The Pennsylvania State University
The Graduate School
Department of Spanish, Italian, and Portuguese
REFIGURING LITERARY FEMINISM IN SPAIN: THE SPLINTERING OF FEMALE IDENTITY IN THE CONTEMPORARY PENINSULAR NOVEL
A Dissertation in
Spanish
by
Antonia L. Delgado-Poust
© 2011 Antonia L. Delgado-Poust
Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of
Doctor of Philosophy
August 2011
The dissertation of Antonia L. Delgado-Poust was reviewed and approved* by the following:
Matthew J. Marr Associate Professor of Spanish Dissertation Advisor Chair of Committee
William R. Blue Professor of Spanish
Cheryl Glenn Liberal Arts Research Professor of English and Women’s Studies
Guadalupe Martí-Peña Assistant Professor of Spanish
Chip Gerfen Professor of Spanish Linguistics Head of the Department of Spanish, Italian and Portuguese
*Signatures are on file in the Graduate School
iii
ABSTRACT
Literary Feminism in Spain: The Splintering of Female Identity in the Contemporary Peninsular Novel
This dissertation presents a two-fold and interrelated analysis: first, it examines the correspondence between an insecure, splintered female identity and a misunderstanding of the fundamentals of feminist thought as represented in the contemporary Peninsular novel, and second, it establishes the need for a recuperation and revision of female and feminist histories.
Employing Spain’s thirty-six years of Francoist repression as a backdrop to their narratives, the novelists considered here underscore the chronic suppression of historical “truths” still prevalent in the post-Franco and post-Transition eras by emphasizing the silencing of female perspectives and experience, accordingly perpetuating the oppression of women in the present. Luisa Castro’s
La segunda mujer (2006), Rosa Montero’s La hija del Caníbal (1997), Espido Freire’s
Melocotones helados (1999), and Maria de la Pau Janer’s Las mujeres que hay en mí (2002) carefully relate the deliberate suppression of recent—national, familial, and specifically female—history to an existing crisis in women’s identity. Each woman exhibits a problematic unfamiliarity with the past that affects insecurity and an inner conflict in the character. This struggle is a profound one that is manifested through a splintering or splitting of consciousness, a lack of compatibility between mind and body, mistaken identities, and an overall sense of confusion regarding each woman’s sense of self. Although the female subject has been the center of considerable critical attention in recent years, very few studies have focused exclusively on the correlative relationship existing among a palpable crisis in female identity, the collective amnesia of Spain’s Transition to democracy, and twenty-first-century Spain’s impetus to recover and re-vision an ignored female memory and history so as to make sense of the present. It is with
iv the aim of filling this apparent void in contemporary Peninsular literary studies that I embark on this project.
The present study would argue that the novels all provide significant commentary on the experience of women at the brink of twenty-first-century Spanish society and that they characterize women as being unaware of their personal histories and present identities. The crises the characters experience are often provoked and intensified by androcentric practices and institutions—domestic violence, marriage and pregnancy at a young age, archaic and oppressive religious rituals, and the general subjugation of women. The first two chapters consider female subjects who are writers by trade, yet temporarily abandon and then return to the narrative process to assert and reinvent themselves as they piece together the many fragments that constitute their identity. The splintering of identity is not only visible in the fragmented narrative structure of the novels and the implied texts of the protagonists but in the characters’ psyche and material body as well. The first chapter outlines the effects of domestic abuse on the protagonist and the tendency of physical and emotional violence to function as a simultaneously destructive and creative force that is capable of redefining and reformulating female subjectivity. Instances of violence compel the protagonist to locate and generate a response to her precarious situation, which eventually results in a reconstruction of identity and a feminist consciousness. The consecutive chapters deal much more explicitly with the persistence of the past in the present and with the protagonists’ desire to revisit and recover suppressed secrets from their personal past. In the second chapter, I analyze the connection Montero establishes between the reworking and recovery of historiographic material from Spain’s pre- and post-Civil War eras and the rewriting of personal history and the self. I, too, consider the scarred and splintered female body as a site
v of personal and traumatic memory that the protagonist reads and re-writes as if it were a text that reveals certain painful truths from her life experiences.
The third and fourth chapters revisit the problem of mistaken, blurred identities, and a splintering of consciousness reminiscent of the “Female Gothic” mode. Both chapters address the spectral return of the past—manifest in the presence of ghosts, oppressive silences, and the amnesic process that characterized the transition to democracy in Spain—which underscores the notion that history perpetually repeats itself in the present. The reader frequently senses that very little has changed, and that progress has not been made, particularly in terms of female experience, which appears to mirror the struggles of previous generations of women. My analyses of Freire and Janer’s texts consider the ways in which the past and the spectral intertwine in a discourse that explores the tensions between remembrance and oblivion, as experienced by the contemporary female subject. The remnants and ghosts of the past indicate the presence of a repressed (female) history that has been kept from the protagonists, thereby inciting identity confusion in the young women. This dissertation will conclude that the misunderstanding or ignorance of feminist thought relates to the silencing and forgetting of a collective Spanish women’s history, not only during the Franco era, but throughout and beyond the nation’s transition to democracy as well. Through their respective engagements with literary or artistic production, these female characters seek to simultaneously recuperate and revise their personal histories and identities so as to make reparations to the previous generations of women who were not afforded an audible voice.
vi
TABLE OF CONTENTS
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS...... vii
Introduction...... 1
Chapter 1 Wounded Body, Splintered Self: Luisa Castro’s La segunda mujer and Contemporary Spanish Feminism...... 46
Chapter 2 Re-Writing the Body, Consuming the Other, and Re-Membering the Self: Rosa Montero’s La hija del Caníbal and Rhetorical Cannibalism ...... 92
Chapter 3 Re-Fashioning the “Female Gothic”: Awakened Ghosts, Mistaken Identities, and Multiple Selves in Espido Freire’s Melocotones helados ...... 141
Chapter 4 The Ghosts of Identities Past: María de la Pau Janer’s Las mujeres que hay en mí and the Feminist or Mallorcan Uncanny...... 196
Conclusion ...... 245
Works Cited ...... 257
vii
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
First and foremost, I would like to thank my dissertation advisor, Matthew J.
Marr, for the immense amount of patience, time, support, and understanding he has granted me throughout this entire process. His prompt, diligent, and insightful feedback on the countless versions of each chapter is truly what helped to move this project forward, especially when my motivation and confidence were at all time lows. Without his unwavering guidance, inspiration, and encouragement, I am certain that this study would not be half as good as it is, and for all of this, I will always be indebted to him.
I would also like to thank the members of my committee, William R. Blue, Cheryl
Glenn, and Guadalupe Martí-Peña for their time, support, and helpful observations and references, which have inspired me to consider various other, unexplored avenues in my research. I am very grateful to the Pennsylvania State University’s Department of
Spanish, Italian and Portuguese and the College of the Liberal Arts for granting me a a full year without teaching obligations so that I could concentrate on my research. This support was instrumental in helping me advance with my dissertation.
I must thank my friends and family for their continued support over the last few years. I am very lucky to have such generous and understanding friends in my life— friends who never gave me a hard time for missing bridal and baby showers, birthday celebrations or for being M.I.A. for weeks (or months) on end. The combination of sporadic weekend visits and extensive conversations over the phone or a cup of coffee (or a few glasses of wine) certainly helped to keep me sane and put everything in perspective. To my sister, Aurora: your encouraging words, love and friendship have
viii meant more to me than you’ll ever know. I cherish the memories of our childhood and adolescence and am so proud of the woman you have become. I, too, will always be grateful to my parents for their example and encouragement throughout the years. It was they who pushed my sister and me to embrace and connect with our Spanish heritage, by speaking the language and taking us along with them on their annual trips to Spain. Their love of culture and knowledge, along with their conviction that we must always strive to be the best we can be, has motivated me to follow in their footsteps. The life they gave us has enriched and defined me in ways that I cannot fully express. If it had not been for their love, inspiration and belief in me, the completion of this project would not have been possible.
Finally, and most importantly, I need to thank my husband, Brad, for his constant support, patience, positive thinking, and love, at a time when neither of us was feeling all that inspired or positive about much of anything. While I know it may not have seemed like it at the time, your hugs and words of encouragement always made everything better, and I’m slowly beginning to take all that you’ve told me to heart. Having you by my side—in both body and spirit—throughout this long process has made it so much more bearable. Although it’s been difficult to imagine what life will be like once this stage of our lives is over, I know that no matter where we are or what we are doing all of this will have been worth it. This is for us.
Introduction
A Critical Orientation for the Present Study
"Woman must write herself: must write about women and bring women to writing, from which they have been driven away as violently as from their bodies—for the same reasons, by the same law, with the same fatal goal. Woman must put herself into the text—as into the world and into history—by her own movement.” —Hélène Cixous, “The Laugh of the Medusa” (1975)
“Is the […] feminist movement a “return of the repressed”: is it an old religion, an old polity, whose time has mysteriously come round again?” —Phyllis Chesler, Women and Madness (2005)
In 1998, Victoria Camps echoed the predictions of various politicians, sociologists, and feminists at the turn of the century by proudly declaring that “El siglo XXI será el siglo de las mujeres” [The twenty-first century will belong to women] (9); however, as feminist writer and activist Lidia Falcón insists, recent data relating to health, education, marriage, domestic abuse, employment, and reproductive matters do not seem to corroborate this assertion (25-26). Anglo-
American feminist Angela McRobbie avers that the gains made during the women’s liberation movements of the 1970s and 1980s have been thwarted, now that many young women of the new millennium consider feminist thought to be “aged” and “redundant” (27), working under the erroneous assumption that gender equality has been achieved. In recent years, various feminists have observed that, despite the advances made in women’s reproductive rights, access to education, and entry into the workforce, a surprising number of young females seem to be repeating the mistakes of their mothers and grandmothers, thus signaling both the failures of twentieth-century feminism to take hold and the improbability of the new millennium to privilege women’s experience.
2 If women are indeed to gain new ground and be the focus of this new century and millennium, it is necessary to acknowledge that sexist thought and practices persist in twenty- first-century culture. In Spain, until the latter quarter of the twentieth century, women had suffered a cultural invisibility that relegated them to a secondary status and excluded them from participating in public discourse.1 While women’s issues in Spain have received more public attention in recent years than ever before—with the formation of the Instituto de la Mujer and the ratification of various laws that seek to protect women’s rights—female experience still seems to be misunderstood. What is more, the retrocession, of which many Spanish feminist theorists
(namely, Amorós, Camps, and Falcón) speak mirrors the popular dictum that those who are unfamiliar with their past are condemned to repeat it.2 Therefore, like the trend that seeks to recuperate in contemporary Spanish sociopolitical discourse both personal and collective history in order to move forward, there, too, is a need to go back, reconsider and we-write women’s histories and perspectives into the collective consciousness.
Adrienne Rich asserts that “[R]e-vision—the act of looking back, of seeing with fresh new eyes, of entering an old text from a new critical direction—is for women more than a chapter in cultural history: it is an act of survival” (35). This perceived need to re-envisage and reconstruct the past from a particularly female perspective in order to make sense of a chaotic present and sense of self informs the present study. In the light of those connections the abovementioned feminists establish between feminism and the need to generate a female (or feminist) historical memory in order that it not be forgotten again, my analysis of the primary texts at the heart of this study is inspired by Kyra Kietrys and Montserrat Linares’s assertion of
“the need to recover the voices of women lost to history […] as well as the need to establish connections between those lost women and Spanish women today […], the need to reclaim a
3 literal or a metaphorical space […] [and] the need to repair broken relationships with the past”
(3). The texts at hand center on the remembering and reinventing of forgotten or repressed personal histories, and present a meta-narrative reflection of the process of memory re- production.3 Many of the novels studied here can be read as what Steven Kellman terms the
“self-begetting novel,” a fictional narrative written by a first-person narrator who is “able to take up and compose the novel we have just been reading” (14). The underlying feminist message that I propose can be discerned in each of these four novels is related to the protagonists’ individual struggle to articulate their own experiences and ideas to fit their respective situations and, as Foss, Foss and Griffin maintain, to claim the right to determine how their lives will proceed (2). The feminisms that I put forward are not an abstract or outdated philosophy, but a way of life that allows the female protagonists to achieve self-determination, re-invent themselves, challenge current structures of domination, and exact real change in their personal lives. Moreover, like Roberta Johnson, I use the term “feminist” to reference writing that addresses women’s experience in order to expose and / or attempt to correct socioeconomic inequities (245).
This dissertation demonstrates that a forgetting of feminism and female history correlates with a fragile and problematic understanding of the self in the Spanish contemporary novel.
Throughout my study, I address the ways in which works by Luisa Castro (Lugo, 1966), Rosa
Montero (Madrid, 1951), Espido Freire (Bilbao, 1974), and Maria de la Pau Janer (Palma de
Mallorca, 1966) imagine and evince the Spanish nation through the characterization of their female protagonists, thereby highlighting the inseparability of literary and sociopolitical representations. In the four narratives considered in the pages which follow, each female protagonist reveals an internal conflict that is manifested through a splintering or splitting of
4 consciousness—reminiscent of Lacanian theory—and exacerbated by mistaken identities and the presence of doubles, in addition to an overall sense of confusion regarding each woman’s sense of self. As some of the most distinguishing traits of postmodernism, the fragmentation and existential angst of which I speak reflect a contemporary Spanish reality obsessed with questions of personal and national identity. Postmodernism can be employed as a narrative strategy to highlight the cynical, self-contradictory and crisis-ridden nature of late twentieth- and early twenty-first-century culture and more specifically, the plurality, ambiguity, and constructed nature of Spanish identity and history. Although these authors approach intersections of female subjectivity and the splintering or duplication of the self in very different ways, each novel considered here conspicuously addresses a crisis in female identity whose impact is triggered by circumstances involving a lack of knowledge about the past. Some of the protagonists yearn to recover forgotten family histories, while others struggle with their identity within a dysfunctional family unit. Some female subjects grapple with the disappointment of unfulfilling, abusive marriages and the challenges associated with unwanted or unsuccessful pregnancies. I propose that the recovery or revision of the past (memory) and the concurrent break with Spain’s controversial pacto de silencio / olvido [pact of silence / oblivion] are necessary for the development of a new feminist consciousness.4
Falcón laments the “failure” of Spanish feminism, despite the many social and political gains made in Spain since the nation’s transition to democracy in the late 1970s. In her most recent collection of essays, entitled Las nuevas españolas [The New Spanish Women] (2004), the writer interviews an array of young, mostly middle-class, women who discredit her assumptions regarding the life and mentality of the twenty-first century Spanish female. The subtitle of
Falcón’s Las nuevas españolas, “Lo que las hijas han ganado y perdido respecto a sus madres”
5 [What daughters have gained and lost with respect to their mothers], underscores the significance of the trans-generational relationship between mother and daughter and the possibility that, while some gains have been made in women’s struggle for parity, there have been a number of significant setbacks as well. Many of the interviews reveal that many young, Spanish women are unaware of their national past and the struggles of previous feminists to create equal opportunity for women, and consequently, they also suggest a possible retrogression in feminist advances. To
Falcón’s dismay, some women confess that their chief objective in life is to marry and have a family, while others claim that they believe marriage to be one of the few viable options for them. Other women express concern for a friend whose father is emotionally (and perhaps physically) abusive and who, tragically, finds herself in an abusive romantic relationship. In the following excerpt, Falcón reveals her disbelief and disappointment upon learning that little has changed for women in the last twenty-five years, since the Spanish women’s movement ostensibly began in earnest:
¿Cómo era posible que en estos tiempos, aprobada la igualdad de los sexos,
difundidas las garantías constitucionales por todos los medios de comunicación,
disponiendo de Institutos de la Mujer, apoyos y ayudas económicas, hubiese todavía
mujeres jóvenes e instruidas, ya muy cumplida la mayoría de edad, que se sintieran
presas de la autoridad paterna, de prejuicios milenarios, de su incapacidad para
ganarse la vida, hasta el punto de buscar en un matrimonio indeseado e indeseable la
solución de sus miserias?
[How was it possible that in twenty-first century Spain, with the recognition of gender
equality, the spreading of awareness of constitutional rights by the media, the
availability of women’s organizations and support groups, financial lending and
6 support, that there could would still be young and educated women who felt that they
were the prisoners / property of their fathers, of age-old prejudices, of their inability
to make their own living, to the point that they would have to enter into an
undesirable marriage in order to solve all of their problems?] (132)
Falcón’s ruminations are laden with a considerable amount of outrage and pessimism which are, perhaps, indicative of the times in which they were expressed.5 Falcón articulates her disenchantment with an entire generation of mothers (and fathers) who never educated their daughters about the importance of feminism. Despite its negative tone, Falcón’s study hints at the need to re-generate a historical memory of women’s experience and struggles over the past seventy-five years. Celia Amorós, a contemporary Spanish feminist philosopher, highlights the need of the present generation of women to determine what it wants to do with the mother’s legacy: “¿rechazarla, asumirla sin más, resignificarla?” [reject it, simply adopt it, redefine it?]
(23). Similarly, in Women and Madness, Phyllis Chesler posits, “Why didn’t our mothers and grandmothers and great-grandmothers tell us what battle it was we lost, or never fought, so that we would understand how total was our defeat […]?” (291). Like Falcón’s queries, Chesler’s question hints at not only the possible failure of the women’s movement to take hold, but, more importantly, it challenges its actual existence.
Contrary to the widespread belief that there was no feminist movement or consciousness in pre-Franco Spain, Lisa Vollendorf maintains that in the 1920s and 1930s a number of intellectuals and activists employed a feminist discourse to challenge the traditional roles of women in Spanish society.6 Vollendorf argues that Mary Nash and other scholars have underlined the “need to recuperate not only the history of women’s and other liberatory movements, but also the history of the consciousness that led to these modern movements”
7 (117). In addition to Vollendorf and Nash’s efforts, other Hispanist feminist scholars, like
Maryellen Bieder and Roberta Johnson, have pushed for the recovery of twentieth-century
Spanish feminist theories through an analysis of the narrative works and articles of early twentieth-century feminists, such as Carmen de Burgos, Rosa Chacel, Concha Espina, and
Margarita Nelken. Johnson asserts that, while there were some threads of feminism that remained throughout the Franco years, few Franco-era feminists knew of the efforts of feminists before the War, and even fewer women were aware of their feminist heritage because the Franco regime “recognized nothing that happened before July 18, 1936” (251).7 Similarly, Elizabeth
Ordóñez argues in Voices of Their Own that although it is difficult to identify a clear-cut, prolific, or original position in recent Spanish feminist theory, in Spain ideas from abroad have by no means gone unnoticed (24). She maintains that later twentieth-century writers such as
Carme Riera and Montserrat Roig attempt to raise awareness of women’s marginal status and the vindication of a new woman’s word through literature (25). Of particular significance to the present study, Johnson argues that Hispanists should refrain from applying foreign feminist theory to Spanish fiction, and should instead peruse literary works for autochtonous Spanish feminist theory. She declares that most Anglo-American Hispanists are accustomed to seeking feminist ideas in essays (such as Virginia Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own, as opposed to Mrs.
Dalloway) and therefore fail to perceive feminist thought in novels, newspaper articles, interviews, or correspondence. As a result of such neglect, Johnson posits that some of the issues addressed and clarified in Spanish texts are unfamiliar in the contemporary climate of feminist theory (249).
Falcón’s obvious frustration with the status quo and Spanish society’s retrogression signals the need for a new, more relevant feminism whose values are not demonized or
8 misinterpreted by the masses, but that has the power to resonate with both young women and men born after the feminist movements of the 1960s and 1970s. Cultural theorists Margaret
Andrews and Anny Brooksbank Jones maintain that a fresh set of “registers” for feminist discourse in Spain must be sought and implemented to help ensure that societal barriers do not impede women from being active and industrious members of Spanish society (232-9). Women who were born from the 1970s and beyond have grown up in a post-Franco world of supposed social and political freedom, living under the problematic assumption that gender equality has been attained. According to Andrews and Brooksbank Jones, many of the female subjects depicted in Spanish film and narrative from the 1990s onward rarely make explicit references to feminist advances, yet their outlook and possibilities are most definitely indebted to them. As the two theorists argue, the young women of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries
enjoy key freedoms associated with feminist-led social advances: the availability of
contraception which enables a more relaxed and unpathological relationship with
their bodies; the confidence and autonomy to initiate (sexual and other) relations with
men on equitable terms; an enviable sense of freedom and mobility hardly troubled
[…] by a shortage of money. (235)
Such a reluctance to acknowledge and appreciate the importance of feminist thought and its positive influence on contemporary society can be linked to a relatively recent Spanish phenomenon: that of the deliberate forgetting of a collective (national) history. Falcón affirms in her study that many young women are unable to comprehend and value the gains of women’s liberation simply because of a lack of information or historical perspective. The feminist writer laments that the sons and daughters of those who fought and suffered the most under the Franco regime chose to “forget” the misery and efforts of their parents, and failed to share recollections
9 of their experiences with their children, the members of the so-called Generation X. According to
Falcón, this “lost” generation that purportedly abandoned the fight for gender equality and the eradication of machismo is to blame for the lack of progress on this front. A lack of awareness of historical memory (memoria histórica) or a collective history has led to an uncertain or confused sense of identity. New generations of Spaniards have made an effort to remember and speak out in opposition of the silence that defined official Spanish culture and historiography for approximately forty years. The reconstruction and revision of historical memory, then, can be considered a subversive act that contests the tendency of authoritarian regimes and hegemonic discourse to forget or suppress conventionally marginalized perspectives.
A number of notable contemporary Hispanists have addressed and developed the topics of memory and silence in the Spanish context. In their recent study, entitled Unearthing
Franco’s Legacy: Mass Graves and the Recovery of Historical Memory in Spain (2010), Carlos
Jerez-Farrán and Samuel Amago examine the contentious historical and political debate that has arisen in Spain as a result of the recent discovery and exhumation of mass graves, graves filled with the bodies of people killed during the Civil War or in the post-war reprisals by the
Nationalists. Amago describes a cultural situation in which past, suppressed traumas continue to haunt the cultural present. Similarly, Ofelia Ferrán’s Working through Memory: Writing and
Remembrance in Contemporary Spanish Narrative (2007) explores the numerous constructions of memory in contemporary Spanish literature that evince the various aspects of Spain’s “buried” past of repression and oblivion. In Kathryn Everly’s History, Violence, and the Hyperreal:
Representing Culture in the Contemporary Spanish Novel (2010) the writer centers her attention on the literary production of six contemporary writers who depict history and notions of the
“truth” as unstable, deceiving, and manufactured realities. In Traces of Contamination:
10 Unearthing the Francoist Legacy in Contemporary Spanish Society (2005), Eloy E. Merino and
H. Rosi Song underscore the importance of a polyphonic, collective history that includes the perspectives of the forgotten or marginalized, as opposed to a more subjective type of remembrance (187). Paloma Aguilar, a Madrid-based historian, has written on memory and amnesia during the democratic Transition, arguing that amnesty and amnesia went hand in hand.
Joan Ramon Resina and Ulrich Winter’s Casa encantada: Lugares de memoria en la España constitucional (1978-2004) considers the many places of memory (or lieux de mémoire) that occupy the nation’s consciousness and that allow for the continuity between past and present.
Mass graves, monuments, city centers, literature and film are just some of the sites of memory explored by the contributors. Likewise, Resina’s timely study, entitled Disremembering the
Dictatorship: The Politics of Memory in ths Spanish Transition to Democracy (2000) addresses
Spain’s impetus to “disremember” the ghosts of the past.8
For Maurice Halbwachs, collective memory is a socially constructed concept that requires “the support of the group in a delimited space and time” (84) to create the sense of a common, shared history. For Halbwachs, collective memory is comprised of two different types of remembrance: historical memory and personal, autobiographical memory, thus suggesting that all personal memory is irreducibly collective. Historical memory is remembered indirectly through documented written records and often in photography or portraiture, but Halbwachs argues that it can also be stimulated in commemorations and festive occasions when people gather to remember and reenact moments of the past that they have not personally experienced.
The growing interest in the recovery of personal and collective memory is certainly not exclusive to the Spanish context, as it has occupied center stage in a number of other societies struggling to respond to the many human rights abuses perpetrated under previous regimes, such as the cases
11 of post-Nazi Germany, South Africa, Bosnia, and various countries in Latin America, which experienced extremely violent and repressive tragedies like Augusto Pinochet’s dictatorship
(1973-1990) and Argentina’s Guerra Sucia [Dirty War] (1976-1983).9
The notion that historical memory can involve the memory of something that was never personally experienced recalls Marianne Hirsch’s interpretation of the “postmemory” phenomenon, or the process through which one generation’s knowledge and suffering are transferred to the one that follows it. For Hirsch, postmemory “describes the relationship that the generation after those who witnessed cultural or collective trauma bears to the experiences of those who came before” and the critic argues that these experiences are ones that they
“‘remember’ only by means of the stories, images, and behaviors among which they grew up”
(4). These “memories” are not actually determined by recall but by what Hirsch identifies as
“imaginative investment, projection, and creation” (5), in other words through oral testimony or literary and artistic expression. When describing the case of the children of the Holocaust, Hirsch cites Helen Epstein, who says that they are “possessed by a history they had never lived” (14).
Postmemory, then, is a type of collective and vicarious memory through which the later generation adopts the experiences and memories of its forebears as if they were its own,
“inscribing them into its own life-story” (Hirsch 9). In the Spanish context, as Manuel José
Ramos Ortega wrote in 1996, “The civil war, postwar, or however it is called has still not ended, its ghost continues to act for the heirs of this historical episode” (291). This notion of an inherited memory can be applied to the cases of the female protagonists of this study who, while seemingly unaware of their respective genealogies, eventually manifest a dormant memory of the past.
12 There have been significant efforts in contemporary Peninsular fiction to “recover” historical memory, yet it has frequently been male writers who have received the most critical attention in this regard. Spanish novelists who have been acknowledged for their consideration of memory are Juan Goytisolo, Miguel Delibes, Juan Marsé, Antonio Muñoz Molina, and Alberto
Méndez. Nevertheless, some female writers—among which are Carme Riera and Lourdes
Ortiz—have also become involved in the revision of official history, as seen through the eyes of the remembering female subject. Ordóñez declares that by reconsidering and reinserting herself into history, this female protagonist
[…] is able to bring back to memory those aspects of historical experience—her
historical experience—that culture has asked her to forget. Becoming her own
historian, she performs these acts of retrieval by dismantling the narrative of
forgetfulness with that of remembering—and within the gaps of her own ineluctable
forgetfulness, she locates a new narrative of transgressive reinvention. (128-29)
These female protagonists, then, search for and eventually seek to refashion a collective female
(or feminist) history and memory so as to recover what was once an inaccessible past.
