Daughters, Mothers, and Friends in the Narrative of Carme Riera
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Disconnections and disappointments: daughters, mothers, and friends in the narrative of Carme Riera Author: Arlene Cormier Persistent link: http://hdl.handle.net/2345/1863 This work is posted on eScholarship@BC, Boston College University Libraries. Boston College Electronic Thesis or Dissertation, 2009 Copyright is held by the author, with all rights reserved, unless otherwise noted. Boston College The Graduate School of Arts and Sciences Department of Romance Languages and Literatures DISCONNECTIONS AND DISAPPOINTMENTS: DAUGHTERS, MOTHERS, AND FRIENDS IN THE NARRATIVE OF CARME RIERA a dissertation by ARLENE CORMIER Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy May 2009 ©copyright by ARLENE CLAIRE CORMIER 2009 ABSTRACT: DISCONNECTIONS AND DISAPPOINTMENTS: DAUGHTERS, MOTHERS, AND FRIENDS IN THE NARRATIVE OF CARME RIERA Arlene Cormier Irene Mizrahi, Ph.D., Advisor This study, which is dedicated to the analysis of three novels by Carme Riera: Una primavera para Domenico Guarini, Cuestión de amor propio, and La mitad del alma, investigates the disappointments and disconnections that the protagonists suffer in their relationships with other characters and the influence of culture on those relationships. This study demonstrates that the breakdown of the relationships between daughters and mothers and between friends is the result of the patriarchal society of Francoist Spain that is hostile towards women. The repression that Riera’s narrators, who are all women writers telling their stories in a personal, intimate first-person narration, suffer under such a society not only causes them emotional problems, such as depression, frustration, lack of self-esteem, feelings of unworthiness and inferiority, but also prevents them from having meaningful relationships with other women as friends and daughters. I reference the work of several psychologists, sociologists, and literary critics, in particular Karen Horney, Jean Baker Miller, Judith Jordan, Janet Surrey, Adrienne Rich, Marianne Hirsch, Carol Gilligan, Carmen Martín Gaite, and Gilda Lerner. This study relies on the work of historians such as David Herzberger and Jo Labanyi, who examine the role of myth and historiography of postwar Spain, and José Colmeiro, Ofelia Ferrán, Paloma Aguilar, and Ramón Buckley, who examine the “pact of forgetting” that characterizes the period of Spain’s transition to democracy. Among other studies which contribute to an understanding of the complexity of the narrative of Carme Riera is Annis Pratt’s study of mythological archetypes in women’s fiction and Linda Kauffman’s study of epistolary writing. TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION……………………………………………………………………1 UNA PRIMAVERA PARA DOMENICO GUARINI ……………………10 CUESTION DE AMOR PROPIO ……………………………………………..89 LA MITAD DEL ALMA …………………………………………………………143 CONCLUSION …………………………………………………………………….219 WORKS CITED …………………………………………………………………..223 WORKS CONSULTED…………………………………………………………243 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to express my appreciation to the following people: To my husband Allan, who has always given me his loving support and enthusiastic encouragement. To my mother Sally, my role model, whose wisdom, bright spirit, and positive attitude inspire me. To my sister Marianne, who will always be my dearest, much-loved lifetime friend. To my father Peter, who told me I could do anything I set my mind to. To my sons Dennis and Brian, who have made me proud of their integrity and devotion to their families. To my daughters-in-law Michelle and Adrienne, who have become my beloved daughters. To my grandchildren Zachary, Casey, Matthew, Maya, and Owen, who have added immeasurable joy and enrichment to my life. To my longtime friend Elaine E. Faunce, Ph.D., whose insights guided me. To my advisor and mentor Irene Mizrahi, Ph.D., who encouraged me throughout the entire process of writing this dissertation. 1 CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION This study will be dedicated to the analysis of three novels by Carme Riera: Una primavera para Domenico Guarini, Cuestión de amor propio, and La mitad del alma. With the notable exception of María Cami-Vela’s 2000 work, La búsqueda de la identidad en la obra de Carme Riera, no scholar has previously written a lengthy study focused solely on the narrative of Riera. My aim is to offer a new in-depth study of her work by investigating the female protagonists’ personal relationships with other characters, the influence of culture on those relationships, and the psychology of the disappointments and disconnections Riera’s characters suffer in those relationships. Through my analysis I particularly seek to establish a direct link between the Francoist culture of postwar