In Vargas Llosa’s The Cubs, the standards and expectations of the barrio play an undeniable role in P.P. Cuellar’s suffering; instead of accepting P.P. as he is, his friends in the barrio demand conformity and allegiance to defined standards—something he is physically unable to do because to his castration. I think there is strong textual evidence to support the barrio’s role in Cuellar’s suffering—Cuellar’s ostracizing nickname, his friends’ constant prodding to find a girlfriend, his ultimate rejection by the barrio.
Even so, I think it’s important to go a step further and note that while Cuellar’s castration was tragic, and while the barrio did push him to accept its standards, his fate was ultimately his choice and not something that can be blamed on the barrio. Cuellar chose to engage in behavior that was detrimental to his well-being, to retreat to the mountains, and to drive recklessly—in the end, he chose to engage in the destructive behavior that led to his demise.
I think it’s easy to point the finger at society with all its standards and pressures, but when all is said and done, we can’t control how others think, what they do, or what “they” tell us is right, but we can control how we react. We can decide whether or not to accept society’s standards, or to develop our own value system. When you don’t meet society’s standards, is it easy to buck the system and find your own definition of what’s right for you? Probably not. But, in situations as grave as Cuellar’s, what’s the alternative? Self-destruction? Death?
I wonder what the barrio’s reaction would have been and what would have happened to Cuellar if he had accepted his situation and tried to move forward instead of doing “nutty things to get attention” in an attempt to gain acceptance and prove his masculinity. I wonder if he could ever have found satisfaction and contentment by living life according to his own standards instead of society’s.
While reading Césaire’s Notebook of a Return to the Native Land and the article on postcolonialism, I was struck by the idea of defining oneself by the look of the other. In Cahier, Césaire moves from self-loathing and identifying with the colonizer to reclaiming his history, his people, his negritude. Even so, his identity hinges upon identifying with an “other” that does not wholly define him; at the beginning of the work, regardless of the fact that he is not French, he identifies with the French colonizers, calling himself and his people “the vomit of slave ships,” and then later, upon returning to the island, he identifies with his African origins, even though he has never lived in Africa and is not African.
The dichotomy between who Césaire is and the group with which he identifies made me think about the similarities between the immigrant identity and the identity of colonized peoples: when you live with one foot in two different cultures—either by choice or by force—can you ever fully identify with either? And if you are the child of immigrants—especially immigrants who are slow to assimilate into their new culture—how do you balance your identity between your heritage and your present/future? When you are labeled as “the other” everywhere you go, then what? What does that do to your sense of identity?
To me, the idea of créolité makes much more sense than negritude or any movement whose goal is to reclaim lost origins–an impossible feat. While heritage is undeniably important, it is a mélange of our unique personal experiences and our heritage that make us who we are. And that is something that often cannot be defined, even by “the other.”