Nevertheless, the issue with this type of memory is that it is not necessarily autobiographical, but rather, inherited memory that has been transmitted across the generations long after the events actually occurred.
Many women of the late twentieth and early twenty-first century feel the need to know and recognize their pasts, understand the women who preceded them, and recuperate their shared history and claim it as their own. Spanish feminist scholar María José Arana confirms this in her article, “Mujeres en la historia,” declaring that:
13 Urge la reinterpretación y el rescate de la memoria histórica, que nos irá conduciendo
hacia una mayor y más verdadera conciencia de nuestra identidad, hacia una real
autocomprensión femenina, grupal y comunitaria que, a la vez nos aleje de los
esquemas androcéntricos, ampliamente interiorizados entre nosotras durante siglos.
[The reinterpretation and recovery of historical memory is an urgent enterprise that
will lead us toward a greater and more reliable conscience of our identity, toward a
true female self-understanding, a collective one that will distance us from deeply
internalized androcentric paradigms that have controlled us for centuries.] (129)
In the 1970s, various Spanish women authors (among others, Montserrat Roig and Esther
Tusquets) began to participate in this “reinterpretation” and “rescue” of historical memory and, in so doing, drafted their own version of historical recuperation and revision from a female or feminist perspective, in a mode that some North American feminist have dubbed “her-story.” In both Tiempo de feminismo [Time for Feminism] and La gran diferencia [The Great Difference],
Amorós avers that society—both Spanish and in general— needs a philosophical feminist memory, focused on the recuperation of a female and feminist past (109; 442-443).
In December 2009, the city of Granada celebrated the thirty year anniversary of its
Primeras Jornadas por la Liberación de la Mujer [The First Symposium for the Liberation of
Women] with Jornadas feministas estatales: Granada, treinta años después, aquí y ahora
[Feminist Symposium: Granada, Thirty Years Later, Here and Now], a conference organized to commemorate the demonstrations of some three thousand women who took to the streets of the
Andalusian city in 1979 to push for gender equality in Spanish society and the workplace. In her moving speech, “La fuerza de nuestra propia historia” [The Power of Our Own History], Lum
Quiñonero reflects on the protests carried out there three decades earlier and declares to her
14 fellow activists that at the time, in the excitement of it all, they had taken one thing for granted: their mothers. Quiñonero reminds her peers that these were women
que nos habían alimentado y habían atravesado la vida bajo un régimen que las
consideraba menores de edad, dependientes, gente sin talento. Ellas guardaron los
secretos heredados, los miedos, los deseos y frustraciones […]. Ellas que nacieron en
tiempos de dictadura, educadas en el sometimiento, hijas de la una, grande y libre,
nos hicieron como somos.
[who had fed us and had gone through life under a regime that considered them to be
minors, dependents, and talentless individuals. They suppressed inherited secrets,
fears, desires and frustrations […]. They, who were born in a time of dictatorship,
educated to be subservient, daughters of the one, great and free [Franco’s Spain],
made us who we are today.] (2-3)
While the tone of her paper is jubilant and seeks to celebrate the many accomplishments of this group of women since 1979, Quiñonero also urges her colleagues to reflect on what would be remembered of their efforts (and the many struggles of their mothers, grandmothers, and great- grandmothers) by future generations of women. By acknowledging the past struggles of their foremothers, Quiñonero stresses the need to sustain the memory of women’s long history of oppression in order to keep the objectives for future generations in mind. Although the aim of this study is not to explain the sociology or politics of Spanish feminism or the pacto de olvido that purportedly made the Spanish Transition to democracy possible, my objective is to examine how contemporary female writers of fiction engage in the task of refashioning and recuperating the lost or forgotten experiences of women in order to give meaning to women’s experience.
Although literature and film may not provide a solution to contemporary women’s issues, many
15 novels and films, at the very least, address a crisis in female identity and have the potential of raising public awareness regarding women’s rights.
It is no coincidence that the women of these works seem to have little to no contact with their mothers or predecessors in general, and are therefore unaware of an inherited maternal, or even paternal, legacy. According to Christine Arkinstall, novels published during the first two decades of the Franco dictatorship frequently hinged on the absence of the mother or maternal figure or on her repressive omnipresence, as seen in novels such as Ana María Matute’s Primera memoria [First Memory] (1959) and Camilo José Cela’s La familia de Pascual Duarte [The
Family of Pascual Duarte] (1942). Typically, the absence of the maternal figure during this time had political insinuations, as it not only represented what Irigaray would consider patriarchy’s matricide, but also the destruction of the “motherland,” or the liberal Segunda República [Second
Republic] (1931-39), a symbol of Spanish women’s short-lived period of political, social, and sexual liberation.10 The lack of a female model to turn to, emulate, or learn from signals an identity crisis in the daughter figure, as seen in Janer’s text, however the inability to procreate, or be a mother, also poses an existential problem for the female subject, as is seen in Montero’s novel. Female sterility, infertility or failed pregnancies represent the impossibility of passing on a female legacy to the future generation, hence signaling the unlikelihood of significant progress or change. While Castro and Montero’s depictions of the mother-daughter relationship clearly draw on the literary heritage of other prominent Peninsular novelists, such as Carmen Laforet,
Carmen Martín Gaite and Montserrat Roig, their reconsideration of issues involving pregnancy, miscarriage, and the mother figure allows them to rewrite woman’s experience in a subversive and unconventional fashion that reflects the realities of twenty-first century women.
16 The absence of a strong maternal or female figure parallels the silencing of a collective female memory and history, thus inhibiting the protagonist’s ability to understand herself or perceive the need for a heightened feminist consciousness. For Alicia Redondo Goicochea, the mother is the necessary link in the process of feminist (and feminine) awareness. These missing links in the chain of maternal inheritance can lead to an endless reiteration of the mistakes of the past, for as political theorist Hannah Arendt notably declares, “If we do not know our own history, we are doomed to live it as though it were our private fate” (71). This is particularly the case in the last two chapters of the present study, as the main characters seem to be the victims of a female family curse reminiscent of the Gothic motifs of repetition, atavism, and shared fates.
The possibility of suffering a premature death—or, even worse, being relegated to oblivion— just like their female predecessors impels these women to seek out the truth regarding their familial past so as to avoid repeating their foremothers’ unfortunate destinies. In Janer’s text, specifically, there is a concern for the retrieval and re-writing of maternal genealogies and the demystification of the missing mother figure, as seen in many of Martín Gaite’s works.11
Similarly, as Chodorow observes in her characterization of the twentieth-century woman, many of the female protagonists in these novels define themselves in terms of their relationships with others—as wives, lovers, mothers, daughters or even as replicas of other women—but never as autonomous entities in their own right (169). Castro and Montero’s novels portray women whose identities are shaped by their professional pursuits, something that can be related to Spanish feminism’s view that work determines female identity and women’s financial autonomy.12 Yet, their endeavors are ultimately undermined, as they are led to feel incompetent or as if their professional lives are secondary to their roles as mother, wife or daughter. It is significant to note that three of the four protagonists are writers or artists by trade who produce their own
17 interpretations of reality and therefore appear to be intellectually capable of analyzing and reflecting on their situations with relative logic and clarity. Nevertheless, this fact only further problematizes the characters’ decisions to remain in unhappy and / or abusive relationships and reiterates the gravity of the female identity crisis at the brink of the twenty-first century.
One characteristic that these novels share is that they are narrated from a variety of perspectives and voices. Castro, Montero, and Janer’s novels involve a first-person narrative at times which, according to Ciplijauskaité, allows the narrators to be more self-analytical and the authors to explore the psychological depth of the character-narrator (La novela femenina 17). In her analysis of various works by Carmen Laforet, Mercè Rodoreda, Carmen Martín Gaite, and
Montserrat Roig, Ciplijauskaité contends that this mode of narration represents a “liberated” discourse that fulfills two main purposes: first, it expresses the reaction to the social repression characteristic of the Franco and even immediate post-Franco years and second, it allows for the development of self-consciousness (18)—a consciousness that I contend gradually exposes a very personal feminist awakening in the narrator-protagonist. It is to be noted that the first- person narration in these three novels often hides behind third-person narration, signaling the possibility of authorial or existential insecurity on the part of the narrator. By alternating between a first- and third-person narration, the authors create what Ciplijauskaité affirms is a continuity of the same experience told from both an internal and external perspective (59). The frequent contradiction of these narrative voices underscores a splintering of consciousness present within these characters, not to mention their struggle to locate a strong voice of their own.
As Catherine Davies affirms, feminism in Spain cannot be understood outside the dramatic political context of the twentieth century (6), and I contend that the same rule should be applied to much of the literature produced at the turn of the millennium. The novels examined in
18 the chapters which follow suggest the need for a second “democratic transition” both related to and dissimilar from Spain’s so-called transition to democracy, which began in 1975 and lasted, arguably, until the early 1990s.13 The first transition was based on a supposed reconciliation with the past, which consisted of a forgetting of past crimes and injustices perpetuated during the
Civil War (1936-1939) and the ensuing Franco dictatorship (1939-1975), and many critics therefore argue that the socialist government of former Prime Minister Felipe González (1982-
1996) was never able to make a “clean” break with the Franco regime (de Grado 29). For
Mercedes de Grado, the realization that only superficial changes had been made under a supposedly democratic administration triggered widespread feelings of desencanto, or disenchantment with progressive ideologies—Marxism, socialism, liberalism, and even feminism, to name a few—which eventually led to cynicism and a mistrust of what Montserrat
Cervera calls “proyectos emancipatorios” [emancipatory projects] (46).14 This second transition involves what its first incarnation was unable to accomplish: the recovery and re-writing of
Spain’s recent history and the attempt to definitively sever ties with the Francoist legacy of the silencing of the past. With the formation of the Asociación para la Recuperación de la Memoria
Histórica (ARMH) [Association for the Recovery of Historical Memory] in 2000, and the passage of Zapatero’s Ley de Memoria Histórica [Law of Historical Memory] in 2007—which includes the recognition of the many victims of the Civil War and dictatorship, and the controversial exhumation of numerous mass graves—there is certainly a collective impetus in
Spain to unearth and confer a voice to the ghosts of its unpleasant, recent past.
Under the Zapatero leadership, Spain has witnessed a number of political shifts relating specifically to women’s issues and equality, as evidenced by the passage of the Ley Orgánica
2004, de Medidas de Protección Integral contra la Violencia de Género [The 2004 Organic Act
19 on Integrated Protection Measures Against Gender Violence].15 Furthermore, in 2008, the administration created the historic Ministerio de Igualdad [Ministry of Equality] to give visibility to the endemic problem of gender, ethnic, racial, religious and sexual inequality and discrimination and to complement the other existing government programs concerned with the situation of women. The appointment of Bibiana Aído, a young and apparently inexperienced woman, as the Minister for Equality received much scrutiny and disapproval from the political right not only because of her perceived “greenness” in the field, but also because many believed such a position and government program to be unnecessary. Her various attempts to challenge what she considered to be outdated patriarchal norms were met with contempt and resentment from both men and women, as can be seen in the negative public response to her coinage of the term “miembra”[member] to refer to the female members of the Real Academia Española in
2008. Such an aversion to Aído’s appointment and her desire for change reveals a reluctance to take seriously such questions of equality. In October 2010, after a reorganization of the government, the Ministerio was eliminated due to a lack of funding and was reintegrated with the newly formed Ministerio de Sanidad, Política Social e Igualdad [Ministry of Health, Social
Politics and Equality]. Despite these setbacks, the Zapatero administration’s efforts to prioritize women’s experience seem to substantiate Camps’s hopeful projections for the twenty-first century.
Although the novels analyzed here were published before or soon after Zapatero’s election to office, it becomes evident that Castro, Montero, Freire, and Janer paint a picture of a postmodern Spanish culture consumed by its preoccupation with (the recovery of) memory and the need to reconsider both past and present realities. As Santos Alonso says of the literature and cultural production of the 1990s in Spain (17), it is inevitable that the literature of the post-
20 Franco and post-Transition eras not be influenced by the nation’s ever-changing sociopolitical milieu. A significant number of novels and film narratives reflexively engage with the revisioning of Spain’s recent past and the need to tell these histories and experiences from multiple perspectives.16 According to Carmen de Urioste, contemporary Spanish writers represent the potential for change, given that they can employ the written word to communicate an underlying problem in late twentieth- and early twenty-first-century culture. Urioste argues that by occupying the public realm—a space that had been reserved exclusively for men— women writers of fiction can modify the symbolic meaning of language, challenge traditional gender norms, and give a voice to the “forgotten” or marginalized. She believes that in doing this female authors can incite a shift, or change, in ideological positions—particularly among women
(202).
The selected texts have been chosen, in particular, because they not only highlight the intersections of a misunderstanding of feminism, an ignorance of recent history and an uncertain, vulnerable female identity, but also because of the psychological complexity and development of each protagonist.17 As stated above, each of the women displays either an internal conflict, a splintering of consciousness, or the externalized duplication of the self in the form of ghostly doubles. Both cases imply unresolved anxieties regarding identity and underscore the presence of an unacknowledged or repressed self. Each protagonist works through her inner fragmentation or doubling by locating and refashioning her matrilineal history through creative measures: writing or art. Catherine Davies’ analysis of contemporary women’s writing is fitting of the work of these four novelists, for as she declares, it “[…] revises conventional wisdoms from a gendered perspective and necessarily affects traditional interpretations of Spanish history, culture and society” (281). My study is restricted, in a chronological sense, to a group of novelists whose
21 works were first published in the 1980s or 1990s, and whose literary (and political) careers and commercial success have helped to turn them into household names, whether because of their literary accomplishments, recurrent contributions to newspaper columns and appearances on national radio and television programs, or because of their active participation in politics.18
With the aim of situating my research within the broader scholarship on contemporary
Spanish female novelists, it is necessary to consider the existing analyses of other literary critics.
With the exception of La hija del Caníbal, the novels explored in this study have received very little scholarly attention, which I contend is not because of a lack of perceived literary merit, for all but one of the works have received prestigious national awards, but rather, because they are perceived to fall under the category of “popular” fiction. What is more, because these novels were published relatively recently, another possible reason for the lack of attention may be the standard critical lag of ten years. While contemporary Hispanists from Great Britain and the
United States frequently focus their research, at times exclusively, on fiction written by women, literary critics in Spain appear to be trailing behind. In Mujeres y narrativa: Otra historia de la narrativa [Women and Narrative: Another History of Narrative] (2008), Redondo Goicochea reveals that literature by women still lacks critical attention and acceptance in Spain, despite its widespread consumption by its female audience (103). Analyses of Montero’s body of work have frequently appeared in scholarly journals and book publications, and while the works of
Castro, Freire and Janer and frequently top Spain’s equivalent of the “best-seller’s” list
(Montero’s text was the top selling novel of 1997, while Janer’s was the fifth top selling novel of
2002-2003, ahead of Arturo Pérez-Reverte’s La Reina del Sur [The Queen of the South], Dulce
Chacón’s La voz dormida and Javier Cercas’s Soldados de Salamina), the only “serious”
22 attention they receive is in an occasional reference in the press or in the relatively new phenomenon of online literary blogs.
I have sought, moreover, to examine texts in which the female subjects are created by women writers because each author confronts and denounces the many pervasive misogynist paradigms and institutions present in Spain today from a particularly female perspective.
Furthermore, as stated above, there has been a tendency in anthologies of feminist thinking and criticism published in English to overlook or misunderstand the contributions of Spanish women writers throughout the twentieth century, and it is my hope that this project might provide more visibility to texts that would otherwise fall under the radar.19 I contend that in their depictions of contemporary Spanish life each author subtly proposes the need for a feminism engaged with the socio-cultural dynamics of the present moment, while still conscious of the past, given that many of the protagonists have a problematic understanding not only of themselves but of their personal, familial and even national heritage. Influenced by “difference feminism” (which focused on the individuality of women rather than their equality with men), many third-wave feminists claim that women—and men—should be able to define and tailor feminism to suit their own realities and perspectives, and as Jennifer Baumgardner and Amy Richards propose, feminism can be different for every generation and individual (159). Because each protagonist’s struggles and return to roots are specific to her own experience and sense of identity, each woman develops her own personalized feminist consciousness. She is an authority because she presents her “own experience as a valid source of truth and [upholds] the authority of experience and ‘conscious subjectivity’ as grounds for determining truth and making decisions” (Kramarae
62). The crises the characters experience are often provoked and intensified by conventional androcentric practices and institutions—domestic violence, marriage and pregnancy, religious
23 rituals, and the general subjugation of women. I do believe that these specific authors use their novels to address the presence of an underlying misogyny that, while slightly more subdued than in years past, continues to manifest itself in contemporary Spanish society. The commercial success and popularity of these works suggest their potential to incite a type of modern-day feminist consciousness in the “average” reader, or at least an awareness of the need to break with female (self-inflicted) oppression. Therefore, the public awareness incited by the novelists’ criticisms of contemporary society is evidence of the role of literature as a vehicle of change and persuasion.
The primary texts to be examined in this dissertation are: La hija del Caníbal, Premio
Primavera de Novela (1997) by Rosa Montero; Melocotones helados, Premio Planeta (1999), by
Espido Freire; Las mujeres que hay en mí (2002), by Maria de la Pau Janer; and La segunda mujer, Premio Biblioteca Breve (2006), by Castro. The novels, essays, and poetry of these four writers have been translated and distributed extensively in Europe, Asia, and the Americas, and all of them contribute regularly as journalists and cultural critics to national daily newspapers, such as El País, El Mundo, La Razón, El Periódico de Catalunya, and Público. Their novels have received both popular and critical acclaim throughout the Spanish-speaking world. Authors such as Rosa Montero and Espido Freire have acquired significant prominence, not only for their work, but also because of their public personae, and have become household names in the realm of Spanish letters during the past fifteen to thirty years. Montero has received the most critical attention from contemporary literary scholars among the authors considered here. Maria de la
Pau Janer and Luisa Castro, for their part, are writers that are identified with the Spanish
“narrativa nueva” (Urioste 286) or “youth movement,” as Robert Spires asserts in a recent article on the canonicity of contemporary Spanish authors (“Scholarship”). In 2007, Janer ran for
24 political office, representing the conservative Partido Popular [Popular Party] in the regional elections for the Parlament de les Illes Balears, but eventually withdrew her candidacy when it became apparent that her campaign would not be successful.20 Janer, the only academic of the group, with a doctorate in Catalan literature, currently holds a teaching position at the Università de les Illes Balears and hosts a program on the Catalan television network, IB3, Televisió de les
Illes Balears.
With the exception of Montero, these women belong to the first generation of writers to come of age without a personal, significant memory of Francoism or a time when misogynist beliefs were overtly accepted. Their protagonists are women who have benefited from democratic policies, as they are all university-educated and three of the protagonists are financially independent from their male counterparts. Nevertheless, all four novelists stress the weight and influence of Spain’s immediate past on the identity formation of present and future generations of women. Although varied in their approaches to the novel and female identity, each writer seems to focus her attention on a splintering, fracturing, or a doubling of consciousness that reveals the presence of a repressed or disregarded self. This other self might be suggestive of existential insecurity, as with La segunda mujer and La hija del Caníbal, or the inheritance and internalization of the fragments of a shared female (and feminist) memory and genealogy, as seen in La segunda mujer, Melocotones helados, and Las mujeres que hay en mí. I have chosen to arrange the chapters in a particular order so as to convey a potential intertextual
“dialogue” among the authors regarding certain key issues that women subjects are wrestling with in narrative at the turn of the twenty-first century: identity destruction and reconstitution, as it is conditioned by an external trauma or crisis and the presence of a splintering and duplication of personalities; women’s alienation within a still predominantly androcentric society; woman’s
25 multifaceted, permeable, and at times contradictory character and the social constraints that impede or limit it from manifesting itself.
The first two chapters will consider female subjects who are writers by trade, and who return to the narrative process to assert and reinvent themselves after their respective crises.
These chapters reveal that the splintering of female identity is apparent not only on an emotional and physical level, but also in the narrative structure of the novels themselves. The subsequent two chapters address the problem of mistaken, blurred identities and the presence of a repeated, shared history across three generations of women of the same family, reminiscent of Montserrat
Roig’s Ramona adéu! [Goodbye, Ramona!] (1972), which traces the stories of three generations of women from the Ventura-Claret family—all of whom are named Ramona. As seen in Roig’s novel, memory and the unearthing of marginalized family (hi)stories lie at the heart of these works, for it is through the act of remembering and making sense of the past that the characters seek to make reparations to their deceased female family members.
In order to expand on the themes of recurrence, family curses, ghostly apparitions and the perceived duplication of the protagonists, these last two chapters are considered in the light of their reworking of the Female Gothic tradition, a variation on the conventional Gothic mode used by female writers to underscore a characteristically female existential problem, frequently prompted by instances of female victimization or subordination and an overall uncertainty regarding the past. In Freire and Janer’s texts, this existential crisis correlates with the protagonist’s wish to unravel the details of a silenced (predominantly female) family past that threatens to perpetuate itself in the female character. According to David Punter, the Gothic is
“haunted by the weight of a history, just behind its shoulder, which proves resistant not only to understanding but, more importantly, to change” (ix). The cyclical, repetitive nature of time and
26 history indicates that a certain degree of repression still exists in contemporary Spanish society, for the past always returns and repeats itself in the following generation. This return of the past haunts and challenges the existential stability of the protagonists, as it effaces the supposed boundaries separating past and present, “self” and “other.” In the final chapter, the protagonist’s unconscious desires, fears, and supposed actions reveal the presence of a repressed “other,” or
“others,” and it is this other, unconscious persona and the inability to distinguish between self and other, past and present that generate identity confusion in Carlota, the protagonist.21 Freud’s exploration of the uncanny is used and then revised to elucidate the manner in which the return of the repressed (the ghosts of the protagonist’s dead grandmother and mother and, by extension, the specters of Spain’s past) to and through the main character accentuates the embodiment of
“self” and “other” and the externalized doubling of the self, as represented in the figure of the doppelgänger. Reflective images, such as mirrors and portraits only further confuse the protagonist’s sense of self, for as Irigaray would contend, the mirrors are not flat—thus reflecting what Jacques Lacan considers to be a whole “self”—but rather concave (or convex), for they reveal a distorted, contradictory and plural identity. This plural, incongruous identity represents the convergence of “self” and “other,” present and past in one body and consciousness—a concept that will reappear throughout this study. Ultimately, it is through the act of writing that the female protagonists re-create memory and locate the assertiveness they need to become autonomous individuals in their own lives. Therefore, these subversive memory texts, in which the women document their (shared) experiences in search of lost matrilineal roots, are sites of memory, reminiscent of French historian Pierre Nora’s lieux de mémoire.22 The desire to remember and reconstruct a personal and collective matrilineal history is central to such a site, for memory, as Nora asserts, is “collective, plural, and yet individual” (9). Furthermore, as Nora
27 remarks in his analysis of the reconstruction of the French past, “Memory has been promoted to the center of history”
In an effort to expound on literary reflections on the failure of feminism in contemporary
Spain, I will establish a link between the cultural “forgetting” of feminist ideals and women’s history and the supposed loss of a “collective” and historical memory.23 As stated above, Nora’s
Les Lieux de Mémoire, published between 1984 and 1993, will be utilized when examining the associations between identity, memory and writing, along with that of Jo Labanyi, a cultural historian of Spain with interests in popular culture and memory studies. Her recent articles, entitled “History and Hauntology; or, What Does One Do With the Ghosts of the Past?
Reflections on Film and Fiction of the Post-Franco Period” and “Constructing Identity in
Contemporary Spain,” along with Joan Ramon Resina’s notable study, Disremembering the
Dictatorship: The Politics of Memory in the Spanish Transition to Democracy and the essays within, will help to underscore the Spanish problem of memory loss and the nation’s complicated relationship with its spectral past. Ferrán’s timely exploration of the intersections of remembrance and writing, Working through Memory, is also relevant to the topic at hand.
In each of the primary texts I consider, the protagonist experiences a spiritual catharsis of sorts that allows her to liberate a once-imprisoned, silenced sense of self and to reach a level of emotional renewal and restoration. Each woman is then able to consider her splintered or doubled selves as some of the puzzle pieces necessary to re-construct an identity that will never be a finished product or integrated whole, but instead a continuous work in progress. The texts here considered lack the “happily ever after” provided by a feeling of closure that has come to be expected in the Bildungsroman genre, a model that has been revisited rather frequently in the
Spanish novel written by women, particularly during the middle part of the twentieth century.
28 Like Cixous’s concept of l’écriture féminine, although the novel itself comes to an end, the female protagonists continue writing or searching for a forgotten past. Whereas the classic
Bildungsroman novel of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries delineates the growth and development of the protagonist, who eventually assimilates into the society in question, the twenty-first-century Spanish novel presents female subjects who never appear to reach full maturation, nor do they want to “assimilate” back into the repressive patriarchal system. In contrast to their mid-twentieth-century female predecessors, such as Laforet with Nada (1944),
Matute with her trilogy comprised of Primera memoria (1959), Los soldados lloran de noche
(1963), and La trampa (1970), and Mercè Rodoreda with La plaça del Diamant (1962), I posit that contemporary Spanish women authors leave the identities of their female protagonists in a permanent state of construction and evolution so as to underscore the dynamic and ever- changing role of women in a modern-day Spanish society that encourages the development of an equally dynamic feminist philosophy. This emphasis on progress can be interpreted as a reaction to a national culture whose utopian models, particularly with regard to womanhood, were explicitly drawn from past models, such as those promulgated by the Sección Femenina
[Women’s Section of the Spanish Fascist Party], and encapsulated by the propagandistic phrase
“quedarse, conformarse, y aguantar” [stay, conform, and withstand].
