Queer(Ed) Bodies, Spaces, and Forms in Selected Works by Reinaldo Arenas, Mario Bellatin, and Isaac Chocrón

Queer(ed) Bodies, Spaces, and Forms in Selected Works by Reinaldo Arenas, Mario Bellatin, and Isaac Chocrón John Stewart Bankhead A dissertation submitted to the faculty of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Department of Romance Languages and Literatures (Hispanic American Literature) Chapel Hill 2014 Approved by: Alicia Rivero María DeGuzmán Oswaldo Estrada Juan Carlos González Espitia Adam N. Versényi © 2013 John Stewart Bankhead ALL RIGHTS RESERVED ii ABSTRACT John Stewart Bankhead: Queer(ed) Bodies, Spaces, and Forms in Selected Works of Reinaldo Arenas, Mario Bellatin, and Isaac Chocrón (Under the direction of Alicia Rivero) This dissertation examines queerness in major works by Arenas, Bellatin, and Chocrán as it may be applied to bodies, space, and forms which have traditionally been normatively controlled. Notions of the queer(ed) body, how it is coerced to perform by heteronormativity and how it challenges normative categorizations are central to queer studies, which will be used to analyze their texts. Queer bodies seek to revel in same-sex sexual relations and, thus, do not fit into heteronormativized sexual spaces. Because these bodies have learned to present non-standard gender performances, they can pervert the rules of gender and sexual-object choice performances in order to contest the spaces previously closed to them and, eventually, open up new, more accepting spaces for the queer(ed) body. This body occupies space similarly to how actors inhabit space on a stage. Like actors, queer(ed) bodies dwell in, perform themselves, and signify differently in a multitude of social spaces. However, Western society’s historical space usually has excluded the possibility of queer(ed) bodies engaging in (re)presentational acts in it. Therefore, queer writings and commentaries seek to undermine heteronormative control over the presentation and interpretation of past events and, then, to re-imagine and rewrite them. All individuals performing their gender and sexualities exhibit basic rituals of life in the public sphere and thereby create forms (such as marriage and child-rearing rituals) by and through which members of any given society are able to conduct their iii lives. These gendered and sexual enactments performed by queer bodies serve to queer social forms. Because the queering of bodies, space, and forms amplifies possibilities and significations, “queer” has the potential to (re)invent cultural definitions and relationships among the individuals in modern, Western society, even beyond considerations of gender and sexuality. iv Table of Contents Introduction……………………………………………………………………………… .1 I. Queer Methodology…………………………………………………………......8 II. Gender in Complementary Feminist Approaches..……………………..…… 13 III. Memory, Artifice, and Representation……………………………………… 14 IV. Metabodies and Metapersonae...…………………………………………….17 V. The Queer(ed) Body and Identity…………………………………………… 18 VI. Queer Space, Performance, and Socio-Cultural Aspects…………………… 23 Body…...……………………………………………………………………………… 30 I. Mimicry/Performance………………………………………………………….30 II. Personae/Characters………………………………………………………..…45 III. Queer(ed) Bodies in Socio-cultural Interactions………………………….…46 IV. Transformation………………………………………………………………50 V. Highlighting the Queer(ed) Body/The Queer(ed) Body as a Sign……….…...55 VI. The Challenge of the Queer(ed) Body……………………………………….57 Space……………………………………………………………………………………..61 I. Queerness in the Historical Record……………………………………………61 II. Queer Invisibility……………………………………………………………...71 III. Queers as Exiles/Queer Textuality…………………………………………...79 IV. Queer Performance in (Con)Textual/Social Spaces…………………………94 V. Multiple Spaces……………………………………………………………...104 v VI. Sexual Spaces………………………………………………………………112 VI. Queer Challenging/(Re)Claiming of Space………………………………...119 Form………………………………………………………………………………….....126 I. Bodies in Space Create Form………………………………………………...127 II. Queer Forms Have Traditionally Been Forbidden…………………………..134 III. Social Concepts of Form Determine and Are Dependent on Appearances...140 IV. Fragmentation and Disruption of Form and Textuality…………………….148 V. Learning to Speak/Signify in a New Way…………………………………..160 Conclusion……………………………………………………………………………...165 I. The Need for Queerness……………………………………………………...166 II. How Queer Theory and Writings and Queer Interpretation Bring About Change………………………………………………………………………168 III. What Is “Queer?”…………………………………………………………...169 Bibliography...