Cervantes's "novela" creates a complex protagonist due in part to the involvement of the slaves' destructive and creative energies: a linguistic and erotic paradox. Linguistically the female slave foregrounds the historical dichotomy between "ladinos" and "bozales" and the related problematic of conversion, while the eunuch, a double of the master, brings forth the subject's erotic deficiency, the basis of an ironic cure through the slaves' survival and the master's demise. The eunuch's Janus-like liminality further complicates the identity gaps of the protagonist, who dies offering a metaphorical image of self-destructive authorship (the silkworm) followed by the rise of other actors who stake spatial and property claims of their own--a dynamic loss highlighting the essential roles played by colonial space and marginal others in the construction of the master's psychological persona.