Spain and the failed relationships of Riera’s protagonists. As I will attempt to demonstrate, the breakdown in the relationships between daughters and mothers and between friends in these three novels is the result of the patriarchal environment of Francoist Spain that is hostile towards women since it grants to the husband and father the authoritative control over his traditional family as a reflection of the power of the state over its subjects. The repression that Riera’s narrators suffer under such a society not only causes them emotional problems, such as depression, frustration, lack of self-esteem, feelings of unworthiness and of inferiority, but also prevents them from having 2 meaningful relationships with other women as friends and daughters. Consequently, the yearning for interpersonal connections is a central organizing principle in the lives of Riera’s protagonists, who also suffer from the unresponsiveness of important people in their lives. Born in 1948 in Mallorca, Carme Riera is a writer and professor of Castilian literature at the Universitat Autónoma de Barcelona. For more than thirty years, Riera has been a prolific author of novels, short stories, and critical essays. She generally writes first in her Mallorquin dialect of Catalan and then rewrites, not translates, into Castilian Spanish. In the field of contemporary literature she is a learned, influential member of a generation of writers who reflect the culture of Spain through the portrayal of women mostly in relationship to other women, although, as we will also recognize in this study, relationships with men are equally important and central to Riera’s work. In “Ultima generación de narradoras,” the author links her writing with that of Montserrat Roig, Soledad Puertolas, Ana María Moix, Rosa Montero, and Esther Tusquets. Almost all of these writers were born during Spain’s postwar period and react in similar ways to their society. Riera states, “Sus libros, nuestros libros, son un poco un espejo en el que una mujer que lee quiere sentirse reflejada” (123). She also cites “nuestras izquierdastas inclinaciones” and their “lucha antifranquista, desencanto posterior” (120-1). Although she would prefer to be called a feminist citizen rather than a feminist writer, Riera acknowledges, “El feminismo, militante o no, subyace en nuestros textos […] y 3 nos lleva a la denuncia de la situación de la mujer a través de situaciones claves” (123). The work of Riera and of these other women writers constitutes the authority which seeks to provide the strength and determination necessary to produce change in their society. They all reject the silencing of women as prescribed in La perfecta casada by Fray Luis de León, who wrote, “la naturaleza hizo a las mujeres para que, encerradas, guardasen la casa, así las obligó a que cerrasen la boca” (qtd. in “Femenino singular” 28). Just as Hélène Cixous urged women to use their femininity to write, Riera stresses the importance of the voice of the woman writer. She states, reivindico para la mujer escritora, doblemente rebelde, la capacidad de transformar el lenguaje y la realidad, uniendo la voz de Casandra a la de madame Curie para devolver a las palabras de la tribu que nunca han sido: verbo encarnado en amor” (“Para continuar” 289-90). Investigations of Riera’s work focus primarily on the literary techniques characteristic of Carme Riera’s narrative that are found in individual works, such as epistolary writing, narrative voice, and doubling, and they highlight the themes of transgression, seduction, eroticism, humor, and historiography. 1 1 During my study I will refer to these investigations, mainly focused on individually selected short stories and novels by Riera, which have been developed by notable scholars such as Akiko Tsuchiya, Kathleen Glenn, Kathleen McNerney, Geraldine Nichols, Elizabeth Ordóñez, Mirella Servodidio, Brad Epps, Kathryn Everly, Roberta Johnson, and María Vásquez. These studies have been published in literary journals and in two collections of essays about the narrative of Riera, namely, Moveable Margins. The Narrative Art of Carme Riera and El espejo y la máscara: Veinticinco años de ficción narrativa en la obra de Carme Riera. These books were published in 1999 and in 2000 and therefore do not include commentary about Riera’s 2004 novel La mitad del alma, an important recent work that I incorporate into this investigation. 4 None of these studies of Riera’s short stories and novels have approached the subject of relationships in a straightforward, thorough way. The findings of several scholars, psychologists, sociologists, historians, and literary critics provide essential insight into the relationship between culture and the psyche, as well as into the importance of relationships in the formation of the personality.2 Referencing their work I will question