Manhunt by Alejo Carpentier

First published:El acoso, 1956 (English translation, 1959)

Type of plot: Psychological drama

Time of work: The early 1930’s, during the dictatorship of Gerardo Machado

Locale: Havana, Cuba

Principal Characters:

• The unnamed protagonist, a university student and political activist
• Estrella, a prostitute and sometime lover of the protagonist
• An old black woman, the protagonist’s former wet nurse, who runs a boardinghouse
• The ticket taker, at the concert hall

The Novel

The principal action of Manhunt, a short novel which takes place during the span of one night in Havana, recounts the unnamed protagonist’s flight from his former political comrades, who are trying to murder him for having turned informer. The protagonist, the typical “young man from the provinces,” has come to the capital to pursue his studies at the university. Once in Havana, he takes up residence in a boardinghouse owned by an old black woman who had been his wet nurse. Shortly after his arrival in the city, he joins the Communist Party but is soon disenchanted with it and opts instead for direct political action in the form of terrorist acts against various government officials. These acts include one murder for which he is directly responsible and involvement in a second. As a result of his terrorist activities, he is arrested; terrified by the threat of castration, he “sings” and is released back into the streets. Most of these events, however, are narrated in the form of flashbacks, for when the novel begins the protagonist is already in the streets, fleeing from his pursuers. His pursuers finally catch up with him at a concert hall where a symphonic orchestra has just finished performing Ludwig van Beethoven’s Eroica symphony. In ironic counterpoint to Beethoven’s work, the unnamed protagonist dies an unheroic death when he is murdered while hiding in a balcony seat. The incongruity of his death is enhanced by the fact that it takes place on Easter Sunday, only one of many instances of religious symbolism in the novella. Manhunt is the story of a passion at the end of which awaits no resurrection. During that night, in desperate flight from his pursuers, he tries various ways of escaping, but to no avail. He goes back to the boardinghouse where he had lived only to find that its owner has died; he visits Estrella, his lover, who is unable to help him; he cannot get sanctuary in a church; and he also fails to see the magistrate who had ordered the assassinations. Interwoven with this periplus through the streets of Havana are the flashbacks that recount his biography. Of the novel’s three parts, the first and third take place in the present, during the performance of the symphony; the middle section, actually the bulk of the novel, is largely given over to the protagonist’s earlier life.

The Characters

As is sometimes the case with Carpentier’s protagonists, the principal character of this novel goes unnamed. Nevertheless, Carpentier still provides the reader with a nuanced and vivid psychological profile. Since the interest of the story resides, in no small measure, in this portrayal of the anguish of the informer, it would not be a mistake to look upon this novella as primarily a character study. Fleeing through the streets of Havana, the protagonist finds himself utterly alone, without refuge or meaningful human contact. His relationship with Estrella, one is led to believe, was a superficial and passing sexual infatuation, at least on her part. The only other human contact the protagonist had in the city was the old black woman, who has recently died. Symptomatic of the protagonist’s predicament is the attitude of the priest, who refuses to confess him. Tormented with guilt, lacking friends, and with no place to escape, the protagonist is an easy prey for his pursuers. As he says: “Why were men today denied that ancient privilege of sanctuary that he read about in a book on the Gothic?” The whole story centers on his failed quest for sanctuary—political, emotional, artistic. The other two most important characters in the story are Estrella and the old black woman. These two women act as foils for each other. As her name suggests, Estrella (meaning “star”) is potentially a bright spot in the protagonist’s existence, and he prides himself on being able to satisfy a woman who is accustomed to casual sexual encounters. The old black woman, clearly a mother figure, satisfies a different kind of need, for she is his one nexus to his childhood in the provinces. Just as the prostitute represents the degradation of urban life, the black woman represents the innocence and security of his early years away from the capital. Spiritually and physically, the protagonist oscillates between these two women. The only other significant character in the novella is the ticket taker at the opera, a student of music whose lack of discipline has thwarted his education. Although he never actually meets the protagonist, these two characters are joined by their common interest in Estrella, the lodestar of their emotional and sexual lives. Unlike the protagonist, the ticket taker is not a man of action, a passivity conveyed by the fact that one usually finds him reading a biography of Beethoven. The contrast between Estrella and the old black woman is therefore counterbalanced by the contrast between the two principal male characters. The ticket taker also acts as a foil, for he symbolizes the intellectuals who—unlike the protagonist—have not gotten involved in the murky waters of Cuban politics.

Critical Context

In spite of its brevity, Manhunt is one of the works of Carpentier that has elicited the most critical comment. For some critics, Carpentier’s stylized and fragmentary re-creation of Cuban history robs the story of the immediacy of lived experience, transforming it into a kind of a temporal tableau. Other critics, drawing attention to the work’s subtle and innovative craftmanship, suggest that in Manhunt Carpentier has masterfully condensed many of his typical preoccupations and themes. Carpentier himself claimed that the novel was composed like a sonata, although the musical structure of the narration is not immediately obvious. Despite these differences of opinion, however, there is little doubt that Manhunt is one of the most challenging and original works of modern Spanish-American fiction.

Bibliography

Echevarria, Roberto Gonzalez. Alejo Carpentier: The Pilgrim at Home. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1977. Explores what seems like a radical disjunction between Carpentier’s fiction and nonfiction. Echevarria finds unity, however, in certain recurring themes, which he illuminates by discussing Carpentier’s debt to writers such as José Ortega y Gasset and Oswald Spengler. The novelist’s penchant for dialectical structures and for allegory is also explored. Includes a bibliography and index.

Harss, Luis, and Barbara Dohmann. Into the Mainstream. New York: Harper and Row, 1966. Includes a chapter often cited as a succinct introduction to Carpentier’s work up to the early 1960’s.

Janney, Frank. Alejo Carpentier and His Early Works. London: Tamesis, 1981. An introductory survey that is still useful.

Kilmer-Tchalekian, Mary. “Ambiguity in El siglo de las luces.” Latin American Literary Review 4 (1976): 47-57. An especially valuable discussion of Carpentier’s narrative technique and handling of point of view.

King, Lloyd. Alejo Carpentier, Caribbean Writer. St. Augustine, Fla.: University of the West Indies Press, 1977. Often cited for its perceptive introduction to Carpentier’s work.

Shaw, Donald L. Alejo Carpentier. Boston: Twayne, 1985. Chapters on Carpentier’s apprenticeship, his discovery of the “marvelous real,” his handling of time and circularity, his fiction about the Antilles, his explorations of politics, and his last works. Includes chronology, notes, and annotated bibliography.

Souza, Raymond D. Major Cuban Novelists: Innovation and Tradition. Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1976. Should be read in conjunction with Harss and Dohmann.