reserved for her" (Sexual/Textual Politics: Feminist Literary Theory [1988] 58). Nowhere is this more evident than in Sarria's recurring nightmares replete with spiders, which symbolize women in his dreams, and in his often-voiced desire to confront "the female who devours the male," an obvious manifestation of his wish to "find the woman who would fulfill, like the praying mantis, the labor of death." Not surprisingly, Octavio "didn't have the courage to take his own life" (Irene 29), yet he constantly searches for the woman who will help him commit suicide in the act of making love (Irene 16)—a painless, pleasurable death which fits well with his fear of violence. A sexual relationship for him seems to promise release, but it is a release from life rather than a release into a more fulfilled state of living. Yet despite his almost masochistic desire for this type of sexual fulfillment, Sarria cowers when the opportunity actually presents itself. When he first meets his new lover, Nereida, and she chooses to live with him despite many offers of lodging from mutual political acquaintances, Octavio's emotional and physical reaction is extreme:

an urge to vomit overcame him and they had to take him to the hospital; when the thick liquid which he was spewing allowed him the chance to breathe, he shouted desperately, coughing, as if in the miserable cell, Leave me alone! Take that woman away! (Irene 20)

In effect, all of the important characters in Irene aside from the protagonist are women: Sarria's mother; his grandmother; the guerrillera Nereida; the nurse, Nancy, who lives upstairs; and the woman in charge of his apartment complex, Irene. It is Irene, perhaps the most plausible and realistic of the female characters, who marks Sarria's infinite separation from that feminine world which simultaneously attracts and repels him. His relationship with her has the capacity to be warm and caring, but seems overshadowed by the ghosts of those other women who no longer exist for Sarria: Nereida, the grandmother, and the mother. It is not until he has lost her that Octavio begins to understand the implications of the unique opportunity which he has let slip through his hands; when Irene writes him affectionate letters from her travels abroad, Sarria answers them with "long letters of love and solitude . . . extensive and painful," (Irene 80) letters which remain unmailed, since Octavio keeps his feelings very secret, drowning himself in solitude and depression. Irene never becomes privy to what Octavio feels for her, even when he celebrates her announced return with people who do not know her, responding to their questions that she is "Irene, my wife" (Irene 119). He places all his hopes in Irene's return, believing that

She will release me from this prison and give a happy goal to my life . . .. Irene will cry with me over my useless dreams and take pleasure in my songs and poems. I will stop drinking, I will give up anything that might stop Irene from remaining forever at my side. . . . If I have to die, I won't be afraid, Irene conquers all fear. (Irene 120)

After a surreal montage of possible endings marking Irene's return, Pardo leaves us with a final love scene in which Octavio and Irene achieve climax, and Sarria "closed his eyes to find once again that the frightened gray rat was watching as the damned giant spider approached for the final time" (Irene 139).

In the end it is evident that Octavio is unable even to consider his own identity apart from the women in his life, yet these women remain irremediably "Other"; Sarria never achieves true union or understanding with any of them, and this profoundly affects his own development. Even more importantly, although the protagonist is aware of the marginalization of women in his society and he seems to feel that such treatment of women is unfortunate, the issue is presented in a way that makes it appear static. In other words, there is no indication in Irene that there exists a possibility for change, at least not for Sarria or the women in his life. Nonetheless, the primordial importance of women in the novel Irene marks a significant step toward taking women out of the margins of Latin American literature, and it hints at a new focus on strong, central female characters in contemporary narrative. In effect, Pardo's novel represents a significant move toward bridging the gender gap that had come to be accepted as a literary "norm." ▄

 

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