38 pages 1 hour read

Manuel Puig

Kiss of the Spider Woman

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1976

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Chapters 13-14Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapter 13 Summary

Molina admits that he’s really happy, as he remembers the feeling of being intimately connected with Valentin, and feels safe in Valentin’s presence, but wishes also he would just die. Valentin encourages him to finish telling the film’s plot, so he does. The actress leaves her husband and finds the reporter, who is now a drunk, on the verge of dying, and broke. The actress doesn’t have enough money to support him, so she prostitutes herself. When he finds out, he leaves, feeling like a burden to her.

 

Molina admits that he feels like he’ll never be pardoned, and he’ll never see Valentin again. Valentin doesn’t reassure him but doesn’t agree, either. They discuss their intimacy, and Valentin tells Molina that even though he prefers to act as a woman, more than a man, he doesn’t have to submit in the act, believing that men and women are equal in relationships. Molina disagrees, feeling as though the man should feel like a man in the relationship, but Valentin says, “this 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.