Shaishtar 1

Nourah Shaishtar

Susana Marcelo

CAS113B

May 5 2015

The Role of Men and Women in The Good Cripple

In the novel, The Good Cripple, the author Rodrigo Ray Rosa does not portray women in stereotypical ways, but instead shows them to be full and complex characters capable of making their own decisions. Women such as Ana Lucia, for example, show that they are bold and outspoken characters who are not afraid to go against the stereotypical ideas that society holds about them and women in general. This is important, especially in a society as conservative as Guatemalan society which often views women as weak, easily taken advantage of, and always in need of a man. Also, she shows that she is bold and outspoken, not weak and submissive; therefore, in many respects, is different from the stereotypical woman. Demonstrating that she is more than just a stereotype is difficult; of course, especially since many women in the conservative Guatemalan society in which Ana Lucia lives are unable to show who they really are precisely because they have been made to conform to a very specific idea of who they should be. No doubt this is unfortunate, and it is interesting to note that, although the limitations are different, when limitations are placed on women as they are in this novel, limitations are also placed on men. In other words, if women must, by social standards, act in a certain way, men are, by extension, forced to act in certain ways as well. Nevertheless, by creating a strong female characters as evidenced by Ana Lucia, Rosa shows that some women can rise above social limitations while, at the same time, demonstrating that some men – specifically, Juan Luis Luna – can do similarly.

At various points in the short novel, Ana Lucia, Juan Luis’s girlfriend, shows that she is more than just a stereotype, and therefore does not have to act in stereotypical ways. In particular, she is independent and assertive, and not afraid to say what she is thinking even if she knows that others, and mostly men, are not going to like what they hear. For example, when Ana Lucia is speaking to Don Carlos, the wealthy and influential father of Juan Carlos, she tells him that she would not tolerate Juan Carlos joining the family business because she does not believe that the business is honorable. “Deep down inside Don Carlos had not given up the fight, and he believed that it was not too late to make an honorable man out of his son. But that was not how she [Ana Lucia] saw it – not when ‘honorable’ was synonymous with being married and in the business” (35). Speaking up against Don Carlos is a tough decision to make, especially since he is powerful and he is well connected. Moreover, Don Carlos is wealthy, and it is likely that if Juan Carlos were to join the business he, too, would become wealthy. Ana Lucia, however, knows that to join the family business is wrong, and she does not want to put herself in a position in which she is forced to behave, or have her potential future husband behave, in ways that she might find wrong or immoral. In other words, Ana Lucia is a strong woman who is not shy about stating what is on her mind, even if what she has to say will cause problems between Don Carlos and her. Aside from this, by making it clear that she does not want Juan Carlos to join the business, Ana Lucia shows that she is capable of not only thinking for herself – why, she must wonder, would she want to be with someone who is not honorable – but that she is even willing to risk her happiness with Juan Carlos to fight for what believes in. In the end, in this brief interaction with Don Carlos, Ana Lucia shows that she is an independent and moral woman who is perfectly capable of deciding what she wants for herself without any outside help.

Most women in Guatemalan society would likely not have said anything, preferring to keep quiet and stay out of family problems that do not concern them. This claim is supported by Dan Sadowsky who, writing about a 2005 survey conducted by a MercyCorps, an international development organization, reports that nearly half of all respondents to the survey “agreed that the ideal woman [was] meek, docile, sweet, and submissive” (2). The characteristics that a large portion of Guatemalan men find attractive in a women are ones that allow them, the men, to be dominant. Put differently, based off of this survey, it can be argued that Guatemalan society is clearly patriarchal given that, as women are generally expected to act in ways that are weak, men, on the other hand, are expected to act in ways that are dominant. Likely then, men must be aggressive, strong, and controlled, all characteristics that are opposite to those which the ideal Guatemalan woman is supposed to possess. Referencing the previous scene between Don Carlos and Ana Lucia reinforces just how different Ana Lucia is from the ideal Guatemala woman as she, rather impressively, stands up to Don Carlos even though she must know that doing so goes against nearly everything that she has seen and experienced in her own society. Don Carlos, for one, knows that Ana Lucia’s behavior is not normal as, ultimately, he “stopped inviting her to lunch in his house, as he often used to; whether they met he always seemed to be extremely busy or would come up with some excuse to keep from talking to her” (35). Don Carlos, as is evident, wants nothing to do with a woman who is going voice her opinion and beliefs, and so he makes every attempt possible to keep away from her. Likely, Don Carlos feels threatened by Ana Lucia as he wants to be the one who makes the rules and who is in charge. Now, however, he must compete with another person – a woman – and rather than do this, and perhaps embarrass himself, he just chooses to ignore her.

