‘The Man-Beast’ and the Jaguar: Azuela and Guzmán on Pancho Villa as the Sovereign Beast in El águila y la serpiente. (original) (raw)

This article discusses the political and narratological uses of the image of Pancho Villa in the literary criticism of Mariano Azuela and in the novel El águila y la serpiente by Martín Luis Gúzman. The approach examines the subalternizing of Pancho Villa by Mexican intellectuals during the revolutionary period and afterwards. Basing my analysis in Jacques Derrida's deconstruction of the "Beast" and sovereignty, I examine the animal reference used by and against Villa as "the man-beast" and "'the Jaguar." I argue that Azuela's description of passages from El águila y la serpiente reduces the complex image that Gúzman develops in his novel to subaltern caricature for ideological reasons. The essay includes a detailed discussion of this issue in literary criticism and in Gúzman's novel.