This project draws on both literary texts and socio-cultural analyses relating to the role and development of feminist thought in the post-Franco context. The novels of twentieth-century female authors, such as those of Laforet, Martín Gaite, Matute, Riera, Rodoreda, and Roig, are used as points of reference to consider the evolution of feminist thought in contemporary Spanish narrative. None of the novels addressed in this study are explicitly labeled as feminist (by critics or the authors themselves), however it is a commonplace to acknowledge that many Spanish
29 women—politicians, authors, and other public figures alike—are reluctant to align themselves publicly with any brand of feminism, despite their personal beliefs on the subject. Much of this can be attributed to a characteristically Spanish skepticism and fear of “-isms,” particularly after a century of civil war, political instability, and dictatorship premised largely on clashes between opposing ideologies. Although some of the authors whose work will be examined in the dissertation publicly reject the feminist label, the majority of the texts can be interpreted in a way that is congruous with a feminist criticism of patriarchal institutions, which threaten female identity formation.24
Because the majority of feminist theory is grounded in the various waves of American,
French or British feminism, it is necessary to consider how feminist theory can be applied to a number of texts by Spanish writers, many of whom resist the feminist label. In a 1991 interview entitled, “Conversando con Mercedes Abad, Cristina Fernández Cubas y Soledad Puértolas:
‘Feminismo y literatura no tienen nada que ver,’” [“Feminism and Literature Have Nothing to
Do With One Another”] interviewers Carmona, Lamb, Velasco and Zecchi express their surprise at the writers’ unwillingness to align themselves with feminist thought. Fernández Cubas declares that “literatura y feminismo no tienen nada que ver porque un libro feminista es un libro que hace bandera de una serie de ideas feministas” [literature and feminism have nothing to do with one another because a feminist text is a text that emphasizes a series of feminist ideas]
(166). She claims that there is no discrimination against women in the artistic world and that, consequently, there is no need to vindicate women’s equality through feminism. What is more, the three writers consider that feminist theory represents a kind of corset for them, as it restricts their artistic freedom and forces them to “hacer encajar a todas las mujeres por igual” [fit the same mold] (162). Instead, Abad, Fernández Cubas and Puértolas assert that when they write
30 they do not write as “woman,” but as “una persona con capacidad para escribir” [a person with the ability to write] (167) and reiterate that the fashioning of a “Spanish feminism” would be unnecessary in the contemporary context. While none of the texts considered in this dissertation are written by these three novelists, it is important to note that, to date, of Luisa Castro, Rosa
Montero, Espido Freire and Maria de la Pau Janer, only Montero’s early narrative has been analyzed from a strictly feminist perspective.
Although Barthes would argue that it is important to consider the literary text as a separate, self-contained entity independent of the writer, I believe that for the purposes of the present study, it is necessary to bear in mind the correlation between the possible message(s) of a text and the author’s personal views on the subject.25 While some critics of Montero’s work argue that her later novels lack clearly feminist undercurrents (Escudero, La narrativa 11), and
Montero herself denies inserting feminist discourse into her narratives, the novelist has expressed a personal adherence to feminism, or anti-sexism:
Yo me considero feminista, o por mejor decir antisexista, porque la palabra
feminismo tiene un contenido semántico equívoco: parece oponerse al machismo y
sugerir, por toda una supremacía de la mujer sobre el hombre, cuando el grueso de las
corrientes feministas no aspiran a eso. […] Es decir, el término feminismo evoca una
lucha social e histórica importantísima, una herencia que sigo asumiendo y
reivindicando. (La loca de la casa 112)
[I consider myself a feminist, or better yet an anti-sexist, because the term feminism
contains a semantic ambiguity: it seems to oppose machismo and propose the
supremacy of women over men, whereas the majority of feminist trends do not
subscribe to these beliefs. […] In other words, the term feminism evokes a very
31 important social and historical struggle, a legacy that I continue to assume and
vindicate.] (La loca de la casa 112)
For Montero, the use of the term “feminista” is problematic because it potentially incites what
Julia Kristeva posits is an inverted sexism, which marginalizes men, causing them to be victims of gender (202). The term “anti-sexism” is one that seems to resonate more with contemporary
Spanish female authors, who believe, as Maria de la Pau Janer declared in a question and answer session for El Mundo, that “[l]a revolución feminista tuvo sentido en su momento. Hoy quizás deberíamos reivindicar a la mujer por otros caminos.” [the feminist revolution made sense at one time. Perhaps today we should vindicate women in other ways.] The perceived need to assert women’s experience through other avenues echoes Falcón’s contention that (Spanish) feminism was a failure. Nevertheless, Janer fails to detail exactly what strategies she believes would bring about parity for women.
Spanish author Laura Freixas calls attention to this matter when writing about female novelists and their readership in her collection of essays, entitled Literatura y mujeres [Literature and Women] (2000). Freixas implies that because of an inherent sexism within the Spanish media and publishing industry, women’s literature is not taken as seriously as that of men (40) mainly because the former is considered to treat particular “women’s topics” and male authors are believed to elaborate on topics of universal interest (141). In the publishing industry, more attention is given to the fact that a writer is a woman than to the notion that she is a writer who happens to be a woman. In an interview with Christine Henseler in 2003, Espido Freire remarked that while she had not encountered sexism among her literary colleagues, her treatment and portrayal by the media left much to be desired. She lamented that “Paternalismo, actitudes condescendientes y una atención excesiva a mi aspecto físico y a mi look han sido constantes
32 (253).” [Paternalism, condescending attitudes and an excessive amount of attention given to my physical appearance and my “look” have been constants.] What is more, novels written by female authors are considered to fall under the “light” reading category, and while publishing houses marketed toward a variety of consumers, they are rarely read by a male audience. Freixas insinuates that, in an effort to appear more serious as writers—in other words, trying to blend in with their male counterparts—and not alienate the rare potential male reader from their work, many women writers must (publicly) repudiate any affiliation with feminist principles, even though their work may reveal an underlying feminist discourse. Ironically, though, the impetus of many women to distance themselves from the feminist label for fear of how the public might react only further underscores the powerful influence of patriarchal rhetoric and its ability to curtail female expression. This desire to not “rock the boat,” so to speak, echoes the underlying tone and objective of the Transition, which were to foment concensus and negotiation in order, ostensibly, not to rekindle any violence or destabilize the newly formed democracy.
It is a challenge, then, to apply a feminist analysis to the works of these novelists without appearing to force the issue. Nevertheless, I argue that these authors double as rhetors who incorporate aspects of feminist thought into their texts to highlight the oppressive, destructive nature of androcentric culture on not only women but also men.26 It is significant to note that, while all four female protagonists experience crises in identity because of their status as women, the novelists are careful to not portray men as the “enemy” or as the sole inhibitors of female agency. Instead, each woman (perhaps with the exception of the character Elsa pequeña in the third chapter) plays an active role in her own repression and in her process of identity revision.
Furthermore, each of the novels I analyze sheds light on a contemporary crisis in male subjectivity. Whether the male characters belong to an older or younger generation and espouse
33 the corresponding ideals of their time, fall victim to greed and corruption, or are simply confused as to their role in society, they and their female counterparts are portrayed as the victims of an inherently androcentric culture obsessed with capitalism and hypermodernity (Labanyi,
“Memory and Modernity” 95), as opposed to a self-reflective society that is fully aware of its past. Curiously, all but one of the women’s romantic interests belong to a generation that came of age during the Franco dictatorship, a detail that must not be overlooked when considering their treatment or view of women and their own identity crises.
In order to analyze the subversive nature of these texts and the narrative strategies of the aforementioned authors, I will be applying feminist criticism and theory to the texts at hand
(particularly the work done by such scholars as Simone de Beauvoir, Nancy Chodorow, Hélène
Cixous, Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar, Luce Irigaray, and Virginia Woolf, among others). By
“feminist criticism,” I refer to the analysis of female- or male-authored texts or film that centers on the various portrayals of the female condition—such as education, female history, maternity and relations between mothers and daughters, marriage, class, work, and women’s writing to name a few. When I argue that a text or protagonist manifests the traces of a feminist discourse or consciousness, I am referring to a type of writing or awareness that addresses the complexities of women’s experience in order to expose and perhaps even eradicate injustices in contemporary society. As Cixous explains (echoing Urioste), “Writing [of literature] is precisely the very possibility of change, the space that can serve as a springboard for subversive thought, the precursory movement of the transformation of social and cultural structures” (“The Laugh” 337).
In the light of Roberta Johnson’s suggestion that Peninsular feminist scholars develop a particularly Spanish feminist approach to literature (“Spanish Feminist Theory Then and Now”),
I also address the insights of Hispanist critics and authors who have studied the Spanish female
34 subject in the twentieth century (namely Celia Amorós, Biruté Ciplijauskaité, Lidia Falcón,
Ofelia Ferrán, Laura Freixas, Jo Labanyi, and Lisa Vollendorf, among others), so as to concentrate exclusively on Spain’s problematic relationship with feminist thought and the female condition.
I consider Cixous’s influential article, “The Laugh of the Medusa” (1975), and her interpretation of l’écriture féminine when analyzing Castro’s La segunda mujer and Montero’s
La hija del Caníbal. The article serves to illustrate the protagonists’ need to create a new way to express and re-create themselves, not to mention dismantle patriarchal hegemony, through the act of writing. Moreover, Naomi Schor’s assertion that “the body, the female body that is, remains, in however complex and problematic a way, the rock of feminism” (943) plays an important role in my analysis of the female body in Castro and Montero’s novels. As stated above, chapters three and four consider the question of mistaken or blurred identities, a problem that can be explained through an analysis of essentialist depictions of women. The differences that separate Elsa pequeña from Elsa grande or Elsita and Carlota from her two “mothers” are not easily discerned by androcentric society. Although I do not intend to apply (feminist) psychoanalytic theory to the present study, I feel that it is necessary to call upon the work of
Lacan, who notably declares that “the unconscious is the discourse of the Other.” Such an observation serves to support the notion of the splintered female self, whose unconscious desires indicate the presence of repression. Moreover, his analysis of the mirror stage and the relation between “self” and “other” informs my readings of Montero and Janer’s novels, although
Lacan’s explanation is subverted slightly in the text. Similarly, in the fourth chapter, Sigmund
Freud’s recognized essay, “Das Unheimliche” (1919) will help to evince the female protagonist’s
35 embodiment of both “self” and “other” and the present and past in one, so as to underscore her fragmented and contradictory nature.
In “Wounded Body, Splintered Self: Luisa Castro’s La segunda mujer and Contemporary
Spanish Feminism,” I begin my analysis with Castro’s La segunda mujer [The Second Woman or
The Second Wife], as it tackles one of the most endemic, yet suppressed, threats to female identity and security: that of domestic—specifically psychological—abuse. The case of Julia
Varela is a powerful and perplexing one, given that prior to meeting Gaspar, this protagonist is a young and successful self-made writer and independent woman. Her willingness to discard all of her previous personal achievements for the love of an older man signals a disregard and ignorance of the women’s movement, its ideals and its many struggles for parity and women’s rights. It soon becomes apparent that the relationship represents the clash between two very different generations—the one, evocative of a repressive, machista past and the other, symbolic of a more progressive, twenty-first-century mindset consumed with the need to move full-steam ahead and distance itself from the customs of an “irrelevant” and archaic past. The couple’s marriage also serves to highlight the convergence of and conflict between two different social classes and regionalist identities: those of Galicia and Catalonia.27 The protagonist’s Galician roots and self-imposed exiles in Madrid and Barcelona provide further evidence of the connection to the concept of a splintered self divided by geographical and cultural conflicts. As the relationship progresses and Julia grows more reliant on Gaspar, the protagonist exhibits signs of a splintered consciousness and identity. While her thoughts reflect vestiges of a past feminist philosophy, her actions seem to be determined by an overwhelming need to satisfy her dominating husband.
36 Castro’s novels are said to contain an autobiographical component, and La segunda mujer proves no exception, as it mirrors the novelist’s professional successes and eventual sacrifices she made when abandoning her literary pursuits to follow her husband to Barcelona.
Her previous novel, Viajes con mi padre [Travels With my Father] (2003), which can be read as a precursor to La segunda mujer, presents the contempt the narrator-protagonist’s parents feel for the past and the young woman’s desire to piece together her parents’ histories to better understand her own identity. Carmen de Urioste observes that memory is a driving force in
Castro’s narrative, as is the search for alternative identities (286), and the only way that Julia can begin to reconstruct an alternative identity and memory for herself is to return to writing, a medium that will provide her with the voice and authority that she had abandoned so hastily before surrendering herself to Gaspar. I propose that the written testimony the protagonist is drafting is the result of Julia’s attempt to reassert and reconstruct herself by making sense of her past mistakes. By writing her own story, the protagonist is able to brand a very personal feminism that may resonate more with readers who assume that domestic abuse only happens to a certain “type” of woman.
In the second chapter, “Re-Writing the Body, Consuming the Other, and Re-Membering the Self: Rosa Montero’s La hija del Caníbal and Rhetorical Cannibalism,” I continue with the theme of writing and the ability of the narrative process to help make sense of the past, thus healing the writing subject and allowing her to refashion and give meaning to a fragmented and ambiguous identity. In La hija del Caníbal [The Cannibal’s Daughter], I address the inextricable correlation between mind and body by emphasizing the ability of the latter to inform the former and vice versa. Images of amputation and physical splintering abound throughout the text, highlighting the character’s scattered and chaotic understanding of self. The protagonist blames
37 her father, representative of oppressive patriarchal structures and perhaps an allegorical representation of Franco, for her identity fragmentation and loss and her subsequent existential distress. By learning more about the nation’s past—thanks to her neighbor, Félix, a former anarchist and gunman before and during the Civil War who reveals to her details about his own painful past and the challenges of his generation—the protagonist eventually comes to terms with her genetic inheritance and is thus able to embrace her aging, fragmented physical and psychological self as a repository of traumatic, historical, and genetic memory.
The novel is narrated from the perspective of three different narrators, two of whom belong to Lucía herself, something which helps to emphasize her splintered and contradictory selves and calls into question the validity and veracity of the written word. One narrative voice has a tendency to be unreliable, whereas the other clarifies and uncovers the falsehoods told by its counterpart to such a degree that the reader questions the authenticity of the entire account.
The third point of view is offered by Félix, who along with Adrián—the protagonist’s idealistic twenty-year-old neighbor—is assisting Lucía in the search for Ramón. His stories and life experiences help to teach her about her identity and the need to recover and generate her own personal life story. Throughout the text, Lucía oscillates between first and third-person narrations to recount her story, however, by the end, she is able to rely on one voice narrated entirely from a first-person point of view. Be this as it may, I contend that this “whole” voice is comprised of a chorus of myriad other perspectives and memories (Félix and Lucía’s), thus underscoring the interrelatedness and endless continuity of selves, histories and recollections within one (narrative and material) corpus. By having the ability to reconstruct her own body, identity, and past through a feminine perspective, Montero is able to highlight the need for a more proactive female subject who is able to make reconciliations with the past and—unlike the Spanish state of
38 the time—learn from it. Montero, like Castro, chooses writing as a way of restoring her protagonist with a powerful, authoritative voice and enabling her to begin the open-ended process of identity revision, by contesting and creating an antithesis to male-dominated discourse and androcentric versions of history.
The third chapter, “Re-Fashioning the “Female Gothic”: Awakened Ghosts, Mistaken
Identities, and Multiple Selves in Espido Freire’s Melocotones helados,” addresses Freire’s reworking of the Female Gothic genre to address the Gothic nature of a contemporary Spanish culture that still is haunted by the (repressed) memory of its past. Melocotones helados [Frozen
Peaches] is replete with uncomfortable silences, half-buried family secrets, the persecution and oppression of the female subject, and the fear of the return of the past in spectral form, as evidenced in the figure of the doppelgänger. The novel recounts the story of mistaken and confused identities among three women from the same family who share the same name—
Elsa—and perhaps a similar fate. I propose that Freire’s narrative, while maintaining a deceiving level of critical distance, exploits the Gothic mode to call attention to the patent misogyny of a contemporary patriarchal society that perpetually tries to silence female experience. Freire’s condemnation of machismo and the dark picture she has painted of the mistreatment of women in contemporary culture, along with the need to address and learn from the past, will be addressed in this chapter.
The fourth and final main chapter, “The Ghosts of Identities Past: Maria de la Pau Janer’s
Las mujeres que hay en mí and the Feminist or Mallorcan Uncanny,” investigates the case of mistaken and blurred identities. In Las mujeres que hay en mí [The Women in Me], Carlota claims that the Mallorcan mansion in which she lives is haunted by the ghosts of her dead mother and grandmother, whose spirits occupy every corner of the house. My analysis draws on and
39 revises Freud’s contradictory, yet inextricably related, concepts of the unheimlich (uncanny, or strange) and heimlich (the domestic and familiar) and the continual slippage between the two throughout the novel. Having grown up in the constant presence of her mother and grandmother’s portraits, the sight of her own likeness in the mirror calls to mind the theme of the uncanny, for Carlota finds that which should be most familiar to her—her facial features— incongruous and foreign, while the characteristics of the “other”—her mothers—are all too familiar. I maintain that the notions of the unheimlich and heimlich converge in the protagonist, as she comes to embody the paradox of the unfamiliar and familiar, “other” and “self,” past and present. The repetition of the past across the generations and the blurring of existential boundaries amplify Carlota’s fear of becoming her mothers and sharing their untimely fates. As a result, the protagonist’s sense of self is “split,” or fragmented, as she is comprised of three contradictory, yet analogous, and incomplete personalities.
Because the protagonist has little to no recollection of her “mothers,” a part of her personal history is missing; she is unaware of their struggles and desires, and is therefore unable to understand herself. I maintain that because of a disconnection with and ignorance of recent history and the experiences of previous generations of women, Carlota is—like Mallorca—an island that, reminiscent of the Gothic tradition, has been unaffected by the passage of time or feminist ideals. Furthermore, through the act of “remembering,” or writing, Carlota creates her own text that embodies a recontextualization of Freud’s description of the uncanny, for it brings to light that which had originally been hidden and repressed. She appropriates her mothers’ imagined histories and memories, reinvents them and makes and fuses them with her own.
Carlota, then, “remembers” her past by interpreting and rewriting her mothers’ stories to, conveniently, condition and fit her present. Her evolving text represents the rewriting of the
40 unheimlich in a new, feminist register that is informed by the protagonist’s “knowledge” and reinterpretation of her matrilineal heritage. As an extension of Sofía and Elisa, Carlota relays her mothers’ respective stories through her own intimations to an implied interlocutor, and in doing so vindicates their legacy and ensures that their names and experiences are no longer censored or excluded in the annals of familial or collective history.
As we shall see in our conclusion, the present study contributes to the rising interest in heterogeneity and the regeneration of memory in Spain, as analyzed through the female subject.
These approaches invite a larger readership in fields outside of literature, such as historiography, memory and women’s studies. Ultimately, this dissertation concludes that the absence of a feminist consciousness and the silencing of a collective Spanish women’s history—not only during the Franco era, but throughout the nation’s transition to democracy and beyond—leads to an insecure, splintered female identity. With the knowledge acquired from lived personal experience, the piecing together of the past through the narrative (or a narrative- like) process, these women embrace their fragmented and composite nature, which reflects the presence of a repressed, silenced self and history. Through the re-writing of their own lives and matrilineal genealogies, these women are able to locate a sense of agency and fashion a customized feminist consciousness that allows them to resist their objectification and mistreatment and embrace their complementary and contradictory selves.
1 Prior to Francisco Franco’s death in 1975, men had significant control over their wives’ day to day activities. Husbands controlled women’s salaries and could deny permission for them to open bank accounts or make large purchases. Before 1978, adultery committed by women was considered a crime punishable by prison whereas men who committed the same offense were hardly reprimanded.
41
2 Cruz and Zecchi (2004) assert that the social tendencies that were developed and consolidated in the 1990s in Spain should not be interpreted as signs of a slow evolution in gender equality, but rather, as an indication of what they term an “involución de la situación de la mujer” [regression in the situation of women] (10). Furthermore, they argue that “se multiplican los discursos políticos y culturales, tanto masculinos como femeninos, que proponen un modelo de mujer que, aun inserta en la esfera pública (profesional), añora la privada, mientras redescubre valores tradicionales como el matrimonio, la domesticidad y, sobre todo, la maternidad, los cuales, reivindicados ahora como ejercicio de libertad y vía de realización integral, acaban ocupando casi el mismo puesto de honor que ostentaron durante el franquismo” [the political and cultural discourses are multiplied, both the masculine and the femenine, proposing a model woman who, while occupying the public (professional) sphere, longs for the private, while she rediscovers such 'traditional values' as marriage, domesticity and, above all, motherhood, all of which, revindicated by being freely chosen and by signifying a way of authentic fulfillment, end up occupying almost the same place of honor they enjoyed during the Franco period]. (11)
3 In Working Through Memory, Ofelia Ferrán coins the term “meta-memory text” to refer to the self-reflexive nature of various Peninsular novels that involve protagonists who engage in the process of literary and artistic production. Ferrán asserts that memory and literary or artistic creation are inextricably linked, and as the novels analyzed in the present study demonstrate, the self-conscious exploration of the intersections of memory, representation, and women’s identity contributes to the generation of a culture of (counter) memory, a process of remembrance that gives visibility to traditionally marginalized perspectives.
4 The pacto de olvido was a tacit agreement made during Spain’s transition to democracy that centered on a collective forgetting of and reconciliation with the nation’s recent past so as to move forward and exact a smooth shift in political power. Because of the fear of a return to the violence and polarizations present in the pre-Civil War era, many politicians from the Left and Right sought consensus rather than reparation for past wrongs. Therefore, the events and memories of the previous forty-some years of civil conflict and dictatorship were suppressed and allegedly forgotten. As a result, and as Giles Tremlett maintains, “Francoism has never been placed on trial […]. There were no hearings, no truth commissions and no formal process of reconciliation beyond the business of constructing a new democracy. […] It was Franco’s own men who would, largely, oversee and manage the Transición” (82-83).
5 After an eight-year period of significant economic growth and relative stability under the leadership of Prime Minister José María Aznar, by 2004, Spain was entering a new era of economic uncertainty and crisis during which unemployment levels have reached all-time highs.
6 What is more, Vollendorf asserts that feminism is not a phenomenon specific to twentieth- century literature in Spain, but rather that it has a long tradition that can be traced back to some of the nation’s earliest literature, which “often depicts women struggling against societal constraints” (Recovering Spain’s Feminist Tradition 9).
42
7 Johnson references the pre-Republican Civil Code of 1889, a series of legal statutes that restricted women’s legal independence. In her seminal essay, La mujer moderna y sus derechos (1927), Carmen de Burgos addresses the “legal construction” of Spanish womanhood, which she refers to as a relegation to the status of “eterna menor” [eternal minor] (144). Johnson declares that it was illegal for an umarried woman to become pregnant, and in the case that she did did, the law “forbade paternity investigations; the husband of a married woman had to authorize any work or travel she wished to undertake, and the husband had control of all the woman’s money; […] the man who killed his adulterous wife was only sentenced to exile, and if he beat her there was no punishment” (250).
8 It is important to note that this “dismemory,” or desmemoria, is not exclusive to the Transition era, but to a political tactic that can be traced back to Francoism. Eduardo Subirats reminds us that the dictatorship left a profound legacy of cultural and historical amnesia in the Spanish psyche: Se ha olvidado que la desmemoria española desciende directamente del franquismo. No se recuerda que sus espacios, sus signos y sus actores han sido formados por las escuelas y las formas de vida de aquellos sombríos años […]. [H]emos cerrado los ojos a lo más evidente: a la opaca herencia social, cultural y política que aquella larga noche de mentiras y represión ha dejado precisamente como herencia profunda a la generación de la transición democrática. [Everyone forgets that Spanish “dismemory” descends directly from Francoism. No one remembers that its spaces, signs and protagonists have been formed by the teachings and ways of life of those dark years […]. We have turned a blind eye to what is most obvious: the opaque social, cultural and political legacy that that long night of lies and repression left to the generation of the democratic Transition.] (27) Throughout the Franco dictatorship there was an effort to ignore or erase any inconvenient truths that contradicted hegemonic, Nationalist versions of Spanish history. The short-lived Segunda República, along with the progressive tradition it represented, and many of the details surrounding the Civil War were omitted from the annals of recent history, whereas those aspects of a more distant past that substantiated the greatness of Spain were emphasized and recovered.
9 “Memory,” as I conceive it, is not necessarily the personal recollections of an individual, but instead it constitutes a cultural consciousness of a shared past across generations that, like historiography, finds expression through discourse. Resina notes that “Remembrance refers to past experiences which are accessible to an individual. Memory is constructed with the data of those experiences, but is eminently social” (“Short of Memory” 87). The failure to keep a memory alive must not be attributed, then, to the individual who forgets her or his own life experiences, but rather to the failure of memory as a collective process.
10 Arkinstall asserts that the 1930s were a period of major advances in women’s rights in Spain, such as women’s suffrage in 1931, divorce in 1932, and abortion in 1936 (48).
11 Lee Quinby defines genealogical fiction as that which focuses on the events, people and places that have been erased from conventional historical and literary narratives. This type of
43 fiction shatters the belief in an official history or truth and replaces it with the truths of an alternative memory: countermemory (xxiii).
12 Margarita Nelken argued that it is impossible to understand women’s issues apart from social class. She believed that working class women are already equal to men because they work, and are therefore naturally feminists (Johnson 256).
13 It should be noted that former Prime Minister, José María Aznar, referenced the possibility of a “segunda transición” when the right-wing leaning Partido Popular (PP) defeated the socialist party, the PSOE, in 1996. Since then, however, many have considered the PSOE’s return to power in 2004 to be paradigmatic of a second transition, as many of Zapatero’s policies seem to reflect the need to make reparations to the victims of the Civil War and Franco regime—something that was not done in the years following Franco’s death (Castellanos López 164).
14 The leftist mantra of the desencanto, “Things were better against Franco” (Labanyi, “Postmodernism” 397), reiterates the cynicism and nostalgia characteristic of the post- Transition years.
15 The passage of this sweeping law is significant, for it includes educational reforms intended to teach children about gender equality, economic support for victims of domestic, gendered violence, and a clause that seeks to prevent stereotypical and denigrating images of women in advertising. As Vollendorf asserts, the success of such a law suggests that Spain may have something to teach other countries about “feminist mobilization and coalition- building” (114).
16 Works such as Dulce Chacón’s Algún amor que no mate (1996), Javier Cercas’s Soldados de Salamina [Soldiers of Salamina] (2001), and films such as Guillermo del Toro’s El laberinto delfauno [Pan’s Labyrinth] (2006), Pedro Almodóvar’s Volver [Return] (2006), Icíar Bollaín’s Te doymis ojos [Take My Eyes] (2003), Vicente Aranda’s Libertarias [Freedomfighters] (1996), are just some examples of the cultural production of the turn of the millennium that have sought to raise a certain level of cultural and historical awareness in their readers and viewers.
17 My use of the word “ignorance” here is deliberate, as it is problematic to talk about the actual “forgetting” of something that was never experienced personally. Nevertheless, Hirsch’s concept of “postmemory,” mentioned above, is useful when considering the protagonists’ urgency to imagine things that they never knew.
