Masculinity In The People Of Paper

Salvador Plascencia’s critically acclaimed novel, The People of Paper, illustrates messages of lost love, gender, and power. Numerous male characters that Plascencia utilizes in the novel, such as the protagonist, Federico de la Fe, or the oppressor, Saturn, demonstrate situations that parallel each other. Many of their situations reveal detrimental traits that not only affect themselves, but to the people surrounding them. The novel further tries to create a deeper and fuller understanding of these messages and situations as Plascencia’s use of blending the lines between fiction and reality provides the ability to describe and critique issues in an out-of-a-box way. This is true as many of the hard to comprehend conflicts by the male characters

In order to illustrate how toxic masculinity is a malicious and harmful trait, Plasencia employs examples of toxic masculinity through its male characters to illustrate its self-destructing and detrimental abilities within society.

Many external sources can reinforce toxic masculinity and machismo as damaging traits both in the novel and in the real world. Radhika Chopra’s Understanding Masculinity tries to understand the idea of masculinity and how it connects to gender studies. Cophra can further connect The People of Paper and society as many of its men use toxic masculinity to hide behind their true personalities, “a public performance to establish proof of being male” (Chopra 1608). Another source that helps this claim is Bron B. Ingoldsby’s The Latin American Family: Familism vs. Machismo as it illustrates Latin American culture regarding machismo. Machismo can be connected to many of its characters such as Federico de la Fe and Saturn demonstrate traits of being “macho”, aggressive, and “hypersexuality” (Ingoldsby 57, 58). The source further gives a

One example is how Federico de la Fe hides behind and uses machismo and toxic masculinity to hide his true emotions. After Federico de la Fe loses the love of his wife, Merced, and leaves him all alone with their young daughter, Little Merced, he begins to cope by singeing (burning) himself. Throughout the novel, Federico tries to make this a secret, but it is found out by Little Merced, only for Federico to feel intense feelings of embarrassment. Plascencia utilizes Federico’s behavior to cope as a metaphor of how men in society manage through difficult situations. Federico stays quiet about losing Merced and tries to cope, much as how the real-life concept of machismo is described. Ingoldsby describes this as being “masculine” and strong” as “lack of emotion is part of the superiority of the male” (Ingoldsby 57, 58). This is true as men are thought to not cry and show any emotion other than one’s relating to masculinity. Plascencia uses the inability to express emotion as detrimental not only to males, but to surrounding people. Lacking expression provides a lack of connection to other people, which in turn creates a detrimental effect on one’s mental health. Plascencia uses Federico as a metaphor of men in society, showing how males being taught to be reserved and remaining emotionless is terrible. This is prevailing in The People