A second example demonstrating Ana Lucia’s strong character occurs later in the novel when mention is made of her desire for a strong education. Education is one of the main ways in which both men and women are able to rise above their circumstances, but when a man does not want a strong woman and, instead, prefers to have a weak and submissive one, an education can be seen as threatening. Still, Ana Lucia does not care what men think about her, a point made clear from her interaction with Don Carlos, and she knows that, in the end, she must do what is right for her and her alone. As a result, Ana Lucia desires to go to the Universidad Francisco Marroquin so that she can “study anthropology…and take private classes in one of the Mayan languages, maybe Mam or Kekchi,” (83) and is able to convince Juan Luis to move with her to study. In a patriarchal society like the one in Guatemala, many women are not given the opportunity to study since it is thought that the proper role of the woman is inside the household taking care of the husband and children. Supporting this conclusion is Nineth Montenegro who writes that “the situation of Guatemalan girls is also precarious. In education, dropout rates are as high as 81 per cent in rural areas and 51 per cent in urban areas. Only 17 of every 100 girls complete primary school, and in rural areas 66 per cent of them drop out of school before completing the third grade” (2). Montenegro’s research not only shows just how difficult the situation regarding female education in Guatemala is, but also serves to emphasize how independent a woman Ana Lucia is. After all, according to the stereotypical thinking, while the woman stays home and attends to the domestic life, the man must take on the financial responsibility of providing for his family. For this reason, a woman’s education is not important since she will just be in the home and will never have any real use for her education. By desiring to go to the university, Ana Lucia shows that she will not be confined by limited gender roles, and it seems likely that, upon graduation, she would even consider entering the job market, again showing that she is willing to do away with stereotypes and act in the way that makes her happiest.

It is highly unlikely that, if Juan Luis believed that men should be stronger than women, that he would have even let Ana Lucia dream about getting an education once they returned to Guatemala from abroad. As the narrator states, Ana Lucia and Juan Luis “went back to Guatemala, full of enthusiasm, each with a dream” (83). Since Ana Lucia is not restricted by the inequality of male-female gender roles, she is able to dream in a way that is unique and individual. In other words, Ana Lucia does not have to share Juan Luis’s dream or anyone else’s, and so is able to focus on her desires and her wants without sacrifice. Of course, there is an argument to be made that this way of thinking is selfish since Ana Lucia is, after all, in a relationship, and any relationship, if it is to last, must involve some amount of compromise on the part of both the man and woman. However, what this argument fails to consider is that, in a patriarchal society, women are not allowed to have their own dreams, and if they are, these dreams are kept private and hardly ever realized. Dreams, like education, are threatening to men in a patriarchal society because if a woman is allowed to dream enough, she may eventually try to live out her dreams. Living out her dreams may, of course, lead this woman to conclude that the man she is only an obstacle to these dreams, and therefore she may choose to leave him. In other words, a woman who dreams is a woman who is one step closer to becoming independent since dreams can pull people in directions that they might not ever thought about going in. Fortunately, with Juan Luis Ana Lucia does not have to worry about dreaming as she know that he will support her in what she does. In the end, it is not just Ana Lucia, but Juan Carlos, too, who has a dream and, as shown by the quote, this dream is not necessarily the same for each of them.