18 The novels of these four writers represent and engage the complexities and contradictions of female identity and history, calling attention to the various types of feminism and female experiences present throughout Spain and its autonomous regions. There is a correlation between regionalism(s) and feminism(s) in that both discourses re-surfaced concurrently near the end of the Franco regime and represented a rejection of the unified and patriarchal
44 identity imposed on Spaniards for nearly forty years of authoritarian rule.18 I have selected novels that represent many of the “peripheral” regional identities that comprise Spain’s complex turn-of-the-century identity in an effort to provide a diverse examination of female experience(s) as portrayed in the Peninsular novel. For example, Montero’s text takes place in her native Madrid—representative of Spain’s “center,” in historical and cultural terms— Castro’s novel addresses Galician and Catalonian identities, while one could argue that Freire’s depicts an ambiguous setting comparable to the villages and cities scattered throughout the Basque Country, and Janer’s narrative is set very specifically on the Balearic Island of Mallorca. What is more, I have decided to incorporate in my analysis two novelists whose works criticize, in different ways, Francoist attempts to undermine regional identities and cultures: Luisa Castro and Maria de la Pau Janer. By situating their novels in Galicia, Catalonia, and Mallorca, respectively, Castro and Janer give visibility to that which was previously—and may still be— marginalized, yet, unlike Janer, Castro also exploits regionalisms to establish inherent differences and emphasize the mounting tension between her two main characters.
19 Nevertheless, the studies carried out by Janet Pérez (The Feminist Encyclopedia of Spanish Literature: N-Z), Lisa Vollendorf (The Lives of Women, Literatura y feminismo en España) and contemporary novelist Ángeles Caso (Las olvidadas: Una historia de mujeres creadoras [The Forgotten Ones: A History of Female Creators), address the forgetting and subsequent need for the recuperation of female artists and writers from the twelfth century onward. Their explorations of Spanish feminism are valuable contributions to the understanding of women’s history in Spain.
20 Since the 2007 elections, Janer has been cited as saying that her allegiance to the PP was a mistake, and went on to assure her interviewers and the general reading public that she does not align herself with the political ideology of the party, but has instead been a longtime member of the CiU, a Catalan nationalist party that, depending on the observer, is considered as either conservative or centrist. It defends the idea that Catalonia is a nation within Spain and desires the highest level of autonomy possible for the region. She claims that that she ran on the PP ticket “por [su] catalanismo,” declaring that the party was seeking candidates who would represent and defend Catalan interests.
21 The notion of the “Other,” in relation to the unconscious, relates to Jacques Lacan’s contributions to psychoanalytic theory.
22 Pierre Nora elaborates on the significance of this historical concept in his anthology entitled Les Lieux de mémoire (1984-1993). For Nora, a lieu de mémoire can refer to a very concrete and material object but also to a very abstract and intellectual construction. Therefore, the concept can be applied to a monument, an important person, a museum, archives, rituals, sites, or symbols. He posits that an object becomes a lieu de mémoire when it escapes oblivion, for example, when it is marked with a commemorative plaque, and when the collective invests in it affection or emotion with the intention of never allowing it to be forgotten. Curiously, Nora argues that such places of memory frequently emerge in moments
45 of crisis. Citing Nora, Ferrán declares that these places of memory, therefore, “are connected to experiences of discontinuity, even though they effectively produce continuity as they serve to ‘codify, condense, anchor…memory’” (59).
23 It is necessary to note that the majority of the texts examined here were published before the ratification of the Ley de Memoria Histórica de España [Spanish Historical Memory Law], however critics and writers such as Lidia Falcón and Javier Cercas were alluding to the problem of a “lost” or forgotten history a few years before Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero’s election in 2004.
24 Novelists such as Espido Freire claim to be feminists in their personal lives, yet deny incorporating a “feminist agenda” into their narratives, saying, like Cristina Fernández Cubas, that literature and feminism have nothing to do with one another. In the same vein, a number of contemporary female writers eschew the feminist label, declaring that it suited the feminist movements of the 1960s, but that it has become outdated and should not be applied to twenty-first century paradigms. As Kathleen Glenn asserts, the stories of many female writers do not present a simple reversal of conventional gender hierarchies by privileging the feminine and repudiating the masculine. Nevertheless, Glenn maintains that their consideration of power structures and the exploration of the construction of identity reveal that such constructs are determined by patriarchal culture. Consequently, I believe that, despite these writers’ contentions, their works address the struggles of the late twentieth- and early twenty-first-century female subject to work through and make sense of her identity in patriarchal culture, and therefore, must be read within a feminist framework.
25 Years later, Barthes’s opinion changed and he adjusted his theory slightly to allow for the return of the author.
26 Camps asserts that a necessary step in the formation of a new feminist consciousness is to convince men of the importance of feminism—in other words, she contends that feminism should be “universalized.” She argues that while feminism remains a marginal issue, all of society will suffer both socially and economically (22).
27 I recognize that this observation is problematic, mainly because of Castro’s public resistance to identity politics, however the narrator-protagonist’s blatant criticism of Catalonia and the supposedly inherent hypocrisy of los catalanes hints at the existence of a contentious political discourse in Spain and among the various autonomous communities.
46 Chapter 1
Wounded Body, Splintered Self: Luisa Castro’s La segunda mujer and Contemporary Spanish Feminism1
“Con una intensidad ciega ella pensaba en Dios, aquel Dios que le había mandado irse detrás de Gaspar. ¿Por qué lo había hecho? ¿Por qué no había escuchado su propia voz?” —Julia, La segunda mujer (314)
[With a blind intensity her thoughts turned to God, that God that had ordered her to follow Gaspar. Why had she done it? Why hadn’t she listened to her own voice?]
The issue of domestic violence in Spain has received considerable public attention in recent years, due, in part, to the political efforts and high-profile campaigns of the current Zapatero administration to combat the problem. The Instituto de la Mujer (IM) has sponsored Criminal Code reforms under which carrying out physical violence on a child or partner is punishable by imprisonment.2 Notwithstanding its visibility in the media, it is curious to note that a majority of contemporary writers, artists and filmmakers prefer to tip-toe around the issue than address its cultural relevance through their work. In her article “Amores que matan,” Jacqueline Cruz declares, “sorprende que, a pesar de la magnitud del problema de la violencia de género en la España actual y de su protagonismo en los medios de comunicación, muy pocas obras artísticas lo aborden frontalmente” (67). Dulce Chacón’s novel Algún amor que no mate [A Love That Does
Not Kill] (1996) and Icíar Bollaín’s film Te doy mis ojos [Take My Eyes] (2003) are among the few examples of artistic production mentioned by Cruz in her essay that attempt to generate a more sensitive public awareness about domestic violence.3 As
Linda Gould Levine convincingly articulates in her examination of Bollaín’s film, these two works address issues specifically related to women and their position in an
47 androcentric society that is “simultaneously characterized by tremendous change and ingrained structures resistant to an egalitarian agenda for women and men” (217).
The theme of violence within the home—whether it is psychological, emotional, or physical—requires a feminist framework that addresses not only the reasons for domestic violence and the effects of such abuse on the victim, but also one that seeks to incite dramatic social change and a greater sensitivity in the collective psyche. Since the publication and release of Chacón and Bollaín’s respective oeuvres, Galician poet and novelist Luisa Castro has attempted to give a voice to the countless women who suffer silently from cases of domestic abuse in an effort to dispel some of the many fallacies that still exist in twenty-first-century Spanish culture regarding the victim, the aggressor, and the circumstances under which this type of violence takes place.4
Castro’s novel La segunda mujer (2006) suggests the need for a more serious consideration of both domestic violence and an analysis of what the novelist evinces is an imminent crisis in female identity in the new millennium.5 Despite the writer’s aversion to identity politics and the feminist label, I propose that, like Victoria Camps’s El siglo de las mujeres, the text suggests the need to establish a new set of “registers” for a twenty- first century feminist Spanish discourse in a culture whose machista tradition continues to manifest itself in not-so-veiled forms.6 The novel problematizes the widely accepted notion that the women of the contemporary Western world are, by definition, “liberated” and independent thinkers, and that feminism, as Angela McRobbie contends, is an unnecessary and redundant force (4) now that women “are […] free to choose for themselves” (5). The pages that follow will demonstrate how Castro’s novel seeks to highlight the failures of twentieth-century democracy and feminism in the contemporary
48 Spanish context and aims to debunk a misconception that the female subject of the new millennium has a clear, strong understanding of her sense of self, one based largely on a firm grasp of feminist ideals and advances.7 Instead, the novel reveals that such notions and conceptions of the self are quite fragile and can be easily trumped by a longer- standing discourse: that of misogyny and the subjugation of women.
The present chapter will consider the example of domestic abuse and its ability to splinter and undermine a once seemingly resolute female identity supposedly founded on late twentieth-century notions of feminism and democracy. Given that one’s identity is comprised of both the body and mind—and the relationship existing between the two—it will be shown that psychological abuse is doubly powerful and devastating for the female subject. The fragmentation of the protagonist’s consciousness and its often dissident and contradictory relationship with the body (and its actions) will be examined first from an emotional or psychological perspective as evinced in the narration of the account, and then on a more physical level. Many times, however, the fragmentation of consciousness and the body itself can occur simultaneously, highlighting the significance of the psychosomatic. It is not until the protagonist can both physically and emotionally distance herself from her aggressor-husband through the empowering and therapeutic act of writing that she is able to reconstruct and revise a more cohesive sense of self that is grounded in her own painful experiences and newly acquired understanding and appreciation of her rights and independence as a woman.
My analysis of the splintering of the female subject in La segunda mujer draws on the assertions of R.D. Laing in The Divided Self: An Existential Study in Sanity and
Madness (1964). In his investigation, the psychologist contends that some individuals in
49 traumatic situations suffer from “ontological insecurity,” manifest in their distress, which consequently leads to the formation of a divided self whose experience is split in two ways. Firstly, she or he feels like an intruder who can never feel “at home” in the world.
Secondly, the subject does not experience her or himself as a complete person, but rather as a disjointed and split being (17). For Laing, this splitting is akin to schizophrenia, which he contends is “a special strategy that a person invents in order to live in an unlivable situation” (The Politics). Any given stressful situation may divide the subject against itself, thereby causing the dissociation of the mind from the body. While Julia certainly does not suffer from a clinically diagnosed disorder, she does seem to manifest a type of schizophrenic behavior at various points throughout the narrative. For Laing and
Castro (at least insofar as she depicts Julia’s crisis in the text), however, this schizophrenia is merely a temporary answer, or coping mechanism, to oppression. As we shall see in the second chapter with Lucía, the splintering of Julia’s consciousness and the concurrent scission between her thoughts (mind) and actions (body) are both the result of and a reaction to her emotional exploitation.
The narrative structure, with its vacillations between first-, second-, and third- person narration, helps to elucidate the schizophrenic and contradictory nature of the protagonist. The entire account, from beginning to end, can be read as Julia’s own recapitulation of her seduction and identity crisis throughout her relationship with
Gaspar. The implicit text, therefore, is one that is written a posteriori, with a degree of critical distance from a future present, akin to Kellman’s notion of the self-begetting novel. As shall be clarified in further detail below, the accusatory “tú” pronounced by the narrative voice is an analytical one that returns, via the reconstruction of memory, to the
50 traumatic situation and seemingly reprimands the implicit narratee (in this case, Julia, the protagonist) for her naiveté and poor decisions.
While the author’s public resistance to identity politics and the feminist label must not be discounted, particularly because it potentially challenges the argument at the heart of this chapter, I argue that La segunda mujer brings to the fore various pertinent issues that are heavily charged with contemporary sociopolitical undertones and that therefore contradict Castro’s claims to the contrary. Given her remarks in various online interviews, Castro’s aversion to the “feminist” brand can be reduced to an issue with semantics, for the writer frequently references the terms “igualdad” [“equality”] and
“machismo” to underscore the lack of the former and the abundance of the latter in the couple’s relationship.8 That the novelist chooses to relate her story through an exclusively female perspective—as both protagonist and narrator are presumably female—is revealing, particularly because it problematizes female subjectivity and provides for a better understanding of women’s experience.9 The archaic and misogynist male point of view is communicated and filtered through the female narrative voice, thereby causing the reader to side and identify more readily with the troubled protagonist. Despite the writer’s recurrent utilization of Galicia as a point of reference or setting in her novels and poems and her arguably negative portrayal of Catalonia in La segunda mujer, Castro asserts that she had not intended to employ her novel as a political platform.
Nevertheless, the text can be considered a political allegory, as it evinces the regionalist tensions prevalent in current Spanish discourse.10
Castro’s protagonist, Julia Varela, is a twenty-five-year-old writer, who initially appears to espouse a set of unyielding feminist ideals before ultimately surrendering and
51 compromising them for the chimera of love with an older, more experienced man.11
Thanks to the protagonist’s own assessments regarding her past and present inclinations—interspersed throughout the novel—much of what she has ever believed and worked for is discarded and it is evident that Julia’s supposedly feminist convictions and sense of identity are not as unwavering as she—or the reader—had once believed, but instead they are all too easily corrupted by old-fashioned flattery and temptation.
Julia’s swift abandonment of her principles indicates that she has not only discarded her previous identity, but she has also failed to take into account Spain’s long history of gender inequality. Under the jurisdiction of the Sección Femenina (1933-1977), the female branch of Spanish Falange, women in Spain were expected to assume
“traditional,” subordinate roles—as mothers and homemakers—obey their husbands and fathers, and withstand any form of mistreatment or abuse inflicted upon them. Despite the relative historical proximity of Francoism, it is evident that Julia has little personal or inherited memory or real understanding of the dictatorship. The lack of communication between Julia and her mother could be considered one of the reasons for this.12 Camps addresses this absence of memory in the younger generation and contends that these misogynist traditions can disguise themselves in attractive, nostalgic forms for many young women today whose mothers embraced the liberation movement: “Algunas jóvenes cuyas madres trataron de huir de ‘sus labores,’ pueden sentirse atraídas—con la atracción de lo desconocido o ‘prohibido’—hacia la vida de sus bisabuelas” [Some young women whose mothers tried to escape from ‘their responsibilities,’ can feel themselves attracted—by the temptation of the unknown and the ‘forbidden fruit’—to the lifestyle of their great-grandmothers] (16).
52 Although it might be easier for the contemporary reader to identify more readily with Julia than with Gaspar, the novelist carefully portrays Julia’s loss of autonomy as the result of her own poor decisions and weak understanding of self. The novel is a difficult read, as it recounts the painful experiences of a young woman who, educated in democratic Spain, consciously allows herself to be seduced by a much older man who clearly has been indoctrinated with Francoist-era gender roles. Castro challenges her reader to follow and accept the protagonist and her mistakes much like a patient and loyal friend might do. Even throughout Julia’s gradual regression and moral and physical destruction, the novelist seems to dare her reader to withstand the anguish of her own suffering at the hands of Gaspar. In García’s interview with the writer, Castro underscores the hypocrisy and prejudice of a purportedly progressive and tolerant bourgeois Catalan society, but refrains from mentioning any specific examples. Though she denies that the novel is based on the experiences of her own life—yet agrees that it mirrors many aspects of it—the reader soon recognizes the autobiographical quality of the novel. As a woman who considers herself to be “multiply marginalized,” (Mudrovic
142), and consequently having to prove herself more than most (for she is a young, working class gallega), Luisa Castro and Julia Varela certainly appear to have a lot in common.13
While attending a literature conference in Italy, the character Julia Varela meets and is seduced at a hotel by Gaspar Ferré, an art expert, precisely when she has begun to enjoy professional success after years of hard work and rigorous study. It is through
Julia’s reflections—communicated by an omniscient narrator and a series of flashbacks relayed in the first person—that the reader learns the protagonist was once a seemingly
53 strong, confident, and financially independent woman. Nevertheless, it is soon revealed that she abandons her promising career and Madrid to move in with Gaspar in his home in Barcelona. Julia’s revelations and comparisons between her previous life in Madrid and her current reality in Barcelona serve to emphasize the dramatic changes and sacrifices that she has undergone for the sake of sustaining a relationship with an older, more “settled” man. The atmosphere in the new city and house is hostile and disorienting, and Julia is expected to welcome Gaspar’s family, friends, and past lovers into their home with open arms. What ensues is a psychologically and emotionally abusive relationship, during which Julia loses her previous autonomy, her dignity and, as a result, her sense of self. It is not until Julia re-embraces her Galician roots and her career as a writer that she is able to begin the process of reconstructing her splintered identity.
Throughout the text, Julia makes reference to her importance in the field of literary criticism (a profession that has traditionally been reserved for men) and her financial independence from both her family and men in general. Early in the narrative, the protagonist’s own assertions indicate that prior to her encounter with Gaspar, she is a strong, independent woman whose lifestyle seems to reflect, and is undoubtedly indebted to, the tenets of feminism. She, unlike her mother, has received a university education and has worked diligently to be financially autonomous and not rely on men for emotional or economic stability. Although it is not explicitly stated, we can assume that without the advances of the liberal and feminist movements, Julia would not be the successful writer and independent woman that she is at the beginning of the novel.14 If one reads La segunda mujer as a successor of Castro’s previous novel, Viajes con mi padre (2003), it is evident that, aside from the protagonists’ names, their family units and
54 professional pursuits in both Madrid and New York are very similar. In Viajes, the narrator’s mother is described as a stoic, cold, and unaffectionate woman who enjoys a certain level of autonomy and desires a better life for her two daughters. She is the one who urges the narrator to work hard in school and move to Madrid to pursue a career in writing so that she might find a better life outside of their native Galicia. The narrator knows very little about her parents, who avoid referencing the past, and is therefore unable to understand her present. In Viajes, Castro seems to emphasize the possibility of the daughter learning from the mother’s struggles, whereas in La segunda mujer, this does not seem to be the case, as there is a problematic The protagonist has worked hard at forging a place for herself in literary circles and is respected by her employer. While she may not be aware of it, Julia appears to be a feminist insofar as she earns her own keep, is fearlessly opinionated, and is sexually liberated, given that it is she who initiates many of the sexual encounters in the narrative. Moreover, she has a critical mind, a fact that is demonstrated by way of exclusive commentary and observations regarding Gaspar, his friends and family shared only with the reader. She even expresses her previous disdain for men, in general, but more specifically for older men, looking at them “con un asco singular, desde la superioridad de la juventud” [at men with a deep repulsion, from the superiority of youth] (14). It appears as though she has often mistrusted the men of the previous generation who, for her, embody everything against which present-day women and feminists have fought to disprove. She enjoys feeling in control of her emotions and considers herself to be superior to her male counterparts. In this sense, the protagonist seems to be able to apply her emancipated, feminist mindset to her profession, other intellectual endeavors, and sentimental relationships.
55 Therefore, it is surprising to witness the celerity with which Julia seems to abandon her professional goals and life aspirations, all for the affection of Gaspar, a man more than twice her age. Initially, the protagonist senses that she has overcome the sweeping inequalities and injustices characteristic of the Franco years, and she has certain reservations regarding Gaspar and his “tipo”—a man who embodies the misogynist, socially conservative ideals of the dictatorship. Nevertheless, Julia is taken aback by
Gaspar’s demeanor and finds him to be more progressive and “modern” that she had expected. Ferré surprises her, for he does not seem to fit the mold of the older machista male; he is at once charismatic and uncompromising, affectionate and hostile, and while he seems wrong and too old for her, Julia is intrigued by him, despite the significant generational gap. It soon becomes apparent, however, that under the progre façade lies the old-fashioned, narrow patriarchal, and even racist, mentality she had originally anticipated. Nor is Julia what she seems to be at the outset, for as Castro reveals in an interview with El País, the protagonist “viene de la memoria del hambre” [comes from the memory of hunger], a reference to the Civil War that might imply that Julia’s independent, ambitious character is a result, not necessarily of the women’s movement, but of an awareness of and desire to overcome her humble beginnings. Therefore, it appears as though Julia’s internalization of feminist and democratic notions was a superficial one that never incited her to question or understand the importance of emancipation and equality. As a young, inexperienced woman, Julia’s principles and sense of self are fragile notions that are threatened easily by the illusion of romance. In her relationship with Gaspar, Julia allows herself to be relegated to a status of passivity and self-doubt in which her own sense of identity and her understanding of what should
56 be “acceptable” behavior for a wife and mother are placed in question. A lack of familiarity with such things proves to be ruinous for Julia, as it ultimately clouds her reasoning.
Upon meeting Gaspar, Julia undergoes a gradual process of identity transformation, splintering, and loss, which can be discerned on a physical and an emotional level, and manifest in a series of contradictions. The author delineates this metamorphosis in a variety of ways, thanks in part to the protagonist’s observations.
Early in the narrative, when Julia is about to meet her lover at the airport in Lugo for the first time, there is a noteworthy insinuation of the protagonist’s loss of identity. Here, in a description of the clothing she has scrupulously chosen for the occasion, it is apparent that Julia consciously and willingly relinquishes certain aspects of her personality in hopes of appeasing Gaspar. Her new identity reflects an ideal that she believes Gaspar will find attractive: “Se había puesto unas botas camperas, un pantalón beige y una camisa azul de rayas. Fue lo más aproximado que encontró a la forma de vestirse de él.
Las botas eran lo único que se concedió, el único vestigio de su propia personalidad”
[She had put on some cowboy boots, beige pants and a blue, striped shirt. It was the closest thing she could find that most resembled his clothing style. The boots were the only thing that she allowed herself, the only vestige of her own personality.] (38).
Before traveling to Barcelona, the two lovers go shopping together in Madrid’s upscale Salamanca district so that Julia can buy some nice clothes to wear when meeting
Gaspar’s family for the first time. She tries on clothes that she never would have chosen before: “Gaspar le metió en el vestidor tres prendas más […] que Julia jamás se hubiera probado” [Gaspar brought her three more articles of clothing […] that Julia would have
57 never tried on before] (59). He grabs a pair of heels for her, “de los que él se encaprichó”
[for which he had taken a fancy] (59), but that she would never have worn before: “¡Pero si nunca había usado tacones!” [But she had never worn heels before!] (59). It is evident that Julia does not feel entirely comfortable with her transformation-makeover. Back at the hotel, she feels like a prostitute, and not like the highly-respected writer with whom she has come to identify herself. When she catches a glimpse of herself in the mirror, she laughs at herself as she says, “Pero si parezco una puta de lujo, yo, la mejor escritora de mi generación” [But I look like a high class prostitute, I, the best writer of my generation]
(60). It is at this moment that Julia’s identity experiences a type of split, or division. The mirror reflects a distorted, unfamiliar identity, causing Julia to realize that something does not completely “fit,” and it proves to be difficult for her to try to reconcile these two very different personae that she has come to embody. Anything that does not “fit,” or is in conflict with something else can be described as the dissociation between mind and body; Julia does not recognize the material body that is reflected in the looking glass, for it does not, in her mind, corroborate with her self-image.
When addressing Jacques Lacan’s “mirror stage,” Elizabeth Grosz declares that
“the subject recognizes itself at the moment it loses itself in / as the other. The other is the foundation and support of its identity, as well as what destabilizes it and annihilates it”
(“Contemporary” 44). As she faces her new identity, Julia says, in a conclusive and unquestioning manner, “bueno […] ahora ya está” [well […] that’s it] (60), seemingly resigning herself to her physical and ideological transformation. She seems to accept the fact that a new (split) identity, with a new set of beliefs and mindset, is being designed for her by her lover. When leaving the hotel, she has grown so accustomed to her new
58 “look,” or identity, that her shoes no longer hurt her: “A Julia no le dolían los zapatos. Ya los llevaba con desparpajo” [Julia’s shoes were no longer hurting her. She was already wearing them with self-confidence] (61). Julia’s willingness to withstand pain in an effort to please Gaspar is a sign, not only of things to come in the couple’s relationship, but also of what Camps would call a retrocession in women’s evolution (16).
Castro further complicates this transformative, splintering process by underscoring the protagonist’s conscious decision to abandon her previous ambitions and autonomy. By way of a flashback, the reader learns that a few months before having met her lover, Julia sent a letter to one Dr. Insdorf at Columbia University, in which she tried to convince the professor that she was worthy of a Fulbright scholarship, despite her inability to speak English. In the letter, Julia boasts of her self-made professional and intellectual accomplishments, the high regard with which she is held by both her colleagues and Spanish royalty and politicians, all with an air of self-assurance and strong sense of purpose. She describes herself as the best writer of her generation who, without the aid of anyone, was able to “conquistar el panorama literario desde Madrid” [conquer the literary scene from Madrid] (124). As she says, she is highly aware of and focused on her goals, and is determined to do whatever it takes to be accepted into the program.
Insdorf’s acceptance of Julia into her program, despite her lack of qualifications in
English proficiency, validates Julia’s credentials (or her own sense thereof). This memory of the protagonist’s previous determination and high self-esteem stands in stark contrast to the self-sacrificing, insecure woman into which she is transforming. In what seems to be a manifestation of her guilt or remorse, Julia asks herself what she will tell Carole
Insdorf now that her aspirations have changed. She wonders how the professor will react
59 if she tells her that she only thinks about Gaspar, and that a life with him is now her primary objective.
When Gaspar visits Julia in her New York apartment, the protagonist is unable to sleep, for she cannot wait to tell him of her impassioned desire to marry him and to leave her previous life and identity behind, no matter the obstacle: “me transformaré, y me iré a donde sea para vivir a tu lado, y abandonaré mi casa y mis amigos y mi trabajo, dejaré la ciudad en la que he vivido sola y acompañada durante siete años. Todo lo que tengo no vale nada, no vale nada” [I will change, and I will go wherever is necessary to live by his side, and I will abandon my home and my friends and my work, I will leave the city in which I have lived on my own and accompanied for seven years. Everything I have is worth nothing, nothing] (141). Julia is all too willing to neglect and forsake everything for which she has struggled in the last seven years for the sole objective of being by her lover’s side. She invites Gaspar to conquer her and to take her prisoner, to render her passive. She views him as the enlightened one who will reveal to her a better, more fulfilling life than the one she has attempted to provide for herself. After moving into
Gaspar’s home, the couple decides to open a joint bank account, something that makes
Julia very happy, as it means that she can get rid of one of the few remaining vestiges of her single life and identity: “Julia cerró su cuenta corriente en Madrid. Aquella cuenta a su nombre era lo último que le quedaba de su vida de soltera. Le encantó desprenderse de ella” [Julia closed her checking account in Madrid. That account in her name was the last thing that remained of her single life. She loved getting rid of it] (196). The renunciation and devaluation of her previous life, aspirations, and achievements reflect and contribute
60 to the simultaneous loss of identity and the coexistence of two contradictory selves present within the protagonist.
