49 pages • 1 hour read
Agustina BazterricaTender Is the Flesh
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2017A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Character Analysis
Marcos Tejo
Content Warning: The source text includes graphic depictions of cannibalism, sexual assault, mass human suffering, incarceration, misogynistic violence (including reproductive violence), and death by suicide.
As the protagonist, Marcos Tejo provides the lens through which the novel’s events take shape. Although the narration is given in third person, its contents are limited to Tejo’s knowledge and perspective. As the novel opens, he is reeling from the loss of his child as well as a temporary separation from his wife. His son’s death affects him profoundly; among other things, he stops eating meat, showing that he is sensitive and conflicted. As Tejo struggles to hold on to a sense of meaning and purpose in his life, he maintains contact with his ailing father, though this provides little comfort to him. Tejo finds his work as a manager at a meat processing plant not only unfulfilling but also unsettling, as he can’t shake the feeling that he is enabling what amounts to murder. As he reflects to himself, “Teaching to kill is worse than killing” (4). Paradoxically, Tejo initially lacks the killing instinct. Following the arrival of the female FGP, later known as Jasmine, Tejo realizes that he is “incapable” of killing her.
As the novel progresses, Tejo gradually begins to rebuild his life. He does so, however, in ways that are not officially sanctioned. Though Tejo is quick to understand social customs and regulations, he also questions the things he is told, if only internally. For instance, Tejo favors a conspiracy theory suggesting that the virus that necessitated the transition is a hoax. He also frequently critiques the language that is used to support cannibalism, wishing he could speak out against it more directly. Most significantly, after hitting an emotional low, Tejo sleeps with Jasmine, who becomes pregnant. All of these illustrate that Tejo has an independent, even rebellious streak, though he is slow to express it outwardly.
A major turning point comes in the form of his father’s death. Shortly after Nélida summons him to visit his father one last time, Tejo begins to feel a stony sensation in his chest, which decreases his empathy and emotional response; the phenomenon seems to function as an emotional defense mechanism. Shielded by his newfound detachment and disregard for others, he censures Marisa, snubs Dr. Valka, and devises a plan to rid the plant of the Scavengers. Finally, he kills Jasmine and plans to raise their child with Cecilia instead. Tejo’s arc demonstrates the way that extended hardship can grind individuals down to a state of indifference and even resentment. In the end, Tejo fails to rise to the stature of a hero as he perpetuates the cycle of violence and abuse to serve his own ends.
Jasmine
Jasmine is a woman who was raised in captivity, intended to be bred, slaughtered, and eaten. As a First Generation Pure (FGP) specimen, Jasmine is raised without any injections or genetic modifications. As is customary, her vocal cords are removed to make her submissive, and she is branded with the initials FGP 20 times, once for each year of her life. When Tejo first meets her, she is timid and fearful, with minimal capabilities. As a character, therefore, Jasmine begins as something of a blank slate, reflecting back onto Tejo his interactions with her.
As time passes, Tejo comes to appreciate her. As he realizes, “There’s a certain purity to this being who’s unable to speak” (86). One of the things that most strikes Tejo about Jasmine is her wild yet appealing smell, reminding him of jasmine, which is how he selects her name. After inviting Jasmine to live in his home rather than the barn, Tejo finds himself “amazed at the strength of her character, at her tenacity” (125). Among other traits, Jasmine demonstrates artistic expression and a sense of humor. For a while, as she carries Tejo’s baby, it seems that Jasmine is on the verge of attaining human-like status, and she learns to trust Tejo and enjoy the time they spend together.
However, the true nature of Tejo’s relationship with Jasmine is finally revealed after Cecilia returns and helps deliver Jasmine’s baby. Claiming the baby for himself and Cecilia, Tejo kills Jasmine, showing that he views her as a tool or a toy, a way of passing the time until Cecilia’s return and a means of producing a baby. In retrospect, Tejo’s relationship with Jasmine is domineering and predatory from the start: Living in captivity with no vocal cords, Jasmine has virtually no say in anything that happens to her, including Tejo’s sexual advances that constitute rape, as she cannot clearly consent. Though Tejo did not ask for Jasmine, the temptations associated with ownership proved too great to resist.
