Reinaldo Arenas, Caliban, and Postcolonial Discourse By Enrique ...

emphasis on Reinaldo Arenas and his agenda: to deconstruct the fixed and definitive position of the homosexual subject in a society that denies his existence in order to reappropriate an identity and incorporate it into the center. Therefore, the image that will be introduced with regard to Arenas is that of a rebellious Caliban.

Chapter 4, “Resistance and Revolution,” analyzes Arenas’ opposition to the revolutionary government by establishing his own revolutionary or counterrevolutionary endeavors. Some of the issues in this chapter will also address his status as an enemy of the Cuban state in an interpretation of various instances throughout his writing where his experiences, persecution, marginalization, and oppression are emphasized. Chapter 5, “Reappropriating the Self: Arenas and the Homosexual,” focuses on an analysis of the Cuban writer’s image of the homosexual and Caliban as uncivilized others based on their treatment by the Marxist-Leninist regime. This chapter also explores the relationship of mother and child as presented by Arenas to explain the position of women in that society, and, by extension, the role of the homosexual. An interpretation of specific aspects of the Revolution, such as the demands that all writers support the ideals of the revolutionary government and the institutionalized persecution of homosexuals as another form of colonialism will foment the ideological connection between Caliban and Reinaldo Arenas, and thus the Cuban writer’s homosexuality and subjectivity.