The author reinforces the notion of a splintered identity, specifically that of a fragmented and conflicted consciousness, by experimenting with an array of narrative techniques. As Béatrice Rodríguez, Nina Molinaro, and even the novelist herself have convincingly argued, Castro incorporates and fuses various narrative voices and perspectives in her narratives so as to illustrate the psychological complexity of both the protagonist and her precarious situation.15 Castro claims that her decision to oscillate between first- and third-person perspectives was necessary given her inability to identify with the troubled protagonist.16 Furthermore, the simultaneous division and fusion of the two voices help to reinforce the splintered, conflicted nature of the young woman. The third-person narration doubles as Julia’s ignored conscience, which represents the divergent nature of her self and the protagonist’s disregard of her own intuition and misgivings regarding Gaspar. Throughout the course of the novel, the narrator attempts a first-person narration but seems unable to uphold an authentic voice without relying on the third person. Much like Ellen Mayock maintains in her analysis of narrative strategies in Rosa Montero’s La hija del Caníbal (1997), the narrator in Castro’s novel becomes more reflexive and self-critical once she separates herself as narrator from herself as actor
(66). As Carmen de Urioste affirms, the usage of the first person represents a desire not only for autonomy, but also for psychological and sociological inquiry, allowing the narrator-protagonist to fashion a new identity and position for herself in society (205).
The usage of free indirect discourse allows for a fragmented, yet synthesized and therefore ambiguous, consciousness or narrative viewpoint to be communicated to the
61 audience. One scene that helps to evince the presence of a splintered consciousness is when Julia reacts, with a degree of indignation, to Gaspar’s insistence on meeting her parents in order to make their relationship “official”:
¿Pero qué pretendía Gaspar haciendo descollar a su familia cada dos por
tres? ¿Hacerla descender los peldaños que tan arduamente había
conquistado desde los dieciocho años? ¿Era tan difícil hacerle entender
que ella era una mujer libre, que se había hecho a sí misma y que así iba a
seguir?
[What was Gaspar trying to do by giving such importance to her family all
the time? Was intent to have her abandon everything that she had
overcome since she was eighteen? Was it so difficult for him to realize
that she was an emancipated, self-made woman and that this was not
going to change? Regarding love, she preferred to remain silent. That was
not her understanding of love.] (45)
Although Julia’s (internal) outburst is narrated in the third person, it is apparent that the inquiries are her own. The series of questions suggests a type of dialogue involving two “separate” entities: the third-person narrator and the first-person voice of the protagonist, yet, the usage of the indirect free style indicates that the narrator and
Julia are one, thereby illustrating the dual, or multiple, selves existent within the character. We must note that the voice described above is one that conveys a degree of self-confidence, self-justification and pride, for as she herself puts it, she is a self-made woman. It is a voice reminiscent of the female struggle for respect and equality, and therefore representative of a democratic, perhaps even feminist discourse. Julia’s
62 declarations evince the generational clash of Francoist and democratic ways of thought, for she does not understand his old-fashioned ways. Nevertheless, such beliefs are silenced and seemingly forgotten, for it is apparent that it is Julia, and not Gaspar, here, who censors herself and her own notions regarding love. It should also be noted that the protagonist feels compelled to silence her (mis-)understanding of love due to a lack of security in her own convictions.
Although she experiences an inner conflict involving her formerly pragmatic ways and Gaspar’s idealized notions of romantic love, in the end the protagonist values her “more experienced” lover’s approach over her own. Curiously, Julia’s internal monologue echoes conventional male (or perhaps feminist) attitudes regarding love and life, for she privileges reason, rationality and her profession over sentimentalism, whereas
Gaspar appears to embody a more “feminine” reaction to love, bordering on desperation.
Because of her insecurity in her beliefs, as referenced above, the protagonist will gradually modify her views, undermine her past successes and self-worth, eventually succumbing to Gaspar’s unrelenting advances. While Julia feels as though Gaspar is invading her “territorio” (53), or interrupting and distancing her from her writing, in hopes that she will return his love and affection and finally agree to marry him, she eventually abandons her writing and “patria” for Gaspar, signaling one of the phases of her loss of identity.17 In leaving behind her family and previous life in Galicia so as to begin a new life with Gaspar, Julia renounces a part of her past (self). The deterioration of her sense of self and previous personal convictions corresponds with the adoption of
Gaspar’s set of archaic—and what will prove for Julia to be self-deprecating—beliefs.
63 It is exasperating to witness the many inconsistencies present in the protagonist, who has undoubtedly benefited from the advances made by the feminist movement, yet seems to ignore them, consciously or subconsciously, and instead perpetuates the stereotype of the once-independent woman who sacrifices her autonomy and well-being for the ideal of love and the feeling of being needed and irreplaceable. McRobbie claims in her analysis of “post”-feminism that the prefix “post” is misleading because it implies that equality has been achieved and that feminists can focus their attention on something else. The critic argues that the supposed “post”-feminist female characters of popular television series or films, such as Carrie Bradshaw, of Sex and the City and Bridget Jones, of Bridget Jones’s Diary appear to be liberated women who clearly enjoy their sexuality, but are really constantly waiting for the one man that will sweep them off their feet. Such may be the case of Julia, who on the surface seems to value her profession and independence, but somehow reverts to the traditional role of the repressed woman. After her stay in Naples and her recent romance with Gaspar, Julia wonders whether or not this is her “time”: “¿Le había llegado su hora? ¿Era aquélla la forma que el amor había elegido para presentarse? ¿Se había encontrado con el hombre de su vida, el que le tenía reservado el destino?” [Was this her time? Was this the way in which love had chosen to manifest itself? Had she found the man of her life, the one that destiny had chosen for her?] (30). Then, as she repeatedly does throughout the text, Julia immediately counters her idealistic thoughts of love with a more pragmatic attitude, which serves as a further manifestation of her incongruous nature. When thinking about Gaspar after their first few encounters, what seems like a strong sense of self-confidence and assertiveness eventually dissipates, and is overcome with a naïve, romantic idealism.
64 As Maddison and Storr assert when discussing the Bridget Jones phenomenon, such behavior can be seen as “post”-feminist in that it takes the social and political gains of feminism for granted and considers them to be less important than attracting a man
(14). Here, the protagonist remembers the moment when, in Italy, Gaspar snapped a photograph of her as she walked across the hotel room naked, without any warning. By taking a snapshot of Julia’s naked body, Gaspar is able to possess and objectify her by forcing her into a passive role, in which she will be available to him whenever he so desires. She is indignant that Gaspar would stoop to such a level, and imagines what she would have said and done differently, were she given the chance:
‘A mí no se me ocurriría sacarte una foto de tu culo,’ pensó que le diría a Gaspar
si tuviera ocasión. ¿Quién se creía aquel tipo que era Julia? […] ‘A ti se te ha ido
la olla, tío,’ eso le diría Julia en caso de atreverse a hacerlo. Le hubiera pegado
una patada a la cámara, le hubiera hecho una llave de kárate. Pero ahora ya era
tarde. Con su madre y su hermana delante, sólo pensaba en volverlo a ver.
[‘I would never think to take a picture of your ass,’ she imagined telling Gaspar if
she had the chance. Who did this guy think Julia was? […] ‘You’ve lost it,
buddy,’ is what Julia would say if he ever did it again. She would have kicked the
camera out of his hands, and would have put him in a karate lock. But now it was
too late. With her mother and sister there, the only thing she could think of was
seeing him again.] (30)
Despite her desire to go back in time and assert herself to Gaspar, she appears resigned to the fact that she can no longer do anything about it, and subsequently diminishes the significance of the episode by concealing it from her mother and sister and by forgetting
65 his faults. Once again, it seems that Julia observes her life from a detached, external point of view, as if she were a character in a novel or film. Julia refers to herself in the third person—a habit that she may have acquired from being a writer—a process through which she separates her self into all-knowing narrator and protagonist.
Julia’s disregard of her lover’s imperfections becomes much more frequent and she is quickly enamored with everything about him. In their first encounter after returning from Italy, she elevates Gaspar to a god-like status, and consequently feels inferior to him, unworthy of his love and affection. As she rests her head on his chest that “le imponía respeto” [commanded respect] (49), she senses that he knows more than she, a thought that surprises her, for it is unlike Julia to feel so insecure and subordinate to a man. This realization worries her, as she is apprehensive to give all of herself to this man, and is particularly troubled by what such a concession might mean, nevertheless another part of her relishes in the possibility of being in control and aware of the situation and her emotions: “A una parte de ella no le gustaba la idea de estar naufragando en las manos de un hombre experimentado, y a la otra le encantaba estar por encima de todo aquello”
[One part of her did not like the idea of sinking in the arms of an experienced man, and the other loved being above it all] (41, my emphasis). This “split” consciousness, a result of her disorienting relationship with Gaspar, confuses and further complicates Julia’s sense of identity and self-worth. Her thoughts are often inconsistent with her words and actions, a detail that signals the inner conflict with which she constantly struggles, not to mention the frequent divide that can be seen between body (actions) and mind
(consciousness). In the light of Julia’s acquiescence to Gaspar’s patriarchal, sexist views and expectations, it can be assumed that Castro wishes to highlight the shortcomings and
66 failure of twentieth-century feminist discourse and thought that Julia has theoretically assumed throughout her young adult life.
Although Julia seems to recognize and disapprove of her lover’s domineering nature, she assures him that she loves him just as much as he does her: “Julia iba arrugándose con cada palabra de Gaspar. Su tono autoritario le desagradó profundamente.
‘¿Cómo se atreve a hablarme así? ¿Pero quién se ha creído este tío que soy?’” [Julia felt herself recoiling with every one of Gaspar’s words. His authoritarian tone displeased her greatly. ‘How dare he speak to me like that? Who does this guy think I am?’] (43). The protagonist is clearly offended by Gaspar’s condescending words, yet, rather than express these feelings to Gaspar, she suppresses them and says, “‘Aprecio mucho lo que me dices, de verdad. No me acabo de explicar” [I very much appreciate what you’re telling me, really. I’m just not explaining myself well. I don’t think that you feel any more than
I] (43). When he continues to assure her that if they have children together, it will be because he loves her—something he admits did not happen with his ex-wife—the protagonist scrutinizes his reasoning critically, eventually convincing herself that everything he has told her is exactly what most women would hope to hear from their lover. In the form of an interior monologue, Julia first imagines that she is addressing
Gaspar directly, and then continues with an assessment of his faulty reasoning and arrogance, this time by referring to him in the third person:
‘Glup […] El razonamiento que expones es algo que toda mujer desea oír,
ser la favorita entre todas las anteriores en el corazón de su señor, pero la
ideología de este argumento me repugna profundamente: primero, porque
no puede ser verdad, y segundo porque es doloroso traer a colación a otras
67 mujeres mientras abraza mis hombros treinta años más jóvenes que los
suyos, hablar en el mismo plano de los hijos reales y ficticios…una gran
descortesía para mí, para la otra mujer, para su hijo y para los míos si es
que los tengo con él.’
[‘Glup […] The reasoning that you put forth is something that every
woman wants to hear, to be her lover’s favorite out of all of her
predecessors, but the ideology of this argument disgusts me profoundly:
first, because it cannot be true, and second, because it is painful to listen to
him bring up other women while he is embracing my shoulders that are
thirty years younger than his, to place equal emphasis on his real and
imaginary children…a great discourtesy for me, for the other woman, for
his son, and for mine, that is if I have them with him.’] (47)
In Julia’s mind, her skepticism and distrust of Gaspar set her apart from other, less extraordinary women who might be easily seduced by his argument. The protagonist’s analytic and cynical nature is made evident here. She is aware of her lover’s possible hypocrisy and seems to consider it a type of “reto,” or challenge, to her intellect and self- control. With an almost ironic tone similar to that of a voice over artist, the seemingly objective narrator—or is it Julia herself?—wonders: “¿Iba Julia a dejarse vencer por tan endeble enemigo?” [Was Julia going to allow herself to be defeated by such a feeble enemy?] (47). Here, the narrative voice is an ironic one, given that it knows the real and intended outcome of the protagonist’s actions. The use of third-person narration or free indirect style demonstrates the presence of an internal, analytic consciousness within the character that alternates with the perspective of the more omniscient narrator. It is as if
68 Julia, as narrator, were having a dialogue with herself: a self “split” between a more temporally distant, perhaps retrospective, consciousness and another that is caught up in, and therefore more directly influenced by, the action and emotions of the moment.
The latter self emerges shortly after Julia questions Gaspar’s emotional and mental state, when she quickly rejects such thoughts and censures herself for being too callous with him:
Pero este pensamiento, de pronto, atravesó su corazón. Y de ser su
agresora principal se convirtió en un segundo en su defensora visceral. Su
amor por él crecía cuanto más lo tenía que salvar. No, aquel hombre no era
un loco, ni su amor una veleidad. ¿Por qué no reconocía de una vez que lo
amaba? […] ¿Qué es lo que estaba aplicándole con tanto discurso y tanto
interrogatorio? ¿El juicio final?
[But all of a sudden this thought pierced her heart. And she went from
being his primary attacker to his most staunch defender. Her love for him
grew the more she had to save him. No, that man was not crazy, nor was
his love capricious. Why did she not accept for once that she loved him?
[…] What was it that she was analyzing or questioning? Was this
judgment day?] (49)
Once again, it appears as though the narrator maintains an ironic and critical distance from the protagonist and action of the narrative. Although the voice demonstrates a degree of objectivity, the thought processes and interrogations resemble those of the main character. As in many female-authored texts of twentieth-century Spain, the seemingly omniscient narrator (in this case, Julia) presents a double vision of herself, one as the
69 protagonist herself and the other as a storyteller who attempts to make sense of her past blunders by looking at herself—what Mayock, referencing Laforet’s Nada (1945), calls
“the mirror of her text” (10). The inner (intellectual, philosophical) conflict and ensuing splitting of consciousness that Julia experiences are noteworthy here, not only at the narrative level, but also in terms of the protagonist’s embodiment of two contradictory roles, or attitudes—that of aggressor and defender, practically at the same time. Such a rapid change is worth mentioning, particularly because it is soon after this episode with
Gaspar that she realizes that their relationship is changing her for the worse. She abandons her pragmatism and skepticism for Gaspar’s more romanticized view of love:
“Aquella experiencia la estaba transformando: dejaba atrás el mundo real, el mundo del trabajo, y se embarcaba con aquel hombre en una nave de sueños” [That experience was transforming her: she was leaving behind the real world, the professional world, and was boarding the ship of dreams with that man] (50).
Under Gaspar’s influence, Julia discards her past accomplishments, her family and friends, and much of her independent, feminist mindset. When Gaspar explains his relationship with his ex-wife to Julia, he stresses the fact that he has helped Simoneta with everything—by paying for her therapy after revealing to her that he had been unfaithful with her best friend, by buying her a house all for herself, and by helping to write her dissertation and landing her a job at a university—in spite of her indifference to his attempts to make amends and improve her situation (88). Gaspar also alludes very hastily and vaguely to the fact that Simoneta was involved in the French feminist movement of the sixties, and that after giving birth to Frederic, she abandoned both husband and son. Now, he says, she does not see anyone, nor does she have any friends.
70 She has shut herself away in a world dominated by women who listen and pay attention to her. By her ex-husband’s assessment, Simoneta’s association with the women’s liberation movement and her apparent rejection of patriarchal life seem to be at the root of her odd and “shameful” behavior. Julia repeats Gaspar’s words to herself: “Le pagué, le di, la metí, le ayudé…” [I paid her, I gave her, I placed her, I helped her…] (88).
Gaspar’s depiction of his own generosity and his ex-wife’s apparent lack of gratitude—or inability to provide and be responsible for herself and her family—underscores an accusatory underlying message: that feminism, as a “flawed” and extremist movement, leads to the moral degradation of women and society as a whole.
Rather than sympathize with or see the similarities between she and her predecessor—in both romantic and generational terms—the protagonist looks at her with a critical eye, wondering how someone as decent and as charitable as Gaspar could fall in love with such a “retrasada mental” [imbecile, or literally, mentally handicapped person]
(88). She neglects to consider her lover’s blatant sexism and condescension towards his ex-wife and women in general. The protagonist also fails to recognize Gaspar’s ability to create conflict among the women in his life, as seen with Simoneta and her best friend, between Julia and the idea of Simoneta, and later between Julia and Gaspar’s other love interests. She takes Gaspar at his word without inquiring about Simoneta’s real reasons for leaving the family and shutting herself away from a hostile society. It is evident here that Julia misreads not only Gaspar and his ex-wife, but in so doing allows herself to be influenced by his flawed interpretation of the struggles of the previous generation. Julia sees Simoneta as a model that she should not follow if she is to make Gaspar happy, and instead she repeats to herself, as if addressing her lover: “Conmigo has tenido suerte, yo
71 soy más buena e inteligente que mi predecesora en el cargo, sabré cuidarte, sabré quererte. Conmigo no te has equivocado” [You’ve been lucky with me, I’m a better person and more intelligent than my predecessor, I will know how to care for you, I will know how to love you. You have not made a mistake in choosing me] (89). By comparing Julia with his previous love interests, Gaspar incites an unhealthy degree of competition and resentment among the women, thereby ensuring that he will always be able to manipulate their feelings for one another and their own self-worth. Julia is willing to abandon her former principles completely in order to become that which Gaspar wants her to be: “la perfecta casada,” Spain’s equivalent of the “Stepford wife.”
The emotional and physical strain of the relationship first manifests itself when
Julia and her future husband have just visited Montse, another of Gaspar’s former lovers, in her home for the first time. The protagonist begins to feel ill after the unpleasant visit, and needs Gaspar’s help to lead her up the stairs. He lays her down on the bed and takes off her clothes. She feels defeated by him, as if she were his victim, realizing that Gaspar finds great pleasure in watching her languish on the bed; he loves her more now that he perceives her physical and emotional weakness. As if it were Julia assessing the scene from a more detached perspective, there is a contrast made between her former attributes, prior to meeting Gaspar, and those she has assumed since falling under his dominion:
Julia Varela la fuerte, aquella niña valiente, aquella niña como una roca,
estaba rendida, herida. ‘Estoy en sus manos,’ pensó Julia. ‘Esto es lo que
le hace feliz.’ […] ‘Te hace feliz verme enferma y tener que cuidarme.’
[…] Le dio asco que la besara. Pensó, cuando se acercó a sus labios, si
Gaspar no sería un vampiro, esa clase de tipos que se beben tu vida
72 mientras te dicen que te quieren. Y del asco que le dio le entraron otra vez
ganas de hacer el amor.
[The strong Julia Varela, that brave little girl, that girl who was jst like a
rock, was exhausted, hurt. ‘I am in your hands,’ she thought. ‘This is what
will make him happy.’ […] ‘If you loved me you would suffer for my
pain, but my main fills you with energy. It makes you happy to see me ill
and have to care for me.’] (108-109)
Julia’s realization that Gaspar is a monster-like creature that sucks the vitality out of its victim-lover in order to survive is enough to disgust her, yet she once again contradicts and disregards her own sentiments by not only kissing him, but making love to him, thereby reinforcing and perpetuating her complete acceptance of and submission to him.
Motherhood, so often used to define “womanhood,” is one of the many things that
Gaspar tries to impose on Julia. He tries to convince her to stop using her birth control pills and to provide him with an heir, reminding her that “no mezclo mi sangre con cualquiera” [I don’t mix my blood with just anyone] (157). In urging his lover to acquiesce to his obsession with having another child, Gaspar tries to usurp control of her reproductive rights and exploit her body for his own, personal gain.18 Julia realizes that
Gaspar’s comment reveals a latent classism and superiority complex (stemming from their regionalist differences), for it suggests that he is doing her a favor by mixing his bloodline with hers. Every time the topic arises, Julia feels like a “vasalla en manos de un rey” [vassal at the mercy of a king] (157) who will determine her value and fate based on her fertility and ability to provide him with a suitable (male) heir. The protagonist says to herself: “‘Quiere probarme primero, si no soy fértil me repudiará’” [‘He wants to test me
73 first; if I am infertile he will reject me’] (158). And in the next breath, as if to accept such degrading treatment, Julia seems to acquiesce willingly to his impetuous, not to mention machista, desires: “Esa noche estuvo a punto de dejar las pastillas. Volvieron a hacer el amor. Soportaría lo que fuera, cenas con gente que no le decían nada, hijos que la odiaran, lo que fuera por aquel niño, el que Gaspar necesitaba para seguir queriéndola, para seguirla viendo” [That night she was prepared to stop taking her birth control pills.
They made love once again. She would put up with anything, dinners with people who ignored her, sons that hated her, whatever it might be all for the sake of that child, the one that Gaspar needed to continue loving her, to continue seeing her.] (158).
Julia’s sudden desire to bear Gaspar’s child stands in stark contrast to her previous aversion to motherhood. Castro strategically omits any reference to the protagonist’s conception, pregnancy, delivery, or marriage from the text, perhaps as a way of emphasizing Julia’s avoidance of the truth or her symbolic absence in such important decisions and milestones. That she gives birth to a daughter, and not a son, is significant for a number of reasons. As can be expected, Gaspar wants nothing to do with either his wife or daughter for the simple fact that she is not a boy and therefore unable to carry on the family name and legacy. For him, she is, by definition, the weaker sex and thus irrelevant and useless to him. Conversely, by giving birth to a daughter, Castro seems to be hinting at Julia’s ability to do with her daughter what her mother failed to do with her: use her own life experiences and missteps as an example to foment in her daughter an appreciation and desire for autonomy, self-fulfillment, and a greater understanding of the self. In a narrative in which the success and inheritance of feminist
74 teachings are called into question, Julia’s daughter, Virginia, represents the possibility of progress and the promise of change.
Although Gaspar never physically abuses Julia directly, it is clear that the psychological and emotional abuse from which she suffers are quite real and dangerous.
When the protagonist listens helplessly as Gaspar whips their toddler, Virginia, because she is inexplicably crying, Julia is horrified, yet remains impotent and involuntarily complicit. It is clear that she is incapable of protecting her daughter from her enraged husband; it is as if Virginia were an extension of herself—a helpless, inferior being unable to fight back against her attacker. Although the beating is not one that she receives directly, Julia feels as if she is to blame, and suffers the emotional pain and guilt that can be characteristic of physical abuse. Nevertheless, instead of confronting Gaspar immediately after the incident, as she knows very well that she must, Julia goes to him and kisses and caresses him as he lounges on the couch: “Si no lo hago ahora, pensó, nunca volveré a mirarle a la cara. Gaspar dormía resoplando. Lo acarició, lo besó. Lo consoló dormido” [If I don’t do it now, she thought, I’ll never be able to look him in the face.] (252). This scene serves to further illustrate Julia’s confused, contradictory, and insecure condition, and her decision to comfort her husband—who is sleeping peacefully and most likely unaffected by the incident—resembles that of a victim of domestic abuse.
Julia’s actions do not reflect the logic or urgency of her internal thoughts, but they instead indicate feelings of guilt regarding the incident and the desire to forget that it ever took place. As a result, Julia enables Gaspar’s behavior and, thus, releases him of any responsibility.
75 The psychological abuse Julia suffers not only splinters her psyche and undermines her self-esteem; the neglect, verbal abuse, and humiliation to which the protagonist is subjected begin to manifest themselves in her body, thus underscoring the psychosomatic. Labrador, Paz, de Luis and Fernández challenge the notion that physical and emotional abuse are exclusive, by claiming that the affliction most abused women experience affects “no sólo en la salud física, sino también en la salud mental de sus víctimas” [not only their physical health, but also the mental health of its victims] (63-
73). Julia claims by the novel’s end that her soul has been “beaten,” or splintered, by her husband. She suffers from a torn meniscus, which her doctor suggests could be caused by severe emotional stress. When she feels an intense pain in her chest one evening as she is giving Virginia a bath, Julia musters up the strength to get in the car to drive to the hospital, all while the pain in her chest becomes incrementally worse:
Sentía su esternón partido en dos. ‘Eres tú, Gaspar, el que me atraviesas
con esta lanza.’ […] Además del menisco roto, le diagnosticaron una
infección de cartílago intercostal. Nadie le había clavado un cuchillo, no
llevaba ningún moratón, pero en el avión [más tarde] se dio cuenta de que
todo su interior estaba desgarrado… ‘Me has golpeado en el alma,’ se dijo
[…]. ‘Llevas golpeándome desde que me vine aquí, cabrón.’ […] ‘Así que
esto es el alma,’ se dijo satisfecha, ‘este material cartilaginoso que recubre
el hueso, esto que se me desgarra, vaya.’ [She felt her sternum splitting in
two. ‘It’s you, Gaspar, who is piercing me with this lance.’ In addition to
the torn meniscus, they had diagnosed her with an intercostal cartilage
infection. No one had stabbed her with a knife, she didn’t have any
76 bruises, but later, on the plane, she realized that she had been internally
torn apart… ‘You’ve beaten my soul,’ she said to herself […]. ‘You’ve
been beating me ever since I came here, you bastard.’ Julia had never
known what the soul was. […] ‘So this is what the soul is,’ she said
satisfied, ‘this cartilaginous substance that covers the bone, this thing that
is ripping me apart, damnit.’] (298, my emphasis)
What is more, Julia asserts that Gaspar “la había ido desarticulando” [had been thwarting her] (298) ever since their relationship began. She feels splintered and broken as a result of his mistreatment of her. In an epiphany, the protagonist recognizes that it is Gaspar and the emotional or psychological torture that he has used against her that have pierced her and shattered her previous sense of self. Her husband’s emotional neglect and cruelty torment both her body and mind (what she refers to as the soul), but because he never actually lays a hand on her, Julia is slow to acknowledge that she is in a dangerous situation and may hesitate to label his behavior as abusive. Julia, herself, struggles to define what it is that is happening to her and feels impotent to make a change. When she is trying to defend both she and her daughter from Gaspar’s desperate attempt to kidnap
Virginia before both mother and daughter leave definitively for Galicia, she asks her lawyer: “‘¿Qué digo, Gonzalo? ¿Qué nombre le doy a esto, lo que me está pasando?’”
[What do I say, Gonzalo? What do I call this thing that is happening to me?] (307). In what appears to be the principal message behind the novel, Castro underscores the complexity of emotional abuse and reminds her readers of the very private turmoil that victims of such a type of oppression experience. As Julia argues near the end of her
77 account, the Spanish courts are not always able to recognize trauma if it is not tangible or visible:
No se considera acoso un empujón ni intentar entrar en la casa de quien ya
no es tu mujer […] Hay muchas cosas que los juzgados no resuelven: ser
perseguida por aquel a quien quisiste, por aquel que un día te dijo lo que
era el amor. Tú que no creías en el amor, tú que no te fiabas ni de tu
sombra, tú que te entregaste, que te confiaste, ser perseguida por el que
nunca se entregó. Hay muchas cosas que una jueza no resuelve, Julia.
