Velvet Was the Night

Both Elvis and Maite dream of upward class mobility. Their aspirations are inherently gendered: For Elvis, such mobility would enhance his masculinity, while for Maite, wealth would ensure safety as a single woman. Ultimately, neither character achieves their vision of success by the novel’s end, leaving both disillusioned about material wealth as a solution for life’s problems.

Elvis idolizes El Mago because El Mago is of a wealthier social class. Elvis’s desire for El Mago’s wealth is a desire for not the older man’s many possessions but his “way of life” (37). Elvis notes, “El Mago was kingly. Elvis had never seen anything like it, such assurance in manner, such class. He was a gentleman” (37). Elvis believes that having access to wealth like El Mago’s will not only transform how he lives but also transform his very self: In Elvis’s eyes, wealth brings a more refined, successful masculinity than he’s ever been able to perform before. He wants to be able to command other men the way El Mago does; he dreams of being able to use his boss’s smooth, confident language in speaking to women. Elvis’s desire to enter a wealthier class is connected with his desire to embody a different masculinity.