Queer Tropical Gothic: Parody, Failure, and Space in Nick Joaquin’s “Gotita de Dragon”

Abstract

The stories for children by Filipino literary master Nick Joaquin (1917-2004), when compared to his famous works for adults, have received scant attention even though they are as masterfully written and thematically sophisticated. Out of Joaquin’s fifteen children’s stories produced between 1972 and 1983, “Gotita de Dragon” stands out for its queer tropical gothic turn. The piece is a parody of a pious legend about Saint Martha, where the titular character is on a quest to become “as big as a gothic dragon,” which subsequently renders him “in search of a virgin.” The narrative is built upon the masculine failures of its human and animal characters, and maps out the landscape of Manila’s red light and polluted districts of the time – via Malate and Ermita, and the Pasig River where the queer takes place. Read through queer studies, tropical gothic, and tropical materialisms, “Gotita de Dragon” is a tale set within a tropical landscape that has undergone appropriations by colonial and authoritarian forces – and where the failure of the hero becomes the impetus for the taking place of queer resistance and solidarity.

Keywords

• queer tropical gothic
• Nick Joaquin
• queer literature
• tropical materialism
• children's literature
• Gotita de Dragon