[A forceful push or the attempt to enter a former wife’s home is not
considered harassment […] For that there are never witnesses, and the
street is, after all, a public space. There are many things that the Courts do
not resolve: being followed by he whom you once loved, by he who once
told you what love was. You, who did not believe in love, you who did not
even trust your own shadow, you who surrendered yourself, who confided
in him, were pursued by he who never himself surrendered. There are
many things that a judge cannot resolve, Julia.] (314, my emphasis)19
The above discourse, relayed in both third- and second-person narration, appears to be voiced by and directed at the protagonist herself, given the implicit “tú” present in the passage. The inclusion of the subject pronoun “tú” allows Julia to enter into a type of dialogue with herself (or a potential reader or interlocutor), in which she is able to reflect on, criticize, and try to make sense of her past mistakes. The cold, accusatory tone associated with the “tú” here highlights the internal conflict present within the protagonist and the frustration she feels in the light of her own passivity and inaction. In her analysis
78 of Chacón’s novel, Esther Raventós-Pons asserts that the use of the pronoun “tú” [you, informal], while also calling attention to a split self, also becomes a defense mechanism to cope with her overwhelming pain of having been abused (99).
Eventually, Julia’s defense mechanism will take the form of her implicit text, or autobiographical account, which will allow her to recover and re-create a voice and discourse that had previously been suppressed under her husband’s influence. Moreover, her narrative also serves as written testimony that documents the abuse and humiliation she has undergone in her relationship with Gaspar; her words, rather than any kind of oral testimony—which, due to Western patriarchal society’s ties to logocentrism has generally been considered inferior and less reliable than written accounts—offer the physical, material proof of her internal suffering that her body never does.20 Feminist theorist Ann
Rosalind Jones enumerates the fundamental tenets of écriture féminine when citing its
“critique of phallocentrism in all the material and ideological forms it has taken, and [its] call for new representations of women’s consciousness” (261). For this reason, Julia’s text is a subversive reaction to phallogocentric models of discourse, echoing Cixous’s concepts of “her-story” and “writing the body,” as it is through the act of writing that she rewrites herself into history and is able to give a name and visibility to what has traditionally been repressed and considered a private, shameful and typically female experience. Julia’s text is therefore not only a representation of her suffering and perhaps even a denunciation of her husband, but it is also the medium through which she can reassert and define herself.21
The conception of “home” is a problematic one that further elucidates the splintering of identity in the protagonist. By taking up residence with Gaspar in
79 Catalonia, Julia is at once far away from Madrid, where she has left her apartment and career—representative of a past financial and personal autonomy—and also far from
Galicia, her place of origin. She is tepidly received by her (future) husband’s family, which contributes significantly to her feelings of isolation, invisibility, and ostracism. She feels like an intruder in her own home and senses that she is unwanted and does not belong—nor does anything belong to her—recalling Laing’s aforementioned assertions regarding the divided self.22 The summer home in which she and Gaspar stay, located on the Ferré family estate in Port Nou, was supposedly the older man’s gift to him. It becomes clear, however, that he has thought very little about Julia’s needs and her desire to be accepted by the family and him. Julia immediately notices there is no space for her to work, a detail that helps to accentuate Gaspar’s tendency to privilege his own needs and subsequently devalue not only her profession—which he considers to be a mere pastime—but also her identity and intellectual development. The table Gaspar sets aside for her in his office is clearly an afterthought that contrasts sharply with his already established library full of books and documents. As a result, Julia’s identity as a respected professional writer is effaced and substituted with Gaspar’s idealized notion of what his partner should be for him: the ever supportive, subservient and self-sacrificing wife promulgated by Francoism.
Traditionally associated with “women’s space,” the private realm of the home is off-limits to Julia as well, thereby leaving the protagonist in a perpetual state of exile, not only from her native Galicia or Madrid, but also from what should be her sanctuary. Her situation is therefore reminiscent of Francoist-era law that prohibited women from owning land or opening a separate bank account without the permission of their
80 husbands, hence rendering women completely dependent upon their male counterparts.
Castro’s own experiences with self-imposed exile in both Madrid and Barcelona, and her eventual return to Galicia (as portrayed in Viajes con mi padre) may explain her aversion to identity politics. For the author, no one is purely defined by one’s place of origin, but rather, she or he is the composite of many—regional and conflicting—identities.23
Gaspar’s disregard for Julia’s need to work and live in a space of her own reveals his insecurity regarding her professional success and desire for independence. His increasing attempts to control his wife and destabilize her previous individuality result in the protagonist’s sensation that she has ceased to exist. Finally, out of growing frustration and desperation in the light of the severe inequalities in their relationship, Julia declares to her husband: “Quiero existir, Gaspar” [I want to exist, Gaspar] (248). The protagonist’s assertion sounds more like a plea for mercy, as if she were imploring him to release her from his control. Because of her feelings of desperation, inferiority and perceived inability to change her situation, Julia feels impotent and trapped. As Bollaín expresses in her second film, Flores de otro mundo, marked economic and social disparities between women and men not only fuel domestic abuse but complicate for women the process of extrication (217). Julia’s last remark is enough to instigate yet another argument, for Gaspar refuses to accept any responsibility in Julia’s implied accusations. As the reader predicts, Gaspar, once again, discounts Julia’s feelings and cunningly turns the tables on her, in turn blaming her for her insecurities and highlighting her ineptness. Julia’s exasperated response reveals the effects of Gaspar’s constant psychological abuse: “De acuerdo, no tengo buen gusto. No me sé vestir. Tampoco sé relacionarme con Frederic, que ni me mira a la cara. Si me descuido tampoco sé darle de
81 comer a mi hija. ¿Qué es lo que hago bien?” [Alright, I don’t have good taste. I don’t know how to dress myself. Nor do I know how to relate to Frederic, who doesn’t even look me in the face. If I’m not careful, I won’t even know how to feed my daughter.
What is it that I do well?] (250).
As a means of coping with her isolation and internal deterioration and splintering,
Julia must locate an asylum within and without herself—for she feels unsafe and heavily scrutinized in her present environment. Julia realizes the need for a “room” of her own where she can devote her undivided attention to writing. She begins to rent a studio apartment in Barcelona, which provides her with the space and means necessary to escape her husband’s constant surveillance and influence over her. It is in her new office, a symbol of her gradual emancipation from Gaspar, that the protagonist gains a better sense of self-awareness and cultivates a more reflexive and self-critical persona through the act of writing. Furthermore, it is physical distance—through her independent trips to
Galicia, to New York, and to Madrid—which provides Julia with the proper space and mindset to look more objectively at her situation. In the light of Irigaray’s theories on female identity construction, it is by separating herself from her husband’s destructive influence that the protagonist can get to know herself better and escape the gender role imposed on her by patriarchy (Gaspar). She is not one—solely defined by her role as mother and wife—but multiple selves, and does not possess just “one female identity” but rather, it is one that changes, is transformed, recreated and diverse.
In this safe haven, the protagonist is able to think critically about her feelings and to eventually come to the conclusion that her relationship with Gaspar is not what she once believed it to be. With the temporal and emotional distance that this asylum affords
82 her, Julia looks back on her time with her husband and practically does not recognize the woman she has allowed herself to become. Feeling betrayed by both her husband and
God, she regrets not having listened to her own voice and instincts: “Con una intensidad ciega ella pensaba en Dios, aquel Dios que le había mandado irse detrás de Gaspar. ¿Por qué lo había hecho? ¿Por qué no había escuchado su propia voz?” [With a blinding intensity she thought about God, that God that had made her fall for Gaspar. Why had she done it? Why had she not listened to her own voice?] (314). Julia finally realizes that all along she has been neglecting and stifling an important facet of herself, that of her own voice, or consciousness, and agency. In the face of this recognition, Julia understands that—despite Gaspar and God’s role in her transformation—she is primarily to blame for her regression, and it is solely she who must think and act for herself (and her daughter).
It is specifically through the act of writing—her source of income and thus financial independence—that the protagonist finds a new voice and emotional, intellectual, and ultimately physical, asylum. As Hélène Cixous has declared, writing exists as a means of escape for women from patriarchal oppression; it is an empowering act that not only represents a significant portion of her identity as a nationally renowned author, but also as a mode of survival, a liberating act that eventually allows the protagonist to leave her manipulative husband’s control. Julia’s writing affords her a type of emancipation and (physical, yet also psychological) separation from Gaspar, something that he foresees as a threat to his domination over her. It represents the beginning of the end of Gaspar’s oppression and thus allows for a reworking (or rewriting) of her own identity free of his influence. She refuses to seek alimony from her husband, and instead insists on forging her own way, by reconnecting with her previous
83 employers, colleagues and friends, and re-establishing herself as a revered writer. In an interview with a former employer, Julia reverts back to her pre-Gaspar clothing style:
“Julia se vistió como en los viejos tiempos, se sacó los anillos de su compromiso, las pulseras de oro de su suegra, encerró bajo siete llaves aquel botín” [Julia dressed as she had in the old days: she took off her wedding band and the gold bracelets that her mother- in-law had given her, and placed the booty under lock and key] (315). She rids herself of anything reminiscent of Gaspar, for he is the reason behind her professional / intellectual hiatus.
This process of identity revision and recuperation is strongly tied to Julia’s own personal definition and reformulation of feminist principles. Although it is frustrating to witness the protagonist’s initial abandonment of her independence and former self, Julia needed to experience a more intimate and immediate struggle with subjugation in order to realize what she was up against in an, at times, veiled sexist culture. As Julia tries to gradually put back the pieces, and introduce new ones, to her splintered identity, one can observe the materialization of a new feminist mindset, relevant to her own recent life experiences. After being insulted by Gaspar in an argument regarding their impending separation and living arrangements, Julia, who for much of the novel has remained passive and silent, finally explodes with indignation, and assures Gaspar that she will not tolerate any more humiliation from him. She yells, “¡Que te vayas a la mierda, sinvergüenza! […] Tú a mí no me humillas ni aunque lo quisieras” [Go to hell, you scoundrel! […] You won’t humiliate me anymore even if you try] (289-290), before fervently referencing the significant inequalities and injustices that have characterized their relationship. She decidedly announces to him that she has had enough (291). In her
84 discourse, the protagonist alludes to the (foolish) renunciation of her former life, and the fact that she will no longer be a victim of Gaspar’s hypocrisy and chauvinism. Her final statement underscores a newly defined and stronger sense of self, based on a staunchly feminist, individualistic attitude. It is here, for the first time in the narrative (in the fifth and last chapter), that Julia’s mind and body concur and do not contradict one another.
The previous “objectivity” of the “omniscient” voice fades, as the perspective of the ostensibly detached observer seems to be influenced by, and hence melds with, the suffering and rebellion of the protagonist, or the “yo.”
At the end of the novel, Julia is in her new apartment, financed entirely by her writing, transcribing her first article when Frederic calls and interrupts her—as Gaspar had done so many times before—to threaten her because of what she had done to his father. She quickly ignores his threat and hangs up the telephone before returning, seemingly unruffled, to her creative process. In a symbolic moment, she glances at
Virginia playing on the floor beside her and it becomes clear that Julia writes not only for herself but for her daughter as well, implying that it is Virginia who acts as the motivating force behind Julia’s ultimate decision to leave her husband. Julia becomes the author of her own story, a figure able to create a more personal and relevant (re-) definition of feminism for herself and her daughter. By way of the writing process, she recovers and revises her own voice, which has been silenced throughout her union with
Gaspar; she is able to assert herself and finally claim something as her own. It is fitting that as she reformulates her new sense of identity, it is she who has the “last word,” and who is finally able to silence her oppressors—Gaspar and Frederic—by hanging up the phone and purging them from her life.
85 The implicit text present in La segunda mujer is the culmination of Julia’s coming to terms with a painful past; it is an autobiographical account of the protagonist’s
“coming of age” and acceptance of her multiple, splintered selves in a “post”-democratic and feminist Spanish society. Instances of forewarnings—although often more readily identified by external parties than those directly involved in the thralls of domestic abuse—abound throughout the text, as if Julia were revisiting and reassessing the reasons for her identity loss and other mistakes. The fluctuation of a “yo,” “ella,” and “tú” throughout the text points to a technique characteristic of the novels of self-discovery.
The novel itself is the consequence of the protagonist’s (and implicit author’s) desire to make sense of her painful, puzzling, and chaotic past, her own failures, and her need to put back the pieces of her splintered identity. The narrative serves as a symbolic mirror, through which Julia can gain a clearer understanding of the “how” and “why” of her identity transformation and loss; instead of seeing a distorted, unrecognizable image in this “reflection,” it is she who ultimately determines what and who she will be. It is through the “mirror of her text” that Julia can give form and materiality to her splintered self.
Julia’s struggle for emancipation from her husband’s authority (which proves to be much more dramatic than the separation from her parents) reinforces the argument that parity has yet to become a reality for women in Spain and that the fight for equality continues well into the millennium. The protagonist learns the hard way that parity and feminist advances are not a given in contemporary society. Julia has to come close to losing it all before she can acquire the wisdom and knowledge necessary to create her own personal definition of feminism, inspired not only by her own suffering, but also by
86 the desire to impart to her daughter—and her daughter’s generation—a memory, not of hunger, but of a long history of women’s subjugation. By creating a protagonist with whom many of her readers can identify—whether they have experienced domestic violence personally or not—Castro makes a serious argument for a reinvented, more tangible feminism that can be appreciated by the young women of the present generation.
Considering the many cases of women who are unable to ever leave their abusers, it is not out of line to say that Julia is lucky to escape her situation. One could argue that she is able to leave Gaspar as a result of her education in a democratic Spain that has sought to defend, albeit sometimes unsuccessfully, the equality of its citizens. Whether she is conscious of it or not, Julia carries with her a long legacy of women who were expected to withstand their mistreatment and subjugation and be patient and understanding with their aggressors. Nevertheless, Castro demonstrates that Julia is a young, “modern” (or feminist) woman who, like the rest of her generation, must challenge and eradicate the archaic and misogynist paradigms propagated throughout
Francoism.
As with the other authors whose works are examined in this study, Castro leaves her main character’s identity formation open-ended, as a work in progress. Julia, much like her autobiography, has certainly not arrived, nor does she possess a polished or complete sense of identity. Although her wounds—both emotional and physical—will eventually heal, her identity is comprised of many different “splintered” facets: those associated with her past, present, and future. Her sense of self, as with her newly formulated understanding of her need for autonomy will never be a finished product nor an integrated whole, but instead a never-ending process that constantly relies on the
87 struggles of the past to help put the present in perspective and be reminded of the need for a better future. Julia’s attempt to revise and give meaning to her splintered identity through the cathartic process of writing is comparable to that of Lucía, in Rosa Montero’s novel La hija del Caníbal, another “self-begetting novel” that will be addressed in the following chapter.
1 I am indebted to Esther Raventós-Pons’s notable analysis of Dulce Chacón’s novel Algún amor que no mate (1996), entitled “The Wounded Self and Body in Dulce Chacón’s Algún amor que no mate: A Haunting Discourse,” which undeniably served as the inspiration for the title of the present essay. Chacón’s text relates the story of a middle-aged woman, Prudencia, who is psychologically and physically abused by her husband. Her husband’s abuse and string of infidelities lead the protagonist to commit suicide. To a degree, this chapter seeks to establish a dialogue with many of Raventós- Pons’ reflections presented in her study.
2 However, according to Anny Brooksbank Jones, “no legal definition of abuse or regularity was included [in the Code], (making it difficult to apply in practice), and neither were mental or emotional cruelty” (Women 97).
3 Other films that address gendered violence and the struggles of women in contemporary society are: Benito Zambrano’s Solas [Alone] (1999), Beatriz Flores Silva’s En la puta vida [In This Tricky Life] (2001), Fernando León de Aranoa’s Princesas (2005), Carlos Molinero’s Salvajes [Savages] (2001), Chus Gutiérrez’s Poniente (2002), and Almodóvar’s Volver (2006).
4 Castro, one of the up and coming writers of the nueva narrativa, is part of a generation of Galician writers that uses the region (Galicia and Catalonia) as a backdrop for their novels. Nueva narrativa is a term created by Carmen de Urioste to refer to novels published in the 1990s. One of the prevalent characteristics Urioste identifies in the movement is the tendency of the narrator to “desarticular la conciencia del bienestar de la sociedad democrática española” [dismantle the overall feeling of wellbeing in Spanish democratic society] (“¿Existe una ‘generación X’?” 463).
5 In La mujer en la España actual, Cruz and Zecchi contend that cases of domestic violence have increased considerably in recent years. According to the Asociación de Mujeres Separadas y Divorciadas [Association of Separated and Divorced Women], the number of women killed by their partners or ex-partners has escalated from 47 in 1998, to 58 in 1999, 66 in 2000, and to more than 69 in 2001 (10). These statistics suggest that,
88 despite the end of Francoism, misogyny continues to play a significant role in twenty- first-century Spanish culture.
6 It should be noted that Castro never expressly mentions feminism or the feminist movement in the novel, and claims to not infuse her oeuvre with a feminist message. Nevertheless, I believe that by addressing the problem of domestic abuse in the twenty- first-century context and creating a female protagonist who, raised under democracy, abandons everything for an older man, Castro provokes serious reflection in her readers regarding the “success” of Spanish democracy and its protection of democratic ideals (equality, justice). The feminism proposed in this chapter, as in the study as a whole, is not a radical or theoretical feminism, but rather one that is more akin to a multi-vocal feminism defined by and for the individual. By “post-feminist” I do not mean to suggest that Castro’s novel contends that sexual and gender equality have been reached, but rather that the conventional approaches to feminist thought characteristic of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries must be reformulated for a twenty-first- century Spanish society.
7 In Democracia feminista [Feminist Democracy] (2003), Alicia Miyares declares that democracy has not satisfied the needs and expectations of women (11). She claims that there are three political theories that serve as the basis of democratic societies: liberalism, socialism, and feminism.
8 In her interview with Luis García, Castro assures him that “Yo desde luego no pretendía escribir una novela feminista, ni creo que lo sea” [I, certainly, did not intend to write a feminist novel, nor do I believe it to be one]. She claims that Gaspar is the way he is not because he is a man, but rather because he is “poderoso” [powerful] and that if a woman were in his position, she, perhaps, might behave in a similar manner. Moreover, in the same interview, Castro remarks that Gaspar’s view that the success and failure of the marriage depend on Julia is “una actitud asquerosamente machista y repugnante” [a sickeningly machista and repulsive attitude].
9 In the interview with García, Castro explains that she was inspired to write about the encoñamiento (the irrepressible sexual obsession) of a woman for a man, a topic frequently omitted from canonical literature. She says that she wanted her protagonist to speak for herself, express her own feelings, suffering, and fears, and explain who she is with her own voice.
10 The novel addresses the inbreeding, classism, and airs of superiority of the Catalan elite. Castro maintains that Julia represents Galicia, a culture in which women occupy a central and decisive role in family life, whereas Gaspar stands for Catalonia. When Julia rebels against Gaspar’s tyranny and hypocrisy and finally begins to assert herself, she links his machismo to his Catalan roots and acerbically declares:
El señor fino de Barcelona, el referente cultural del país catalán, la emprendió a empujones con aquella escritorzuela, aquella jovenzuela desvergonzada que había ido a
89 meterse en la sauna del Iradier, aquella verdulera que se había atrevido a demandarlo, que desterraba a su hija de la Gran Cataluña y la ponía a vivir en un pisito alquilado de una comunidad autónoma subdesarrollada.
[The refined gentleman from Barcelona, the cultural exemplar of the Catalan nation, started a shoving match with that miserable little she-writer, that shameless young thing who had gone into the sauna at the Iradier, that vulgar woman who had dared to press charges against him, who was exiling his daughter from the Great Catalonia and was moving her into a little rental apartment in an underdeveloped autonomous community (Galicia).] (310)
11 By introducing her account with an epigraph taken from Henry James’s acclaimed novel The Portrait of a Lady (1881), Castro invites her audience to make the comparison between James’s Victorian protagonist and her own, despite the obvious differences in circumstance. Julia, like Isabel Archer, is a free spirit who, although seemingly wary of renouncing her independence, eventually does so, and subsequently ends up feeling trapped in an abusive marriage and asphyxiating domestic life. The Spanish author reinterprets James’s novel and adapts it to the contemporary Spanish context, which allows her to highlight the pervasive problem of domestic abuse and female oppression. Despite its possible anachronism, recent literary criticism has considered James’s novel from a feminist angle, further linking Castro’s adaptation to a feminist consciousness.
12 Julia’s mother—or father for that matter—appears very rarely throughout the novel, and the only times she speaks are when she dryly tells Gaspar that her daughter “Está muy cambiada […] desde que te conoce” [She has changed considerably since she met you] (169), and later when she advises her daughter to make amends with her abusive husband.
13 Upon closer inspection, there do, indeed, appear to be parallels between the author and Julia’s lives, for as is the case with Julia (not to mention Castro’s other, previous protagonists), Castro had a humble Galician upbringing, went to Madrid and then to New York to pursue a career in writing, and in her late twenties moved to Barcelona to marry a man more than twice her age. The marriage, like that of Julia and Gaspar, also ended in divorce.
14 According to Ellen Mayock, the feminist liberation movement did not take as strong of a hold in Spain near the beginning of the twentieth century, as it did in North America and in other Western European countries. The Primo de Rivera dictatorship in the 1920s promoted a model of femininity that was supposedly epitomized by the dictator’s daughter, Pilar, whose approach was based on the notion that women must submit to their government and husbands while keeping a smile on their faces. Under Franco, women were stripped of their previous rights and freedoms granted during the Second Republic (1936-1939), and could not do anything without first consulting their fathers or husbands. In 1975, after Franco’s death, contemporary feminist issues pervaded Spanish culture.
90
Democracy and a censor-free press allowed aspects of feminist discourse to be addressed once more.
15 Castro claims that her decision to oscillate between first- and third-person perspectives was necessary given her inability to identify with the troubled protagonist. Furthermore, the simultaneous division and fusion of the two voices help to reinforce the split, conflictive nature of the young woman. Castro also declares that the third-person narration doubles as Julia’s ignored conscience, which represents the divergent nature of her self.
16 Such an assertion seems to contradict Castro’s own admission that in many instances Julia’s life parallels her own.
17 Julia suffers a twofold identity crisis, first on a national level, for she is from the autonomous community of Galicia, but is currently displaced, living in Catalonia, and then as a female, living in a still misogynist culture. Her status as a female Galician causes her to be doubly marginalized both in Catalan society and in Gaspar’s eyes, for he considers himself and Catalonia to be superior to his female counterparts and any other autonomous region in Spain.
18 In the late 1950s and early 1960s, Franco and his regime met with powerful opposition from abroad regarding its limitations of women’s rights, eventually causing a number of restrictive laws for women (e.g. birth control, the right to work) to be repealed. Among many other women at the time, Aurora Gómez-Morcillo agreed that the fight for reproductive freedom was at the crux of freedom for women. Gómez-Morcillo, along with other Spanish feminists at the time, considered birth control to be “an important weapon for women’s liberation” (78).
19 In 2005, psychologist Enrique Echeburúa presented a talk entitled “Violencia contra la mujer” [Violence Against Women], in which he states that of all domestic violence cases, fifty-seven per cent of victims suffer psychological or emotional abuse, emphasizing that “el maltrato psicológico provoca tanto daño y secuelas como el maltrato físico” [psychological abuse causes just as much damage and long-term effects as physical abuse] (Europa Press).
20 In Stevi Jackson’s Women’s Studies: A Reader, Pauline Young is cited as saying that French feminist theory has defined Western culture as phallogocentric: “phallocentrism denoting a system which assigns primary power to the phallus, and logocentrism indicating the privileging of the ‘word’ in Western thinking” (435).
21 What is more, if, indeed, there is an autobiographical element to Castro’s literary production, La segunda mujer can be read as a public settling of scores with her ex- husband, Xabier Rubert de Ventós, a former philosopher and current politician famous throughout Spain for his staunch support of the Estatut d’Autonomia de Cataluyna [The Statute of Autonomy of Catalonia].
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22 Castro communicates these issues by depicting both literally and metaphorically a wounded female self that has fallen victim to what Raventós-Pons has described as a “nondesiring state of inertness and melancholia and lost in the invisible and silent domestic sphere” (94).
23 Castro’s decision to publish in Castilian, and not Galician—a choice that has not been well received in her native region—seems to reinforce her aversion to identity politics.
Chapter 2 Re-Writing the Body, Consuming the Other, and Re-Membering the Self: Rosa Montero’s La hija del Caníbal and Rhetorical Cannibalism
“I am not fully known to myself, because part of what I am is the enigmatic traces of others.” – Judith Butler, Precarious Life (46)
“Pero en realidad yo no soy la que fui ni la que seré; como mucho, no soy más que este instante de conciencia en la negrura, y ni siquiera estoy segura de ser eso, porque a menudo me veo a mí misma desdoblada.” – Lucía, La hija del Caníbal (Montero 52)
[But, in reality, I am not who I was nor who I will become; the most I can say is that I am nothing more than this instant of consciousness, and I am not even certain of that, because I often see myself as a split entity.]
In Cultura herida: literatura y cine en la España democrática [Wounded Culture:
Literature and Film in Democratic Spain] (2002), Cristina Moreiras-Menor portrays democratic Spain as a culture traumatized by a recent past whose open wounds are further magnified by a collective historical amnesia.1 She explains how these memories, or the negation of memory itself, become part of the narrative development through bodily imprint. The memories that are expressed in various literary or filmic texts from the seventies and eighties in Spain “surgen a modo de fisuras sin suturar cuyas cicatrices se imprimen con fuerza desestabilizada” [emerge in the form of unsutured fissures whose scars are imprinted with destabilizing force] (Moreiras-Menor 29). These open fissures, or “grietas,” still visible in the official discourses of the Transition period, reveal the
93 presence of painful histories and memories that have never been given a chance to heal.
In keeping with Moreiras-Menor’s analogy, Catalan journalist and former politician Pilar
Rahola contends that the conscious or subconscious pact of oblivion made during the
Transition to democracy is an agreement of self-inflicted mutilation or collective lobotomy, whereby Spaniards are vulnerable to and unable to recognize the mistakes, warning signs, and ghosts of the past (Avui 3 May, 1998). In the light of these assertions, the present chapter centers on the metaphor of the mutilated and fragmented (personal and collective) female body and its relation to the destructive nature of time and the intricacies of memory loss and recovery, as presented in Rosa Montero’s acclaimed novel, La hija del Caníbal (1997).
Simone de Beauvoir notably posits that the body must be treated, not as a thing, but as a cultural “situation” that has been shaped by a series of socio-political and historical realities (38). I contend that Montero’s La hija del Caníbal presents the female body as a metaphor for a scarred, traumatized, and amnesic Spanish culture that struggles to come to terms with its painful past and uncertain future. My analysis centers on the connections between the protagonist’s traumatic memory, wounded body, and the general fluidity of identity and experience, as evinced in the cannibal and vampire tropes.
