52 pages • 1 hour read
Manuel PuigKiss of the Spider Woman
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1976A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 13-14Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 13 Summary
Molina admits that she’s really happy, as she remembers the feeling of being intimately connected with Valentin and feels safe in Valentin’s presence. However, she also wishes she would just die. Valentin encourages her to finish telling the film’s plot, so she does.
The actress leaves her husband and finds the reporter, who now has an alcohol addiction, broke and on the verge of dying. The actress doesn’t have enough money to support him—her husband has leveraged his power to prevent her from finding work in the entertainment industry—so she becomes a sex worker. When the reporter finds out, he leaves, feeling like a burden to her.
Molina admits that she feels like she’ll never be pardoned and will never see Valentin again. Valentin doesn’t reassure her but doesn’t agree, either. They discuss their intimacy, and Valentin tells Molina that even though she prefers to act as a woman, she doesn’t have to be submissive, as he believes that men and women are equal in relationships. Molina disagrees, feeling as though the man should feel like a man in the relationship. Valentin replies, “[T]his business of being a man, it doesn’t give any special rights to anyone” (243). Molina ends the conversation, not wanting to discuss it any further.
Chapter 14 Summary
The warden is on the phone with another authority figure who insists that they release Molina, though she hasn’t provided any relevant information. The warden no longer trusts Molina and agrees to release her on parole and, if needed, leak a fake story to the media saying that Valentin made confessions to Molina, an undercover agent.
Molina is brought into the warden’s office and is given another chance to speak. However, she claims to have no information. When the warden says he can no longer help Molina, Molina begs to be left in the same cell. As Molina is walking out, the warden tells her she will be released the following day. Molina asks for groceries again so as not to make Valentin suspicious, but the warden denies her request.
When Molina tells Valentin she’s being released, Valentin asks Molina to pass on a message to his group. This makes Molina nervous. She fears she will be apprehended and interrogated, but Valentin assures her she will not and offers to give her detailed instructions. Though she wants to return to her mother, Molina admits she doesn’t want to leave Valentin. She says she doesn’t intend to pass on the message, which makes Valentin irritable.
Molina returns to storytelling, finishing the movie plot. The actress receives jewelry from her ex-husband, who feels guilty about the way he has treated her, so she sells it and then goes to the reporter, who is close to death. After he passes, she leaves the money she made selling her jewelry to the hospital. She then walks away, and the final shot of the movie depicts her smiling and crying at the same time, which Molina interprets to mean that she’s “content to have had at least one real relationship in her life” (259). Valentin finally admits he will miss Molina, and they become physically intimate again. This time, Valentin gives Molina what she really wants: a kiss. Valentin also gets what he really wants: for Molina to agree to pass on a message when she leaves.
Chapters 13-14 Analysis
Valentin and Molina’s relationship has developed significantly, and Molina admits to feeling happy. The sincerity of her admission is evident in the fact that she lies to the warden and begs to remain in his cell, afraid to leave Valentin. Faced with the fulfillment of her greatest wish, to be released, Molina now admits, “[T]he only thing I want is to stay with [Valentin]” (254).
Molina’s feelings for Valentin stem partly from the fact that their intimacy has been a form of escapism for her, transporting her beyond the cell and developing the theme of The Meaning and Value of Liberation. Molina continues to conceive of this in intensely personal terms relevant to her experience of gender and orientation, as in this exchange with Valentin:
[I]t’s like [….] I’m someone else, who’s neither a man nor a woman, but someone who feels…
—…out of danger.
—Yes, that’s exactly it (235-36).
Here, Molina equates escape from the confines of traditional gender roles with safety, underscoring just how much she has suffered as a result of those roles. At the same time, she does not fully embrace The Fluidity of Gender and Orientation. Rather, Molina brushes aside Valentin’s suggestion that she reject the stereotypical female role, saying that she wants the man to feel in control. This ambivalence regarding gender norms helps explain why Molina’s “happiness” quickly slips into a wish for death; she remarks, for instance, “[I]f it was just me, I wish I wouldn’t wake up ever” (236), framing death as the ultimate escape from her internal conflict.
Molina’s investment in traditional femininity specifically also plays a role, as the conventional female role is self-sacrificial. Though Valentin argues that “To be a woman, you don’t have to be […] a martyr” (244), the movies Molina loves and recounts suggest otherwise. In this one, for example, the actress leaves her husband and goes to the reporter, which is comparable to Molina straying from the warden’s wishes and attaching herself to Valentin. To take care of the reporter, however, the actress must become a sex worker—something she does not want to do but does for the sake of the man she loves. When the reporter leaves the actress, not wanting to be a burden any longer, Molina temporarily stops telling the story, admitting, “I have a bad premonition” (242). Her remark foreshadows her death, which marks the culmination of her devotion to Valentin.
That tendency toward self-sacrifice sheds light on the kiss she and Molina share, just after finishing their discussion of the movie. The novel’s title frames Molina as the one doing the seducing—luring her prey in and then consuming him. While this may have been true of earlier interactions with Valentin, the balance of power has now shifted, as Molina agrees to pass on a message to the political group on behalf of Valentin.