………………………………………………………………………….171 vi Introduction This dissertation examines selected writings of Mario Bellatin, Reinaldo Arenas, and Isaac Chocrón which highlight similar themes, such as performance and artifice, bodies in space, and social forms, from the perspective of how queer memory and history are (de-)constructed in their texts and how performance1 of queerness can affect and change discourse, which in turn may alter the perceptions of their readers or audience. My approach to Arenas, Bellatin, and Chocrón is novel because other scholars often characterize the works of my authors, as well as of other authors analyzed queerly, by their interiority, since the texts present closed spaces in which experience, desire, and memory mix together (Balderston 202). To date, no one has considered how these three authors represent queer memory and history as similar to queer artifice and performance in connection with the queer body2 acting in social spaces, thereby queering those spaces and, thus, causing social forms, or norms, to be queered.3 1 “Performance” in this dissertation means “the portrayal of gender and sexual object preference activities in socio-cultural settings either as appropriate according to normative teaching or as deviating from these norms according to queer memory.” Also, “performance” denotes that gender and sexual object choice are understood as roles presented to an audience. That performance is presumed to be perceived either by other queers and/or, perhaps more importantly, by a normative/normativized audience. The performance of gender and sexual preference, which are foundational to identity, are theatrical in nature in that the actors perform according to roles learned in the school of heteronormative appropriateness of gender and sexual object choice presentations. 2“Queer(ed) bodies,” as used in this dissertation, should be considered to include bodies that are, of course, used to engage in same-sex sexual relations. But additionally, “queer(ed) bodies” should be considered to include any body that does not meet heteronormativized society’s notion of what a proper body is, i.e. “queer(ed) bodies” should be construed in this text to refer to bodies that engage in any aberrant sexual practice, in addition to lacking appendages or having scars or other attributes which set them apart. Also, the term “queer(ed) bodies” includes all those bodies that can be construed as queer by having been placed in queer contexts of any sort. 3 Many have considered queer memory and history, queer artifice and performance, and/or the queer body, but have not put all these elements together to adjudge the effects of queer bodies and their performances in social spaces in connection with theatricality, the application of which permits the discussion of those 1 Memory is inextricably linked with gender performances, how masculinity and femininity are portrayed and how those performances are socially taught. This implicates a type of socio-cultural memory, or group memory. Also it is bound up with the queering of those gender performances by queers either artificially (re)creating them or exaggerating them or undermining heterosexual roles in other ways. These performances are based on queer memory of the heteronormative tenets of what is the “correct” performance of gender. Queers have been socio-culturally imbued with a memory of heteronormative gender and sexual preference that has taught them to perform per societal constraints, but they also have a subcultural queer memory that has taught them to not readily accept those constraints and to “pervert” “correct” performances in order to explode the socio- cultural constructs that seek to disallow queers space in modern Western culture, or at least to so constrain that space that queers cannot easily move within modern social spaces.4 The tension created by these divergent memories operating in tandem open up a space for (re)interpretation of appropriate gender and sexual objects of desire. The heteronormative and the queer memory components combine when queers’ perform gender and sexuality in the public arena. Of course, these performances of queerness take place in socio-cultural spaces and are performed by queer bodies in those areas, and they can change social perceptions of the queer bodies, which in turn question, and begin a (re)formation of, the forms that govern socio-cultural beliefs and behavior. Similarly to “memory,” queer “artifice” is closely bound to queer performance of spaces and societies being queered like an audience and the performers are changed during the performance of a play. 4 This is true despite the fact that in the United States there has recently been an increase in the number of states where gay marriage is legal and that there is nowadays greater social acceptance of gay unions. 2 gender and sexual object choice. These performances can create artifices that may be subtly deceptive in that gender or sexual preference performance is represented according to socially

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