When women are allowed to express themselves fully without worrying about the ways in which society might view them, men are also able to break out of restricting stereotypes. In the earlier pages of the novel, Don Carlos is described as a “unusually vital and ruddy…[a] lustful man…[with] an element of sensuality in everything he did” who “on the strength of his money and his affability…emerged from a murky past into the most luminous social spheres” (39). From this brief description, much can be said about Don Carlos and, as an extension, the stereotypical ways in which men are supposed to behave. For one, the adjectives that Rosa uses to describe Don Carlos – “vital” and “ruddy” – serve to emphasize the fact that. despite being seventy years old, he is still very much alive, a positive fact no doubt, but one that, with the addition of the word “lustful” and the phrase “an element of sensuality,” demonstrate that Don Carlos is not only a man, but a man’s man, a central element in the whole machismo idea. Put differently, one might assume that at the age of seventy Don Carlos is not thinking about sex as much as he might have been when he was younger and, certainly, one would not expect for everything Don Carlos did to be full of sexuality. Portraying Don Carlos in this way makes it evident that age is not going to slow him down, and that he will continue to be a highly-sexualized creature probably until he is no longer alive.

Writing about the relationship between machismo and sex, Edward V. Wallace states that “machismo is a social behavior pattern in which the Latin man exhibits an overbearing attitude to any one in a position inferior to his, demanding complete subservience. The male continually seeks to establish his sexual freedom while the female continues to serve him” (8). Indeed, this seems exactly like what is happening with Don Carlos, and perhaps even more given that, with his age, he must work extra hard to show that he is as manly as he always was. Furthermore, another important element of the machismo culture is power, and there is no greater access to power than through money. For this reason, Rosa mentions how Don Carlos was able to use his “money” in order to “emerge from a murky past…into the most luminous social spheres” (35). Why at the age of seventy Don Carlos feels the need to demonstrate not only how much he has, but also how much prestige he can buy, is open for interpretation, but likely it has to do with not wanting to be perceived as in any way weak or incapable. After all, looking weak and incapable is the role of the woman, at least that is how the stereotypical thinking goes, and Don Carlos would probably prefer to be thought of in just about any other way besides womanly. Just as women are boxed into stereotypes that force them to act in very specific ways, so too are men as demonstrated by Don Carlos and how he acts. As an extension, when a person is told how to act based on their gender, the person, whether man or women, is put in a position that is unnatural since the way he or she is told to act may not be the way that he or she wants to act. Life, then, becomes a play in which everyone is acting a part.

Juan Carlos, different from his father, shows the reader that, fortunately, there are still men, just as there are women, who do not fit easily into gender stereotypes. After Juan Carlos is released by his kidnappers, he tracks down where one of them, Bunny, lives, and he contemplates getting revenge on Bunny for the kidnapping. Upon encountering Bunny’s son, the narrator states how Juan Carlos, “when he had the opportunity to take his revenge…felt no more than a weak desire for it. He kept on walking toward the door without turning back, went on, and closed it behind him” (112). The fact that Juan Carlos is able to track down Bunny and, as a result, is put in a position to get revenge for what was done to him, and does not, shows just how strong a character Juan Carlos is. Furthermore, not taking revenge shows that Juan Carlos is not inclined to aggression or violence like his kidnappers were, an important point since, based on male gender stereotypes and machismo, Juan Carlos is expected to get revenge for what was done to him. Aggression, in other words, must lead to more aggression, as this is the way men must act. By walking away and not hurting Bunny’ son, Juan Carlos proves that he is the better man, and is certainly not one restricted by the code of machismo. In the end, he made a wise decision not to hurt Bunny’s son since there is little doubt that, had he done so, Bunny would have come looking for him again.

Rosas’s short novel, The Good Cripple, explores gender in a way that is interesting and informative. As shown, society plays a big role in determining how men and women should act, and there is no doubt that many of the characters in this novel – including, Don Carlos, Juan Luis, and Ana Lucia – either act in ways that are stereotypical or actively fight against male and female stereotypes. As a result of his strong writing and complex characters, Rosa is able to provide an accurate portrayal of Guatemalan society while, at the same time, showing how social ideas relating to men and women influence character thoughts and behavior. Based on the fascinating story, his unique writing style, and diverse selection of characters, it is understandable how Rosa has become one of Guatemala’s most famous and well-respected authors.

Apr. 2012. Web. 31 Mar. 2015. http://www.mercycorps.org/articles/guatemala/women- stake-their-claim-land-machismo

Wallace, Edward V. "Understanding Sex Practices of Heterosexual Hispanic Males in an Effort

to Prevent HIV." International J Humanities Social Science 1 (2011): 8-10.