Exorcism, Madness, and Identity in Gabriel García Márquez's Del amor y otros demonios

GAbriel García Márquez's Del amor y otros demonios (1994) is representative of what Seymour Menton has named the New Historical Novel, one of the leading trends of Spanish American fiction of at least the last thirty years.¹ Characterized, in part, by a dialogic structure, the New Historical Novel counts among its traits the representation of the past as a type of comment upon the present. Set in the milieu of 18^th century Cartagena de Indias, Del amor y otros demonios explores through a multiplicity of social discourses the institution of a particular subjectivity that is projected as a continuing emblem of Spanish American cultural identity. As a case in point, Father Cayetano Delaura embodies a "narrative of crisis" that leads to subjective reflection effected partially by and transposed upon the critical transformations brought by the slow rationalization of the colonial world by the modern age in which social relations came to be challenged in fundamental ways thus making it necessary to reconstitute the self on new grounds (Cascardi 5). Central to this process of subject revision in Del amor y otros demonios are the ironic and metaphorical roles of exorcism, possession, and madness. By linking madness to a Foucauldian and Renaissance sense, I propose to show that what the dominant social discourses of the Church and state brand as madness is in fact the "truth" of the colonial subject and of Latin American history as portrayed in García Márquez's novel, a truth bound to an inseparable and marvelous vision of the Other.

The novel begins with what will be the central fulcrum of the work: Sierva María de Todos los Ángeles, the only child of the Marquis of Casalduero, is bitten by "[u]n perro cenizo con un lucero en la frente" (15) in the central market of the city as she accompanies "una sierva mulata a comprar una ristra de cascabeles para la fiesta de sus doce años" (15). It is important to note the strong descriptive emphasis from the outset related to a foreground and subplot of Afro-Colombian cultural traditions and slavery but also, as we shall see, resistance and diversity, traits that will carry over to the essence of Sierva María and indeed of Father Cayetano Delaura. The initial plot complication arises when the dog that has bitten her is thought to be rabid. Rabies as a theme is thus central to the development of the character of Sierva María and to that of her father the Marquis as it is his concern for his daughter's possible belated affliction (which is never manifest) that, at least temporarily, awakens him from a type of physical and psychological slumber. His concern leads him to consult the "infamous" Dr. Abrenuncio de Sa Pereira Cao and to employ a series of notorious treatments for her "condition". For example:

Un médico joven de Salamanca le abrió a Sierva María la herida sellada y le puso unas cataplasmas cáusticas para extraer los humores rancios. Otro intentó lo mismo con sanguijuelas en la espalda. Un barbero sangrador le lavó la herida con la orina de ella misma y otro se la hizo beber. Al cabo de dos semanas había soportado dos baños de hierbas y dos lavativas emolientes por día, y la habían llevado al borde de la agonía con pócimas de estibio natural y otros filtros mortales.

(62)

As the first part of Del amor y otros demonios gives way to the early middle, we learn of the plausible situation of the Bishop, Don Toribio de Cáceres y Virtudes, summoning the Marquis to his palace after hearing of the public scandal caused by the treatments of Sierva María (63-64). The Marquis and the reader, however, are not prepared for the Bishop's pronouncement: "Es un secreto a gritos que tu pobre niña rueda por los suelos presa de convulsiones obscenas y ladrando en jerga de idólatras. ¿No son síntomas inequívocos de una...