Untitled - Centre for Comparative Literature - University of Toronto

Valenzuela’s novel precisely because it is so violent with respect to the place of women.
It is possible to argue that the utopia envisioned within Cola de lagartija would be defi ned
by its lack of sexes, and not only this, it would present a uniquely male society. This utopia
is being built by a man for a man, and as the text demonstrates, time and time again,
his disdain and distrust of women. These observations allow for the evocative notion
of the dream of a male-centred utopia (this anti-feminist interpretation). The reader will
quickly recognize how this ideological position penetrates the text in various places, for
instance,
Importante la ausencia de sangre. Ese cuerpo tan muerto remuerto
embalsamado, ni una gota. ¡Y tanta sangre que usan las mujeres, tanta que
derraman, despilfarran, derrochan! Por eso las desprecio—salvo ésta—por
no valorar el líquido sagrado, por no impresionarse ante la gran presencia
roja.
(100) 11
It would seem rather obvious, painfully so, that this example presents an anti-woman
ideology, and it is the brujo who proposes that women who waste this “líquido sagrado.”
He furthers expresses his disgust for women with reference to his own mother: “Dicen
que mi madre menstruó durante todo su embarazo, no le dejé ni un momento respire.
Esa sangre tan densa, tan poco estimulante” (100). 12 It is the woman, for the brujo, who
contaminates society because she squanders this sacred liquid.
Moreover, to return to the notion of pregnancy, it function as yet another performance
of power insofar as the brujo is able to discontinue the pregnancies of women throughout
his land by means of violent methods. Thus, not only is his own pregnancy pivotal to the
text, the pregnancies of others is summarily terminated to further reinscribe his ultimate
and absolute authority.
The only other female fi gure in the novel is the character Luisa Valenzuela, who
appears in the second part of the novel: “Yo, Luisa Valenzuela, juro por la presente intentar
hacer algo, meterme en lo posible, entrar de cabeza, consciente de lo poco que se puede
hacer en todo esto con ganas de manejar al menos un hilito y asumir la responsabilidad
de la historia” (139). 13 This second part of the narrative is written by Luisa Valenzuela (a
character not the author) who is writing the biography of the dictator; and what is more,
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