Marisa
Marisa is Tejo’s sister and foil. Unlike Tejo, who is frequently gripped by anguish and indecision, Marisa is much more straightforward in her attitudes and aims, at least as Tejo perceives her. As the novel opens, Tejo and Marisa have a distant relationship, with Tejo feeling that he doesn’t really know her. When he does agree to visit her, Tejo finds that she uncritically accepts the Transition and all that it entails. For instance, she repeatedly criticizes Tejo for walking outside without an umbrella despite the risk of viral infection from bird droppings. Meanwhile, Marisa seems to view her relationship with Tejo transactionally, as she invites him for lunch to ask for his help in purchasing domestic head, even as she makes excuses for not visiting their father, Armando, at the nursing home.
Once Armando dies, however, Marisa and Tejo’s roles evolve, with Marisa wanting to make a public show of affection for Armando as Tejo prefers to mourn privately. Tejo, who interprets her actions as a publicity stunt, attends the service but reprimands her after discovering that she is raising domestic head and slaughtering it piece by piece, in keeping with the latest trends. Despite Tejo’s admonitions, Marisa is a static character, firmly set in her ways. Only when Tejo threatens to tell Marisa’s guests how little she cared for their father does she show any concern. Overall, Marisa illustrates the efficacy of indoctrination and social conditioning, as well as the difficulty of changing someone who has already integrated into the system.
Cecilia
Cecilia is Tejo’s wife. A nurse by profession, she first meets Tejo while she is caring for Tejo’s father at the nursing home. At that time, Tejo notices Cecilia’s voice, which has an uplifting and cheering effect, allowing him to temporarily escape the pains and stresses in his life. This detail immediately juxtaposes Cecilia to Jasmine, whose vocal cords have been removed; she is allowed to be human, while Jasmine is not. After marrying Tejo and failing to conceive a child, Cecilia undergoes expensive and painful fertility treatments and becomes increasingly sensitive to social occasions involving children. After she finally becomes pregnant and gives birth, the child, a son named Leonardo, dies. During the cremation, Cecilia collapses. Stricken by grief, Cecilia goes to live with her mother, which is where she is as the novel opens.
As months pass, Cecilia begins to regain some of her strength and calls Tejo more frequently, though she finds that he is growing distant, a result of his relationship with Jasmine. By the time he summons her to help deliver Jasmine’s baby, Cecilia feels as though she no longer recognizes him, and she is appalled to learn the truth about Jasmine. Given the chance to claim the baby as her own, however, she does so, crying tears of joy as she holds the baby boy in her arms. She quickly reverses her position regarding Jasmine, even expressing regret that Tejo intends to kill her rather than use her to produce additional children. Cecilia’s arc demonstrates how desire, pursued to an extreme, can make one a complicit participant in atrocities.
The Scavengers
The Scavengers are a class of people who prey on discarded or otherwise unsafe or illegal meat. Due to their poverty, they lack the means to purchase food. Scavengers can be found almost anywhere, though they tend to congregate in certain areas. The influence of the Scavengers leads to certain social changes, such as the decline of burial as an option for deceased loved ones since Scavengers are likely to dig up and eat the bodies, sometimes even attacking vehicles transporting them. For this reason, Tejo pays extra to keep his father at a nursing home where his body will be safe.
A group of Scavengers hangs out near Krieg, where the employees occasionally give them meat that, for whatever reason, is unsuited for the normal production process. Bodies of volunteers from the Church of the Immolation are also given to the Scavengers. Unruly and dangerous, the Scavengers sometimes band together in large groups, as when some of them capsize a vehicle full of head on its way to Krieg. Despite knowing that the Scavengers should be pitied for their “deprived, marginal lives” (203), Tejo helps plan to take revenge on those who knocked over the truck. Within the context of industrial cannibalism, the Scavengers highlight the socioeconomic inequalities associated with capitalism, as well as the class warfare that inevitably follows.