Montero’s novel depicts metaphorical instances of cannibalism, vampirism and other cases of consumption or mutilation to highlight the problem of the hierarchical and androcentric social structures still deeply ingrained in the Spanish cultural psyche and corpus. The “cannibalism” analyzed in this chapter is of a rhetorical nature, as it involves the appropriation, ingestion and digestion of the other through language, memory, and the narrative process. The concepts of appropriation and ingestion signal the usurpation of
94 another nonconsensual subject or object for personal gain, whereas digestion includes not only the degradation of a consumed substance, but also the meditative processing of a traumatic event or memory.
As the title of the novel suggests, Lucía Romero is the daughter of a man who claims to have been a cannibal as a young man. Although she is not sure whether to believe his assertion or not—for it is never actually proven—its mere possibility haunts the protagonist throughout her life, and eventually comes to define her. Whether or not his claim is true, Lucía feels as though she is the victim of a metaphorical cannibalism, maintaining that her father has “devoured” her throughout her life. A point that has been ignored by mant critics of the novel is what Lucía herself identifies as her mother’s vampiristic tendencies—a detail I consider to be just as significant as her father’s cannibalism. By depicting both parents as individuals who metaphorically consume their daughter’s flesh, blood, and vitality, Lucía immediately establishes the dichotomy of victim-victimizer, and claims for herself the role of victim. Nevertheless, as Kilgour reminds us, the cannibal trope suggests a blurring of existential boundaries, thus confusing the two opposites and making it difficult to distinguish the one from the other.2
Montero, then, problematizes difference, thus emphasizing—for better or worse—the interconnectedness of identity, life experiences, and memory. What is more, I employ the cannibal and vampire tropes to illustrate not only how (rhetorical) cannibalistic systems wound the protagonist, both emotionally and physically, but also how she, in turn, appropriates these practices in a subversive way to expand her vision of herself.
Apart from, or perhaps as an extension of, the cannibal and vampire tropes, I explore the correlation between writing and the metaphor of the body in Peninsular
95 literature. Like Elizabeth Scarlett, my analysis of this relationship relies on the corporeísta approach, which studies the tendency to construct the body with words.
Montero intertwines female physicality with textuality by emphasizing the notion of the body as a text, in which bodily markings seem to “speak” textually to Lucía, the principal
(unreliable) narrator and protagonist. The narrative body, like the protagonist’s physical corpus, shows signs of psychological and physiological trauma. In the light of Pierre
Nora’s conception of lieux de mémoire, I propose that both the textual and physical female corpus are sites of memory, for both bodies represent the point at which history and memory converge, a place where “se cristallise et se réfugie la mémoire” [memory crystallizes itself and finds refuge] (Nora xvii). Montero dissolves the supposed distinction that separates mind from body, and highlights the importance of the material and its relationship with the intangible. She employs the female body as a form of language, a communicative organ that can function on the levels of signifier and signified
(Scarlett 8). With the help of Félix Roble, a friend and philosophical guide, Lucía
Romero comes to terms with her past and recognizes the existence of the various oppressive forces in her life. As a result, she is able to seek autonomy, become self- reliant, and construct her own identity and reality, by developing a more critical awareness of antagonistic patriarchal pressures. Because of Félix’s influence, Lucía is encouraged to recover and reconsider significant aspects of her own personal history. By re-engaging in the writing process, Lucía is able to construct a sort of personal memoir that, while at times fragmented and self-contradictory, not only allows her to make sense of both her present and past, but also enables her to recreate and embrace a multifaceted identity.3 Lucía’s account is representative of a new discourse and master narrative, no
96 longer representative of a suppressed history, but one that struggles to come to terms with a painful and complicated past.
In her novel, Montero considers the pacto de olvido and its perpetuation of androcentric paradigms in contemporary society, underscoring that such an “agreement” propagates an ignorance and tolerance of problematic social, political, and economic realities. Through the investigation of her husband’s mysterious disappearance, Lucía becomes an accidental detective of her country’s history and her own personal past in order to piece together a sense of identity for herself. Montero calls attention to the dangers of individual and cultural “amnesia” by highlighting its link to a crisis in identity.
The suppression of traumatic memories correlates with and contributes to the weakening, and fragmentation of the female subject’s understanding of the self, for without an awareness of her past, it is impossible to comprehend or feel comfortable with her existing identity. Such effects manifest themselves in the narrator-protagonist’s splintering or doubling of consciousness and narrative style, and her own awareness of and confusion regarding her scarred, “incomplete,” and aging physical body.
I believe that Montero’s conspicuous denunciation of conventional patriarchal power structures, coupled with the portrayal of female existential angst, and subsequent search for identity allow room for feminist analysis.4 While I understand Montero’s disapproval of opportunistic analyses of her work, I deviate from Davies and Escudero’s assertion that feminist criticism has no place in the novelist’s “later” narrative. Much of the novelist’s narrative body of work, albeit mostly fictional, overlaps with her journalistic essays and other scholarly pursuits related to her views on contemporary issues such as feminism and politics in Spain. Both La vida desnuda [The Naked Life]
97 (1994) and Historias de mujeres [(Hi)Stories of Women] (1995), compilations of the writer’s numerous articles frequently published in the weekend supplement of El País throughout the eighties and nineties, provide relevant insights into Montero’s perspectives on contemporary culture. In these articles, Montero addresses issues involving gender inequality, rhetorical cannibalism, memory, and corruption among other topics. Montero continues to contribute to El País on a weekly basis and because of and through her continual contact with the reading public, some critics believe that she is able to influence Spanish culture (García-Viñó 214). What is more, because there seems to be a correlation between the material addressed in the writer’s journalistic essays and many aspects of her literary production, there appears to be a possible dialogue between the two.
At the outset of the novel, Lucía Romero finds herself living in a hostile and chaotic Madrid, from which she feels detached and alienated (Mayock 61), while involved in a loveless and unsatisfactory marriage. Passive and financially dependent on her husband, the protagonist feels disconnected from her surroundings—Madrid, her home life, and professional goals—from her personal relationships with her parents, husband, and friends, and from her aging self. Triggered by the mysterious disappearance of her husband from a Barajas airport lavatory on New Year’s Eve, the children’s writer experiences a mid-life existential crisis characterized by identity insecurity and confusion.5 Lucía is unable to comprehend the absurdity of her husband’s abduction and seems equally incapable of distinguishing lies from reality and her own identity from that of others. With the unexpected help of her two male neighbors, Félix, an octogenarian anarchist and Adrián, a twenty-something idealist with whom she has a fleeting, but
98 passionate affair, Lucía sets out to find Ramón, a seemingly responsible government employee, working for the Ministerio de Hacienda [the Treasury Department]. The search for her husband, however, loses momentum and focus, as the narrator-protagonist becomes engrossed in a series of meaningful philosophical and ontological discussions on such topics as the meaning of life and death, morality and corruption, aging, love and loss. Ramón’s disappearance and prolonged absence grant Lucía the space and critical distance necessary to begin to (re-) discover herself and to understand that her problematic relationships with both Ramón and her parents stem from the cannibalistic nature of androcentric Spanish culture.
Lucía’s life and body seem so foreign to her that she soon recognizes that her mother’s aging and sagging body is similar to the one she sees reflected in the dressing room mirror every time she tries to fit into a pair of jeans. Furthermore, she is troubled by the realization that it is her mother’s ghost and undesirable fate that continue to haunt her, for the last thing she desires is to become her mother:
Lucía Romero no quería parecerse a su madre. […] era el fantasma de su
madre el que la perseguía, era el destino de su madre lo que la sofocaba,
eran las mismas carnes de su madre las que descubría, con horror, en el
espejo de los probadores de las tiendas cuando Lucía se estaba embutiendo
unos vaqueros […] y de repente atisbaba sin querer […] la misma
estructura, en fin, del envejecer y quizá del ser.
[Lucía Romero did not want to be like her mother. […] it was her
mother’s ghost that followed her, it was her mother’s fate that suffocated
her, it was her mother’s flesh that she discovered, horrified, in the dressing
99 room mirror when Lucía was stuffing herself into a pair of jeans and all of
a sudden she’d unintentionally make out the same aging frame and
perhaps even the same being.] (115)
Unable, or perhaps unwilling, to recognize herself in the reflection, Lucía seems almost frightened at the sight of herself. The disorienting image of the female self in the mirror recalls quite vividly Julia Varela’s experience in the department store dressing room, along with those of other female-authored texts, such as Nada, Primera memoria, La plaça del Diamant, and El sur, just to name a few. The protagonist realizes that her body is no longer her own, and that it has instead been “invaded” and taken over by the “other” woman: her post-menopausal mother.6
It is not only because of her mother’s idiosyncrasies that Lucía does not want to resemble her mother physically; it is the thought of repeating her mother’s mistakes and fate that suffocates the protagonist. As Jane Spencer argues, the mother’s role of subordination and eternal self-sacrifice is what the daughter does not want to inherit; and the unwritten commandment “Thou Shalt Not Become Thy Mother” has now exerted an effect on generations of feminist-influenced women, militating against the odds of turning feminism into a cultural inheritance to be passed on from metaphorical mothers to their daughters (10).
Much like her literary predecessors and many women of her generation, Lucía feels the need to distance and differentiate herself from the image and legacy of her mother. As a result, the narrator-protagonist estranges herself from her mother and is averse to sympathizing with her situation. A better actor than her husband, Lucía’s mother had to give up her professional aspirations and settle for a mediocre destiny
100 characterized by a loveless marriage and unfulfilling home life due to “una educación machista, un ambiente retrógrado y su natural debilidad” [a machista upbringing, a reactionary environment and her natural weakness] (114). She did not take advantage of important professional opportunities so as to not undermine her husband, and she tolerated his infidelities, as long as it maintained the family unit intact. As she has told
Lucía on more than one occasion, family life became a prison for her, and she did not want her only daughter to make the same mistakes she did: “No tengas hijos, nena—solía decirle la madre de Lucía a Lucía cuando ésta tenía sólo seis o siete años, mientras le regalaba juegos de química y tiraba sus muñecas a la basura.” [Don’t have children, dear—her mother used to tell Lucía when Lucía was only six or seven years old, as she gave her games related to chemistry and threw her dolls in the trash.] And when Lucía was a little older: “No tengas hijos nunca, cariño: por tenerte yo a ti es por lo que no me he separado de tu padre, y ya ves qué vida me está dando” [Don’t ever have children, dear: having you was what caused me to stay with your father, and just look at the life he’s giving me] (114-115). It is apparent from these statements that Lucía’s mother tries to empower her daughter to be different, to educate herself and be self-reliant, however her advice falls on deaf ears, for the protagonist does not view her mother as a positive or realistic role model to emulate. While her mother tries, on various occasions, to foster a feminist consciousness in Lucía, her approach is clearly flawed, for it is not through guilt or the complete denunciation of that which is considered typically feminine that profound change is passed from one generation to the next. Moreover, by confessing to Lucía that she regrets having children—in other words, giving birth to her—Lucía’s mother only further exacerbates her daughter’s resentment and sense of existential angst, for her
101 mother seems to be saying that if she had had it her way, Lucía would not exist. This, too, may contribute to the protagonist’s resistance to her mother’s brand of “feminism.” The miscommunication and chasm existing between mother and daughter demonstrate the need for a new and more engaging argument for women’s liberation.
Lucía rebels against her mother’s attempt to impart to her a feminist consciousness, which ultimately leads Lucía to detach herself from feminism (and her mother, for that matter) and therefore repeat the missteps of the maternal figure. Lucía recognizes that her fears have come true: she has become the same cowardly, hysterical, and unfulfilled woman she had previously associated with her mother:
No, Lucía no deseaba ser cobarde, como su madre: pero llevaba años y
años sin hacer lo que quería hacer y sin vivir como quería vivir. No
deseaba frustrar sus ambiciones profesionales, como su madre: pero sólo
se atrevía a escribir sobre gallinas. No deseaba prescindir de un amor feliz,
como su madre: pero se había acomodado a una rutina plana y miserable
con Ramón.
[No, Lucía did not want to be a coward, like her mother, but it had been
years since she did something she wanted to do and lived the way she
wanted to live. She didn’t want to abandon her professional pursuits, as
her mother had done, however she only dared to write about hens. She
didn’t want to do without love, as her mother had done, but instead, she
had become comfortable with a boring and miserable routine with
Ramón.] (116)
102 She goes on to confess that in her youth she had been much more restless and ambitious than in her middle age, attributing the change in disposition to a string of failed relationships and “the accident”—in other words, life wounds, which come to constitute her understanding of self.
The problematic relationship that Lucía has with her mother conditions her ontological insecurity; the maternal figure therefore influences the daughter’s identity in a negative way, as she is representative of what Lucía is not and cannot be. To a certain degree, the protagonist resents her mother for both of their marital and professional failures, and it is possible that she blames her mother for indirectly rendering her childless.7 As American poet and essayist Annie Gottlieb maintains, “[w]e still blame our mothers for the punitive choices our culture forces on us” (“Feminists Look at
Motherhood” 53). In rejecting and focusing her blame on her mother—herself a victim of androcentric mores—Lucía fails to understand her mother’s experience or, by extension, her own. The fact that Lucía does not mention her mother’s name—either in the title of her work or in the account itself—reinforces her failure to connect with her on an emotional level, due in part to feelings of neglect and not being loved from a young age.
Lucía’s deliberate detachment from the maternal figure may also stem from her inability to have children, something that her mother was able to do and supposedly regretted.
Lucía realizes that by not being able to have children of her own, not only is she breaking the matrilineal chain, but she will never be able to have an influence on her successors, a prospect that seems both unnatural and troubling to her: “ella, que era hija sin hijas, solamente hija para el jamás de los jamases, nunca podría proyectar su propia imagen sobre los genes de su sucesora, rompiendo así la cadena materna interminable de
103 vampirizadas y vampiras” [she, who was a daughter without daughters, a daughter forever and ever, would never be able to project her own image on the genes of her successor, thereby breaking the endless maternal chain of vampirized and vampires]
(115). Her mother, much like her father, is likened to a parasitic or anthropophagic being that invades and subsists off of its source: the daughter. Lucía considers this “invasion” to be much like a diabolic appropriation of her body and soul (115), for she senses that she is becoming her mother or, conversely, that her mother is becoming her, without her consent. Such an observation reiterates the inextricable connection that links and confuses the self and other, not to mention the roles of “vampirized” and “vampire,” or victim and victimizer. It is curious to note that Lucía describes herself as the “daughter of the Cannibal and not the “daughter of the Vampire.” I contend that this clear omission should not be overlooked, given that it highlights the protagonist’s metaphorical amputation of the mother’s legacy and influence in her life.
By identifying herself as “la hija del Caníbal,” Lucía emphasizes her dependence on male subjects and her submission to their cannibalistic practices to determine her own identity. Instead of being her own subject, she not only defines herself in terms of her relation to the men in her life, but she also reiterates her status as an object that is manipulated and consumed by her father and lovers, akin to a piece of meat. Her father, an unexceptional screen actor, was never reliable for anything: “ni dinero, ni tiempo, ni auténtica atención […] era inconsistente, superficial, ausente; a no ser que hablara de sí mismo, ningún tema podia absorber su atención durante mucho tiempo” [not money, nor time, nor real attention […] he was inconsistent, superficial, absent; unless he were talking about himself, no one topic could keep his attention for very long] (113). As a
104 little girl, the protagonist was seduced by her father’s charisma, and quickly forgave and forgot his “continuos desplantes, las fugas, las ausencias, la falta de interés, el olvido sistemático de sus cumpleaños y sus alambicadas y fenomenales excusas, sus mentiras tan ramificadas como un árbol viejo” [constant insolence, escapes, absence, lack of interest, systematic forgetting of her birthdays and his complicated and ridiculous excuses and lies] (114). El Caníbal purportedly got his name after having to consume the flesh of his dead comrade to survive in the middle of winter while attempting to cross over to the
Nationalist side. Although Lucía comes to doubt the veracity of her father’s tale given his—and her own—penchant for lying, she still believes that the cannibalistic metaphor reveals an underlying truth about her and their relationship:
[l]a antropofagia paterna era en gran medida una realidad incontestable,
porque todos somos lo que los demás nos creen y cómo nos miran.
Además, Lucía consideraba que este instinto caníbal encerraba una verdad
poética con respecto a su progenitor, una metáfora ajustada de su talante.
A ella misma, por ejemplo, su padre se la había comido viva durante
muchos años; y su madre estaba aún medio masticada y con señales de
dientes por el cuerpo.
[paternal anthropophagy was an indisputable reality because we all are
what others believe and see us to be. Moreover, Lucía considered that this
cannibalistic instinct contained a poetic truth with respect to her father—a
metaphor for his disposition. She, for example, had been eaten alive by her
father for many years, and her mother was still have chewed with tooth
marks all over her body.] (114)
105 Lucía’s sense of identity is based on how she thinks her father conceives her; in other words, she feels that her identity is not her own, but rather the result of someone else’s invention. His narcissism and egoism cause him to view others as if they were extensions of himself, and so he feeds on them and incorporates them as his own. In doing this, he absorbs, and therefore erases, difference; he incorporates and nullifies their otherness by eradicating their individuality and subjectivity. Lucía considers that her own identity cannot be separated from those of her father and husband—and their oppressive expectations for and of her—hence her aversion to being alone. Women, for Luce
Irigaray, have no way of knowing or representing themselves because they have been caught in a world structured by man-centered paradigms. Lucía and her mother both become victims of El Caníbal’s ambition and self-centeredness, and consequently sacrifice themselves and their identities on his behalf.
Lucía soon realizes that the nature of the relationship with her husband closely resembles the “cannibalistic” connection she has with her father. Lucía’s description of her father’s negligence mirrors that of an embittered lover, hence implying what Jung might identify as an unresolved Electra complex. Both Ramón and Lucía’s father are conflated as one man who seduces, deceives, and eventually leaves her with nothing. The protagonist has depended on the two men for financial and emotional support, allowing her relationship with them to define her sense of identity and self worth. Both of them have rendered her submissive and dependent on the opinion and valorization of men, and she feels that they have rapaciously devoured her with their gaze, actions, neglect, lies, and egotism. Figuratively speaking, Lucía feels that her father has both “consumed” and erased her memory and identity, by exploiting her and her mother for his own personal
106 and professional gain. Much like androcentric society and capitalist culture, El Caníbal enforces a dynamic of domination and subordination over his wife and daughter. Both mother and daughter are expected to acquiesce to his desires, needs, and expectations while giving nothing of himself in return.
It is not until Ramón’s disappearance that the protagonist has to come to terms with her feelings of emptiness, alienation, and fear, all of which seem to stem from these problematic male-dominated relationships: “Ese era el miedo principal de Lucía al hombre: miedo a perderse, a enajenarse. Pavor al varón que tiraniza y a la mujer que se deja tiranizar” [That was Lucía’s main fear of men: the fear of losing herself, of becoming alienated. The fear of the man who tyrannizes and the woman who allows herself to be the victim of such tyranny] (155). According to Warren Johnson, her fear of being consumed not by passion but by her partner is a result of her growing resistance to the passivity that the gender roles she had inherited from her parents dictated was the proper role of the woman, to be submissive first to those responsible for bringing her into the world, then to her husband (462). Lucía observes that in their thirty years of marriage her parents were no longer individuals, but instead one entity that only had shared experiences and completed each other’s thoughts. She remarks that “el roce continuo de la conyugalidad termina emborronando los límites del ser” [the constant friction of marriage ends up erasing existential boundaries] (106), and therefore feels that each one has been subsisting off of the other. As she nervously waits to hear from her husband’s abductors, she laments: “Y todo esto, el dolor, la inquietud, la indigna dependencia, la miseria de los días y las noches, todo esto por amor, […] a la necesidad del otro que destruye, a la ferocidad antropofágica, son caníbales aquellos que para amar devoran”
107 [And all of this, the pain, restlessness, wretched dependence, the misery of every day and night, all of this for love, or at least that’s what they called this illness, this need to be destroyed by the other, this anthropophagic ferocity, cannibals are those who in order to love, devour] (161).
In her quest for autonomy and selfhood, Lucía recognizes that not only are Ramón and her father to blame for her feelings of oppression and existential insecurity, but that she has been complicit as well. In her role as passive wife and daughter, Lucía blindly accepted the conventional mindset that a woman must be intellectually, financially, and emotionally dependent on her husband or father in order to subsist in society. All along, she has been incapable of separating herself from patriarchal hierarchies and dated misogynist thought. Johnson believes that one reason for her sticking to the masculine notions of her proper role in personal relationships and in society is that they at least provide her with some continuity to her identity (464). However, when Lucía realizes that her father’s literal cannibalism is a fabrication, she learns that the entire basis for her sense of self is inchoate, not to mention a lie. Nevertheless, she continues to identify with the cannibal metaphor—as evidenced in the title of the novel—for it allows her to conceive of her identity as a pluralistic entity that has assimilated (or consumed) various other selves, memories, and perspectives.
Sentimental relationships have a simultaneous self-destructive and doubling effect on the narrator-protagonist. As we shall see with the writing process, Lucía claims that in the first few stages of romantic love, she is able to achieve the impossible: she reinvents herself, and becomes “lo que una no es” [what one is not] (207), an “Other” to her Self.
Consequently, Lucía admits that it is not she who experiences the first stage of love, but
108 rather her alter ego, “tu doble, esa enajenada en la que te conviertes” [your double, that insane person that you become] (207). By reverting to the second-person voice here, the narrator-protagonist addresses those women—both fictional and real—who suffer from a similar self-inflicted and self-destructive alienation. In the beginning of her relationships with Hans (with whom she had an affair before meeting her husband), Ramón, and
Adrián, Lucía likens herself (once again) to a borderline schizophrenic, whose rational and intellectual side is devoured by her “yo amoroso” [loving self] who reacts only out of passion and with the heart. Throughout her history, Lucía’s need for male acceptance, whether from her husband, lover, or father, supersedes her desire for autonomy, and therefore the protagonist sacrifices her “real” self for their fleeting and capricious love and attention. As a result of this self-sacrifice, the narrator-protagonist acknowledges that her heart has been “comido […] de forma irremediable” [eaten irreparably] (206) by many of the men in her life. Lucía’s disenchantment and cynicism regarding love and intimacy are addressed throughout her narrative; under their influence she becomes a masochistic, self-deprecating individual, and admits to being guilty of autosarcophagy.8
Instead of gaining something from her relationships, she feels as though men are perpetually deceiving and taking from her. Therefore, love is a doubly alienating and destructive experience, for not only does Lucía suppress—or devour—her “true” self for the sake of love, but men also consume that which is left of her, rendering her completely empty and alien to her “original” self. The insertion of such cannibalistic imagery is intended as a criticism of a contemporary Spanish culture that still thrives on the aggressive exploitation of its people.
109 What is more, Lucía’s autosarcophagy can be linked to her own internal splintering and narrative fragmentation. The narrative insecurity that is manifest in her oscillation between first- and third-person narration highlights the intrusion of a more external, objective-sounding voice and its dominance over its weaker subjective counterpart. The popular dictum that one is his or her own worst enemy takes on new meaning in Lucía’s case, for as Jean-Luc Nancy declares, the “Other,” or intruder, is none other than the self (167). The playful fluctuation between these two voices reflects the constant oscillation between self-acceptance and rejection that lies at the heart of the narrator-protagonist’s internal conflict. She has a difficult time locating a sense of self because she recognizes that she is a body of lies, fissures and foreign objects.
As with Castro’s novel, La hija del Caníbal is narrated through various perspectives and voices, however the fragmentation evinced at the narrative level reflects a sort of rhetorical cannibalism or mutilation that involves the consumption and integration of foreign parts. While the opening scenes present the reader with Lucía’s point of view, characterized by vacillations between first- and third-person narration, the narrative voice is juxtaposed to Félix’s testimonial account of his youth and perspectives on life in chapters 7, 11, 17, 19, 23 and 29. The octogenarian’s contributions to the account complement Lucía’s narration and inform her development of consciousness, however they also give the impression that Félix is devouring the text and making it his own. Such fluctuations at the narrative level accentuate the fragmentary nature of Lucía’s sense of self and her reluctance to depend on her own voice without the assistance and influence of others. Although the existence of three different discourses reflects a disjointed and fractured narrative structure, it also highlights the composite, multifaceted
110 nature of female identity. Lucía, like Julia in the previous chapter, seems uncomfortable with the assertiveness required of the first person, as she begins certain sections with
“yo” and then switches to a more seemingly objective and less engaged “ella.”9 The instability of Lucía’s narrative identity points to her anxiety of discursive authority and her reliance on others (namely, Félix, Ramón, and her father) to speak for and represent her; her angst signals the suppression of a more vulnerable “yo” and the desire to achieve a personal style through writing. Aware of the metafictional and, at times, fabricated nature of her account, narrator-Lucia reverts to third person and talks about the protagonist, Lucía, as if she were (like her parents in “real life”) the main character of a novel or film. She claims to have an out-of-body experience every time she is involved in a “momento de acción” [moment of action] (52), and has the sensation that she is observing herself from a distance, like a separate entity with a distinct identity and someone else’s memories:10
[…] a veces a Lucía Romero le parece estar contemplándose desde el
exterior […] y en esos momentos suele hablar de sí misma en tercera
persona con el mayor descaro. Piensa Lucía que esta manía le viene de
muy antiguo, tal vez de su afición a la lectura; y que esa tendencia hacia el
desdoblamiento hubiera podido ser utilizada con provecho si se hubiera
dedicado a escribir novelas, dado que la narrativa, a fin de cuentas, no es
sino el arte de hacerse perdonar la esquizofrenia.
[sometimes Lucía Romero senses that she is contemplating herself from a
distance […] and in these moments she tends to talk about herself, quite
freely, in the third person. Lucía thinks that this obsession dates way back,
111 perhaps, to her love of literature; and that this tendency toward a splitting
or division would have been better employed if she would have dedicated
herself to writing novels, given that narrative, in the end, is nothing more
than the art of forgiving one’s schizophrenia.] (21)
Like Julia in the previous chapter, Lucía suffers from a narrative schizophrenia resulting from her split consciousness as narrator and protagonist of her own life story.
