Howard Doyle as an Allegory

In reading Mexican Gothic, I was interested in the description of Howard Doyle’s character, and in how that description related to the overarching theme of mushrooms. The fungus served two primary purposes in the Doyle household: the first being to sustain Howard Doyle, making him into “God” in the eyes of the rest of the family. The second purpose was to transmit the memories of the Doyle ancestors through the psychedelic effects of the mushrooms, and control the inhabitants of the house/the members of the family. These two uses for the mushrooms are clearly linked; without the ability of the fungus to alter brain chemistry, the Doyles wouldn’t be able to pull outsiders into the family in such an effective way. Furthermore, it is through this impaired lens which the reader perceives much of the story, as Noemí herself is experiencing hallucinations.

Howard Doyle can easily be read as an allegorical character for many historical colonizers. Nearly everything he does is an attempt to maintain the customs of the British ruling class, despite being in Mexico. Before Howard is explicitly referred to as ‘a God’ in Noemí’s presence, he compares his repeatedly incestuous relationships to that of royalty, with Noemí beginning the following exchange about his wives:

“Nothing. They seem so alike.”

“I imagine they should. Alice was Agnes’s little sister. They were both orphaned and left penniless, but we were kim, cousins, and so I took them in. And when I traveled here Agnes and I were wed, and Alice came with us,”

“Then you twice married your cousin,” Noemí said. “And your wife’s sister.”

“Is it scandalous? Catherine of Aragon was first married to Henry VIII’s brother, and Queen Victoria and Albert were cousins.”

“You think you’re a king, then?” (Moreno-Garcia, 75.)

In this scene, Howard simply comes across as a creepy old man, desperate to hold onto his false nobility. However, Noemí later learns that the incest was not only a matter of status, but was required for Howard to maintain his form of immortality. Howard, a man obsessed with eugenics, must marry within his own family to maintain a semblance of power, but also must pull non-white, non-family members (Mexican women such as Noemí and Catalina) into his web. Both of these concepts hold historical truth: the fact that white, patriarchal, European power could not be sustained without the pain of people of color, specifically women of color.

Personifying these broad historical concepts in a single character/family is a daunting task, and I feel that the inclusion of the mushrooms allows for the absurdity and horrificness of these histories to come to the forefront. The colonization of the Americas was such a vastly damaging event that took place over the course of many, many years. In order to make a single character allegorical for that—or even just to reflect those events in any fictional story—an element of surrealism is almost necessary as a mode of communication. The fungus reflected the evil, incomprehensible forces that allowed certain horrors to happen, and Howard as its inhuman, symbiotic parasite reflected the many people over the course of Latinx history who have had a damaging effect so enormous it became monstrous as opposed to human.