55 pages • 1 hour read
Salvador PlascenciaThe People of Paper
Salvador PlascenciaFiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2005A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Symbols & Motifs
Paper
From the title of the book, through the opening story of the origami surgeon and his creation of Merced de Papel, to the last scene where Federico de la Fe and Little Merced walk off the page, paper is the unifying motif of the novel, helping to develop themes such as the blurring of fiction and reality, metafictional intertextuality, and loss and sadness.
The Prologue tells the story of the origami surgeon, a heretical Catholic monk named Antonio who makes human organs by folding paper. Despite the impossibility of such origami organs in real life, in the book, the paper kidneys, hearts, and limbs are described in vivid and concrete detail. Paper serves here as a vehicle for the magical reality of the novel. Likewise, when there is no longer a call for paper organs because medical science has advanced, the monk turns first to more traditional and realistic origami, creating birds and animals from paper before moving on to creating an entire woman of paper.
Paper also overtly contributes to the intertextuality of the Prologue. Plascencia uses the moment Antonio “splits the spines of books, spilling leaves of Austen and Cervantes, sheets from Leviticus and Judges, all mixing with the pages of The Book of Incandescent Light” (15), to allude to an important metafictional moment from Gabriel García Marquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude. At the very end of that novel, parchment pages that comprise the novel itself swirl in the wind around Aureliano Babilonia, who disappears with the closing of the book. Antonio’s creation of Merced mirrors Plascencia’s creation of the novel in which Antonio plays a part. Just as Merced was constructed from bits and pieces of paper from the Bible, Austen, Cervantes, and many other sources, Plascencia himself draws on a multitude of sources in constructing his novel.
Finally, the ephemerality of paper contributes to the sadness that permeates The People of Paper. As Liz teaches Saturn, “We are all of paper” (122). Paper constitutes every character in the novel, the pages, the cover, the research—all of it. By implication, the statement extends out into the real world in which people are born and die, are here and then gone. Paper becomes a metaphor for the ephemeral nature of humanity itself.
Carnations
Plascencia uses the word “carnation” symbolically as a way to explore the ideas of love and pain. The people of El Monte work on flower plantations and in particular are engaged in harvesting carnations. They carry carnation knives in their belts to cut the stems of flowers. The frequency with which Plascencia uses the word suggests a symbolic meaning. There are several theories concerning the etymology of carnation. The most likely, and the one having the greatest impact on this novel, is that it comes from the Latin caro, meaning “flesh” or a piece of flesh. The word is also connected to the Indo-European root “sker-,” meaning “to cut.”
Caro is etymologically connected to carnal, meaning “of the flesh” and often used to describe sexual desires. Throughout Christian history, carnality is described as something that should be suppressed in humans. Indeed, Adam and Eve’s exile from Eden transforms them from spiritual beings to carnal ones. Sex and sexuality play important roles in The People of Paper, from Merced’s desertion of Federico de la Fe to Saturn’s relationship with Liz and Cameroon.
In addition, the word “incarnation” comes from the same root word. In Christianity, the belief is that God incarnated himself as Jesus—in other words, Jesus was God in human flesh or form. Incarnation can also mean “embodiment in flesh.” When Antonio creates Merced de Papel in the Prologue, he creates a living being not out of flesh but paper, standing in for what authors do when they create characters for fiction. Although such characters appear to be incarnations, they are no more than ink and paper.
In another example, Plascencia repeatedly emphasizes the way trauma is inscribed on the flesh of the characters through burning or bee stings. This addiction may be modeled after a practice some Catholic monks historically engaged in called “mortification of the flesh.” These men wore hair shirts or whipped their own backs to create pain and suppress carnal desires. Federico’s so-called “cure” for sadness reflects this practice.
Finally, in Catholic iconography, the carnation symbolizes love. Traditionally, the carnation was believed to have sprung from the tears shed by the Virgin Mary when she saw her son, Jesus, carrying his cross. Love is at the heart of the novel but is also the source of great pain for the characters.
Stigmata
In Catholic mysticism, “stigmata” are miraculous bodily wounds, scabs, and pain, usually in the same locations where Jesus received wounds during his crucifixion. Plascencia uses bodily wounds such as burns, scabs, thorn pricks, paper cuts, and bee stings in some instances to suggest that the characters who exhibit stigmata are either Christ-like or saint-like. What defines these characters for Plascencia is their experience of trauma and their willingness to inscribe that pain in the flesh of their bodies.
For example, when Santos, or Juan Meza, dies during his last wrestling match, “[h]is arms [are] spread open and the stigmata on his palms widen[]” (83). Santos has already been identified as a saint by the Catholic Church, and the pose of a dead man with arms outstretched and bloody palms symbolically represents Jesus and the crucifixion.
Similarly, Federico de la Fe early in the book wears thorny rose stems in his hair, a reference to the crown of thorns worn by Jesus when was he scourged by the Romans. Later, he deliberately jams his foot on a nail to cause himself pain and shield his thoughts from Saturn. The nail in a foot is a potent symbol of the nails in Jesus’s feet from the crucifixion.
In addition to Federico, the Burn Collectors exhibit scabs, scars, and wounds all over their bodies, and men who are Merced de Papel’s lovers suffer from paper cuts all over their bodies but especially in their mouths. Like with Christian saints, the stigmata often reopen and bleed, just as statues and paintings of Jesus miraculously bleed.
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