Armadillos, hippopotamuses and biopolitcs in "The Sound of Things Falling" by Juan Gabriel Vásquez

Abstract

The Sound of Things Falling (2011), a novel by Colombian author Juan Gabriel Vásquez, explores the relationship between humans and animals within a society traumatized by violence. In this article I briefly discuss human/animal studies in literature; I then outline Giorgio Agamben’s theory of biopolitics in the context of human/animal studies. Utilizing Agamben’s framework, I offer a biopolitical reading of The Sound of Things Falling. I explore how biopolitics illuminates the life of a pet armadillo which appears in the novel, an animal which scholars have ignored in literary criticism. I argue that the armadillo’s life reveals the biopolitical system which upholds specious boundaries separating humans and animals. I examine how the armadillo exposes the categories of sovereign power functioning in the novel, particularly as they relate to drug trafficking. I also offer an analysis of the hippopotamuses within the novel, a topic which scholars have discussed at length. I contend that literary criticism has overlooked the character of Ricardo Laverde with respect to his relationship to the hippos. I develop a reading which highlights the connections between Laverde and the hippos, not to interpret the animals merely through an anthropocentric lens as a metaphor for Laverde, but to show the interweaving of their stories as warnings against the violence in biopolitical formations. Through these readings I demonstrate that Vázquez employs animals in the novel to emphasize the vulnerability of all bodies within the biopolitical structures and institutions in Colombian society.