Llosa and the Colonial Myths of Human Sacrifice and Cannibalism

In my paper I will highlight try to discuss Mario Vargas Llosa’s ambiguity towards the colonial discourses on human sacrifice and cannibalism which as several scholars have argued effectively functioned as myths helping to justify colonial rule. In his novel Death in the Andes this colonial myth is treated as reality. References to human sacrifices and cannibalism are also present in his novel The Way to Paradise but this time not as reality but as fantasy. In this novel Llosa tries to imagine the lives of the French painter Gaguin (who had lived in Tahiti for several years) and his grandmother Flora who had been a pioneering feminist thinker and activist. Gauguin is shown here to have been fascinated by images of cannibalism and human sacrifice associated with the place prior to arriving there. I would like to suggest that LIosa was familiar not just with the colonial discourse on sacrifice but to some extent with the theories of sacrifice. I will also try to show referring to the theories of sacrifice especially those by Girard and Bataille can help us make much better sense of these references to human sacrifices and cannibalism in his novels.