Lucía’s two voices contradict one another throughout the narrative; it is the “yo” that tends to invent lies and omit essential pieces of information, whereas the narrative distance afforded by the “ella” allows her to go back and, once again, this time with a more engaged “yo,” uncover her prevarications and reveal their deceptiveness. The distance mentioned above causes the protagonist to suffer from a guilty conscience, which in turn incites her to frequently confess to having lied, sometimes even in the previous sentence, with statements like, “acabo de mentir” [I just lied] or longer clarifications, such as the following: “Volviendo al principio: también he mentido en otros dos detalles. […] ¡Lo siento! No pude remediarlo” [Going back to the beginning:
I’ve also lied about two other things. […] I’m sorry! I couldn’t help it] (20) or “Llevo escritas cientos de páginas para este libro y he mentido en ellas casi tantas veces como en mi propia vida” [I’ve written hundreds of pages for this book and I’ve lied almost as many times as I have in my own life] (310). Nevertheless, Lucía defends some of her lies and omissions of the truth by arguing that having to go back and edit the entire account would be an inefficient task that would most likely alter “el balance de lo narrado” [the outcome / equilibrium of the narrative] (315). Similar to the cannibal or vampire trope,
Lucía’s lies invade her account and, little by little, devour the truth to the extent that it is
112 nearly impossible to tell one from the other. Her narrative, then, confuses the supposed differentiation between truth and invention and relies upon both concepts to reiterate the fabricated nature of history and individual experience. Despite the confessional nature of her disclosures, Lucîa embraces her propensity for lying and thereby subverts traditional notions of the “truth.”
Her writing style, reflective of her psychological and emotional state, reveals a fragmented and splintered consciousness that subverts the overall structure and flow of most male-authored accounts. The flow and structure of the novel do not always seem logical, and are certainly not what the average reader is accustomed to reading, as they resemble a fusion of detective fiction, the testimonial novel or confessional mode, and the autobiographical account. There are instances in which a chapter is introduced in first- person narration and the reader must try to identify the narrator: whether it is Lucía or
Félix, for example. Lucía’s account exemplifies Cixous’s concept of l’écriture féminine given that it privileges a non-linear style of writing and is intended to deceive the reader rather than represent reality in its entirety. As the French feminist claims, the female writer writes, “in order to smash everything, to shatter the framework of institutions, to blow up the law, to break up the ‘truth’ with laughter” (357). Similarly, Montero inserts a certain degree of dark, even acerbic, humor and sarcasm into her text, as a way of challenging the traditionally solemn woman-authored novel of the twentieth century.
Lucía subverts the conventional understanding of reality and truth by creating one that is her own. By deceiving her readers and subsequently manipulating the information provided them, she exercises and, to a certain extent, exploits her authority as narrator- writer. For Lucía, writing (and deceiving her audience) is a liberating act, or means of
113 escape from her mediocre, unfulfilling existence; it is through the telling of her own story that she recovers her sense of creativity and is able to make meaning out of what for her has been a meaningless and mediocre life. Lucía lies to create a new possible reality for herself and to preserve her sense of pride, which further allows her to forget that which she does not wish to remember and endure the unbearable (312). She has not only lied to her audience but also to herself, for it is quite possible that she has come to believe the lies she fabricates. As she closes her account, Lucía claims that everything she has told her readers—especially the parts in which she has misled them—is a lived reality for her:
“Todo lo que acabo de contar lo he vivido realmente, incluso o sobre todo, mis mentiras.
Me parece que empiezo a reconocerme en el espejo de mi propio nombre” [Everything
I’ve just told I’ve truly lived, even, or especially, my lies. It seems as though I’m finally beginning to recognize myself in the mirror of my own name] (336). Lies almost seem more real to Lucía than the truth itself, and for that reason it is through her memoir (her metaphorical mirror), based on the fusion of truth and lies, that she recognizes herself most readily.11 Furthermore, Lucía’s other name, la hija del Caníbal, is also one that reminds her of her genetic predisposition to lie, given that her father’s earlier assertion that he was a cannibal proves to be mere manipulation of the truth for his own amusement and professional gain.
As narrator, protagonist and implied author of the implicit text of La hija del
Caníbal, Lucía oscillates between first-, second-, and third-person narration throughout the course of the novel, which, as Ellen Mayock contends, calls attention to Lucía’s fragmented and multiple selves (66). Like Julia in La segunda mujer, the protagonist is uncomfortable using exclusively first-person narration and she reverts back to third-
114 person narration, mainly because the former requires that she face and accept her own mediocrity and mortality, and reflect on her emotional scars. The constant fluctuation— and conflict—between self and other is apparent in Lucía’s gradual characterization of herself. Realizing her complex role as both narrator and protagonist of her
“autobiography,” Lucía feels that she must try to explain herself to her faithful reader:
Creo que ya va siendo hora de que hable un poco de mí. Es decir, ya va
siendo hora de que hable de Lucía Romero. Porque me resulta más
cómodo referirme a ella: el uso de la tercera persona convierte el caos de
los recuerdos en un simulacro narrativo y disfraza de orden la existencia.
[I think it’s time for me to talk a little about me. That is, it’s time for me to
talk about Lucía Romero. Because it’s easier for me to talk about her: the
usage of the third person transforms the chaos of memory into a narrative
simulacrum and gives a sense of order to existence.] (110)
In other instances, Lucía, as narrator, addresses herself, with “tú,” as if she were giving herself a pep talk, and then, without a clear distinction or warning, shifts back to the “yo.”
Here, she tries to coerce herself into revealing her many lies or omissions, for the sake of the book and, once again, the reader:
Ánimo, Lucía: un pequeño esfuerzo más, cuéntalo todo. No podrás
terminar este libro si no dices todo lo que tienes que decir. Sobre Ramón,
por ejemplo. Porque también he dado una imagen falsa de Ramón. Mi
relación con él no tiene nada que ver con lo que aquí he dejado intuir.
[You can do it, Lucía: one last effort, tell it all. You won’t be able to finish
this book if you don’t say everything you need to say. About Ramón, for
115 example. Because you’ve also given a false image of Ramón. My
relationship with him doesn’t have anything to do with how I’ve portrayed
it here.] (312)
The reasons for Lucía’s lies, particularly in instances related to her relationship with
Ramón, the success of her work, and her physical attributes, are not completely clear.
Nevertheless, such lies point to the perceived need to conceal something about herself, to present herself in a more “positive” light, or to pretend to be something or someone that she is not. Her habit of telling lies stresses the level of discomfort and anxiety that she feels with regard to her self-image and identity. Consequently, one might ask whom she hopes to impress; who her implied and intended audience might be, and how she expects to be judged.
Self-admittedly, the protagonist is an inventive individual, who loves to improvise and construct new identities and realities for herself, much to the dismay of her father and
Ramón, who strongly disapprove or end up being the victims of her exaggerations. She, however, consider that her fabrications, unlike those of El Caníbal or Ramón, are not dangerous or detrimental to others. Instead, she believes these “cambios” [changes],
“adornos estilísticos” [stylistic ornaments], or variations on the truth, to be some of the most necessary components in our life narratives, as we are constantly reordering and reinventing our past (17), and hence identities. For her, to exist and be, human beings must “contar,” or tell their story to the world. As she argues, “la identidad no es más que el relato que nos hacemos de nosotros mismos” [identity is nothing more than the story we tell of ourselves] (17).
116 Montero plays with and manipulates the conventional conception of identity as a coherent and unitary thing. As a result of her husband’s mysterious abduction, the previous order and uninspiring, habitual routine of Lucía’s daily existence are turned upside down, causing her to look inward. The existential angst the protagonist feels as a result of Ramón’s disappearance provides her with the necessary impetus to liberate the many selves that she has suppressed for so long: “Cuando Ramón desapareció, yo también tenía el almario un poco enmohecido y las personalidades interiores con telarañas, y probablemente la crisis me ayudó a rescatarlas” (124). Solitude, a sensation with which the protagonist did not initially feel comfortable, seems to be the necessary catalyst for Lucía’s autonomy and creativity. With the distance that this solitude affords her, she is able to unearth her alternate selves. She observes that as we grow older, the pressures of society cause us to shrink internally, allowing the “mil posibilidades de ser que tenemos todos” to petrify and wither, while limiting ourselves to only one possible identity (123). The fact that Ramón’s absence initiates the unearthing and development of
Lucía’s (forgotten) identity / identities implies that his presence stifled her understanding of self, or selves. Lucía’s eventual adoption of multiple identities recalls Lacan’s notion that “identity is perceived as plural, indeterminate, even illusory” (New Galdós Studies,
100) and Cixous’ assertion that women’s identity should not be regarded as single, but rather multifaceted: “I never ask myself ‘who am I?’ (qui sui-je?), I ask myself, ‘who are
I?’ (qui sont-je?). Who can say who I are, how many I are…?’”(The Hélène Cixous
Reader xvii) The multiplicity and fragmentation of identity are reinforced through the narrator-protagonist’s fixation on false, confused and conflicting identities. As is stated above, at the narrative level, narrator-Lucía can be mistaken for narrator-Félix, as both
117 assume narrative authority intermittently and without much differentiation throughout the text. Although very different in their life experiences and physicality, Lucía identifies with Félix on a unique level. There are other instances of “mistaken” identities mentioned throughout the novel, as Lucía is often confused with her archrival Francisca Odón, a more successful children’s writer than she.
Lucía, as principal narrator of her account, uses the autobiographical or testimonial mode to (re)constitute an identity for herself and recover those things that she has lost—her sense of autonomy, agency, and authority, and her ability to replicate herself—through writing. Autobiography is the means by which Lucía retrospectively considers her own existence and simultaneously searches for and exposes certain truths typically concealed by the corrupt, deceitful society that surrounds her. Because of the traditional structure of the autobiographical and confessional genre, it is likely that the author / narrator writes her memoir with an implicit interlocutor or audience in mind.
Lucía would therefore expect her readers to identify in some way with her existential crisis and quest for the truth in a hostile contemporary society. Lucía’s memoir deviates from the typical male-authored autobiography in that instead of focusing on the development of the “unified self,” she relies on the assistance of others to recount her tale.12 As Mary Mason contends in “The Other Voice: Autobiographies by Women
Writers,” “the self-discovery of female identity seems to accolade the real presence and recognition of another consciousness, and the disclosure of the female self is linked in identification with some ‘other’” (210). This assertion reveals that rather than encompassing a singular, “unified” self, female identity is inherently fragmented and influenced by its relationships with others.
118 The many cases of false or mistaken identities in the novel echo the fabricated nature of this supposedly “new,” democratic Spanish identity. As a young anarchist in exile, Félix stealthily returns to Spain in 1949, in order to help reorganize the infrastructure of the anarchist movement and to be reunited with his older brother. In order to avoid imprisonment or execution by Franco’s forces, Félix assumes the name and identity of a politically independent (indiferente) man killed during the War. He describes the many false identities that he has adopted and the ensuing existential uncertainty experienced throughout his youth:
Yo era ahora ese muchacho: me llamaba Miguel Peláez, era albañil y tenía
treinta años. […] He vivido durante tantos años una vida doble y
clandestina que a veces me cuesta descubrir cuál es mi verdadera
identidad. En aquel entonces yo era Félix Roble en la memoria privada de
mi infancia, Fortuna para los compañeros de clandestinidad, Arturo Pérez
para el carnicero que me realquiló la casita del extrarradio y Miguel Peláez
para todo el mundo con quien me trataba en mi vida cotidiana en
Barcelona.
I, now, was that young man: my name was Miguel Peláez, I was a
bricklayer and I was thirty years old. […] For years I have lived a double
and clandestine life that makes it difficult for me to determine my true
identity. At that time, I was Félix Roble in my private childhood memory,
Fortuna for my clandestine friends, Arturo Pérez for the butcher who re-
rented me the small house in the suburbs and Miguel Peláez for everyone
with whom I interacted in my everyday life in Barcelona.] (242)
119 As a result of his various assumed identities, Félix admits that he is unable to distinguish between those that are real and those that are fictitious. His identity insecurity and manifestation of alternate selves suspiciously mirror those of the protagonist and help to foreshadow Lucía’s own existential confusion. Can he be and represent all of them accurately at once, or must he only embody one, “pure” self? Is it possible to maintain a singular identity, uninfluenced or unadulterated by the others? With which does he most easily identify and why? The possible answers to such questions lead to the realization that human identity, much like Spain’s collective identity, is multifaceted, mixed and strongly shaped by other selves and experiences.
With Félix as her guide, the narrator-protagonist locates a newfound sense of authority, she breaks out of her silence and passive, masochistic existence and provides a subjective and retrospective account of the past few months and years of her life. Given the nature of the autobiographical narrative, Lucía’s story is designed to act as a mirror that reflects (her interpretation of) reality and her own consciousness and sense of self as accurately as possible. Shari Benstock claims that the autobiographical act signals an effort to recapture the self (1139). However, as Lacan has noted, such an endeavor may prove futile, for the “mirror stage” of psychic development serves up a false image of the child’s (or in this case, the individual’s) unified “self.” This break with the autobiographical genre underscores the narrator’s conscious decision to subvert traditional narrative structures and create something original and particular to her. As referenced above, we soon discover that the “mirror” presented to us by Lucía is not exactly a reliable one, nor does it provide us with a cohesive image and understanding of the protagonist and her life, given the various lies and omissions revealed throughout the
120 text. Instead, the frequent shifting of narrative voices and discourses, and the many contradictions and falsehoods exposed by the narrator-protagonist herself all contribute to feelings of disorientation and confusion in the reader, as opposed to establishing a sense of trust. Therefore, what the text and its narrative voices reveal are a fragmented, multifaceted, and discordant consciousness that echoes the protagonist’s description of her aging and disintegrating physical body.
I consider, along with psychologist Ellyn Kaschak, that a fragmented, contradictory, and double-voiced narrative refers to a feminist voice still trapped within a patriarchal frame, indicating two or more opposing forces or perspectives embedded within a single body. As Beverly Richard Cook affirms, the notions of wholeness or completeness are male constructs that do not adequately reflect women’s experience. To support this assertion, Cook draws on the conclusions made by Gilbert and Gubar in The
Madwoman in the Attic (1979) regarding female literary doubles. Cook paraphrases
Gilbert and Gubar, maintaining that, “as opposed to the male literary double, who often represents some interpretation of a complementary side, female doubles tend to embody contradictory selves” (658). According to Knickerbocker: “[W]riting is frequently associated with the motifs of the double, bodily organs and amputated body parts or prostheses, as writing is often metaphorically portrayed as the creation of a body, another self” (24).
Writing is Lucía’s way of relaying her personal history (historia), one that, as
Vilarós might contend, is part of a greater, collective Spanish History (Historia) (22).13
The narrator-protagonist finally senses the urgency to record her own narrative, in hopes that it no longer be silenced, and under the cynical assumption that it is the only “truth”
121 she can believe. If we consider Montero’s text to be representative of Cixous’s concept of l’écriture féminine, Lucía writes herself, her body and consciousness, into the implied text.14 She uses the narrative structure to draft a new sense of self, to gain a certain degree of authority in her life, and to give meaning to her chaotic existence. As Cixous’s explication of the theory suggests, Lucía’s thoughts tend to wander, while the chronological flow from chapter to chapter is non-linear. Lucía’s writing and narrative techniques subvert traditional narrative structures, as she vacillates between narrators, blurs the distinction between truth and lies, and jumps from present to past and back again, through a string of flashbacks. Her account, while appearing to be mutilated and discontinuous, due to her frequent omissions, said vacillations, and variations in sequence, also represents the incorporation, or appropriation, of other narratives originally separate from her own. Cixous explains that writing is the vehicle for providing positive change for women: “Writing is precisely the very possibility of change, the space that can serve as a springboard for subversive thought, the precursory movement of the transformation of social and cultural structures” (“The Laugh of the Medusa” 337).
Furthermore, Lucía’s highly imaginative and subjective text—which reflects her interpretation of the reality that surrounds her and the history that precedes her— challenges the censorship characteristic of the Franco era and rejects the notion of an official version of history so promulgated by the regime. Her assimilative writing style represents the subjective and polyphonic recuperation and construction of history and memory.
As mentioned above, Lucía as implied author incorporates a series of narrative techniques to not only subvert the conventional structure and flow of the narrative, but
122 also to question current hegemonic systems. One strategy that the narrator-protagonist employs with the intention of being subversive is the inclusion of metafiction in the novel. According to Concha Alborg, in her 1988 article, entitled “Metaficción y feminismo en Rosa Montero,” the inclusion of metafictional techniques in Montero’s early narrative underscores the author’s attempts to be dissident; in her analysis of La función Delta (1981), a novel whose female protagonist is also named Lucía and whose main themes mirror those of La hija, Alborg asserts that by drawing attention to the artifice of fiction, Montero highlights the falseness of reality as we know it:
Si los personajes de una novela pueden cambiar y confundir las historias
que están narrando, igualmente han podido equivocarse en sus propias
vidas. Lucía ha vivido engañándose en sus relaciones con los hombres,
abandonando su carrera sin volver a su vena creativa hasta el punto
cuando empieza la novela.
[If the characters of a novel can change and confuse the stories they tell,
they, equally, could have trouble making sense of their own lives. Lucía
has deceived herself in her relationships with men, abandoning her career
without returning to her creative talents until the point at which she begins
the novel.] (71)
For Alborg, metafiction is: “un instrumento en las novelas de Rosa Montero para dar
énfasis a las cuestiones feministas” [a tool that in Rosa Montero’s novels emphasizes feminist concerns] (73). She argues that the protagonists of Montero’s first three novels,
La crónica del desamor (1979), La función Delta (1981), and Te trataré como a una reina (1983) experience internal conflict upon realizing the many social inequalities
123 present in Spanish society. Ana, from La crónica del desamor is not capable of writing her own story until she is able to break with sexist stereotypes and leave her idolized boss. Alborg declares that the shattering of the narrative mold parallels that of societal norms (73). Although Alborg’s article was published almost ten years before the release of La hija, her observations can be applied just as easily and effectively to Lucía
Romero’s case.
After a brief hiatus from writing—due to plummeting sales and her publisher’s subsequent refusal to fund any more of her books—Lucía returns to her trade, however this time on her own terms, as she is writing for and about herself, so as to not disappear into nothingness: “Aquí estoy, inventando verdades y recordando mentiras para no disolverme en la nada absoluta” (316). Writing, then, is an act of survival, not only for her material self, but also for the legacy that she can leave for future generations. Echoing
Adrienne Rich’s assertions stated at the outset of this study, it is through her writing that
Lucía recovers and re-visions an identity and history for herself, and is thus able to transcend the death she once feared. According to Samuel Amago, Montero’s novel is one in which the self-conscious emphasis on the narrative process concentrates on the realization of subjectivity. As Amago observes, the implicit text that Lucía consciously creates with its “self-conscious, metafictional conceits – its linguistic and narrative self- consciousness, self-referentiality, montage structure, frame breaks, and the use of the cannibal trope” call further attention to the textual body that Lucía uses to help define her subjectivity.
When Lucía realizes that she is not the assertive woman that she has always wanted to be she becomes disillusioned with herself. She describes her contradictory
124 nature by focusing on the discrepancies between her public and private selves. Although
Lucía recognizes that she typically remains silent and passive in the public sphere, she implies that below the surface she conceals a very vocal, aggressive, and frustrated alternate self. Once again, with the critical distance characteristic of third-person narration, the narrator-protagonist observes:
Lucía callaba demasiado, consentía demasiado, asentía demasiado; era
asquerosamente femenina en su silencio público, mientras por dentro la
frustración rugía. Lucía envidiaba a aquellas mujeres capaces de
imponerse y de pelearse dialécticamente en el espacio exterior, siempre
tan desolado. Como Rosa Montero, la escritora de color originaria de la
Guinea española: era un tanto marisabidilla y a veces una autoritaria y una
chillona, pero abría la boca la tal Rosa Montero […] y la gente callaba y la
escuchaba. Lucía hubiera deseado ser así, un poquito más animosa y más
segura.
[Lucía was too silent, she tolerated too much and agreed to too much; she
was disgustingly feminine in her silence in public, while frustration
rumbled inside her. Lucía envied those women who were able to assert
and defend themselves in the sad public sphere. Like Rosa Montero, the
writer from Spanish Guinea; she was somewhat of a know-it-all and was
sometimes authoritarian and loud, but when that Rosa Montero opened her
mouth […] everyone listened. Lucía would have loved to be like her, a
little more spirited and more secure.] (42)
125 Lucía is repulsed by her stereotypical femininity and passive behavior and would like to be more like “those” women who are able to engage in coherent arguments in the public
(patriarchal) arena. Ironically, the narrator-protagonist cites Rosa Montero (from
Equatorial Guinea) as a model for the type of assertive woman she aspires to be, for the half-fictional, half-realistic author is highly revered for her intellect and opinions. This playful reference allows Montero to further illustrate the fluidity and uncertainty of identity.15
In addition to a splintering at the narrative level, Lucía also describes a more physical doubling or splitting (desdoblamiento) of the self that further emphasizes a blurring and confusion of identities. For the protagonist, identity is a type of discontinuous fabric that we stitch together with our own willpower and memories (51).
As if she were made up of two (or more) opposing or competing versions of the self, she wonders what ever happened to the little girl that she once was, where she went and what she would think of the narrator-protagonist if she were to see her now (51). Lucía believes that her body and soul are completely different from those of her youth, that she is no longer who she once was nor is she who she will eventually become, however she is not completely sure of anything, for as she says, “a menudo me veo a mí misma desdoblada” [I often see myself split or divided] (52).16 What is more, the narrator- protagonist has difficulty distinguishing between her own memories of the past and something she dreamed, or something that someone vividly described to her. As a result,
Lucía seems to experience what Hirsch identifies as “postmemory,” for she has trouble separating her own identity and memories from those of Félix:
126 Sé que yo no soy él, pero de algún modo siento parte de sus memorias
como si fueran mías; y así, creo haber vivido la aguda emoción de los
atracos, y el mortífero fragor del público en una plaza de toros miserable
[…], y sobre todo la quemadura irreparable de la traición.
[I know that I am not he, but somehow I remember some of his memories
as if they were my own; and for that reason, I sense that I have lived the
acute emotion of the robberies, and the deadly clamor of onlookers in a
miserable bullring […], and especially the irreparable burn of betrayal.]
(52)
This confusion and cannibalistic assimilation of narrative identities repeatedly manifests itself in the transition from chapter to chapter, for many times a chapter will end with Félix’s voice and the following one will begin with Lucía’s first-person narration, without notice or clear differentiation. Although each one has his or her own distinct temperament and outlook on life, Félix and Adrián are extensions, or alter egos, of the narrator-protagonist, and as a result she has difficulty discerning where her own self ends and the other begins.17 Félix essentially corroborates this conjecture at the end of the novel by revealing to Lucía that “todos nos cruzamos en algún momento de nuestras vidas con nuestro yo futuro. O con aquel que fuimos” [at some point in our lives we cross paths with our future self. Or with one from our past] (323). The octogenarian not only represents Lucía’s future self, but also a painful past that has been forgotten by the members of her (and even her parents’) generation, a generation seemingly lost in a state of limbo. As “omniscient” narrator-Lucía maintains, “era ella, Lucía, ella y su generación de cuarentones, quienes se habían quedado de verdad en tierra de nadie, en un
127 mundo desprovisto de fe y de trascendencia, en una sociedad mediocre y sin grandeza en la que nada parecía tener ningún sentido” [it was she, Lucía, she and her generation of forty-somethings, who had been left in a type of no-man’s-land, in a world deprived of faith and transcendence, in a mediocre society without greatness, in which nothing seemed to make sense] (164). As a way of reclaiming and making sense of both the past and present, Lucía appropriates Félix’s history as her own and incorporates it into her own life narrative. Therefore, the reader’s initial confusion regarding narrative identity and the blurring of (auto)biographical accounts is a deliberate strategy designed to reflect the narrator-protagonist’s own existential ambiguity, not to mention the fluidity of personal identity.18
That Félix and Adrián are extensions of Lucía’s self can be interpreted from another angle: While Félix represents the father figure Lucía feels she never had, Adrián, her young lover, is the child she will never bear. Apart from assisting her in the search for
Ramón, the two men help to fill a void in the protagonist; she appropriates their memories, experiences and life philosophies and makes them her own in an anthropophagic way. Likewise, Félix and Adrián rely on Lucía and one another to break their silence (Félix) and fulfill each other’s existential needs. Akin to parasites that subsist off of a separate biological organism, the two men invade Lucía’s personal space—her apartment and daily life—and make it their own as well.
The last few pages of Lucía’s account are narrated completely by her in the first person, though her words are stocked with Félix’s wisdom. Félix’s discourses on the connectedness of life and the continuity of words resonate throughout Lucía’s final ruminations, which further accentuates her appropriation and adoption of not only his life
128 story but his philosophy on life as well. Adrián, on the other hand, reminds Lucía of her past innocence and optimism, but also of her many missed opportunities as a young woman: “era para mí un espejismo de juventud vicaria, un simulacro de todas mis vidas no vividas, de los hijos que no tuve, las cosas que no hice y los años que desperdicié” [he was a mirage of vicarious youth for me, a simulacrum of all of my unlived lives, of the children I never had, of the things I didn’t do and the years I wasted] (316). The young man’s influence also prompts Lucía to reconnect with a side of herself that she had long neglected: the passionate, self-confident, and driven Lucía of her premarital days. The protagonist’s romantic relationship with Adrián, a man half her age, has a subversive quality to it, as it challenges the long-established social order of heterosexual liaisons. As narrator-Lucía considers the unconventionality of her affair, she recognizes that not all interpersonal relationships have an anthropophagic element to them, but rather, that it is women themselves who engage in their own self-destruction: “Aprendí que él no notaba que yo tuviera celulitis ni que mis dientes fueran de resina. Aprendí que la mirada implacable con la que nos fileteamos y descuartizamos las mujeres es una mirada nuestra, interna” [I realized that he hadn’t noticed my cellulitis or that my teeth were actually dentures. I learned that the ruthless gaze with which we women fillet and chop our bodies to pieces is, in fact, our own internal gaze] (213).19
The fragmenting of the unity of the body, exemplified by the recurrent mentioning of detached or missing fingers, feet, eyes, ears, teeth, and uteri, is essential to understanding the physical and psychological disintegration of the female subject in the novel. Unity, as Montero evinces it, is defined as the existence of a series of contradictions. According to Johnson, the metaphor of anthropophagism in La hija del
129 Caníbal “points to the imperative of at least the attempt on the part of the woman protagonist to escape the cannibalistic system that is insistently coded as masculine”
(458). Mutilation and other forms of violence are techniques used to intimidate certain sectors of the population with the principal intention of preserving current systems of domination and the status quo. In the novel, amputation, mutilation, and the severing of appendages, such as that carried out by a thug on the ear of Lucía’s dog, serve to forecast the possibility of an impending cannibalistic act, as a way of warning off the protagonist from interfering where she does not belong. Other instances of mutilation are detailed throughout the text, such as Félix’s crippled hands, the human eye that Li-Chao holds in his hand, and Ramón’s severed finger, which is sent to the protagonist’s home with the intention of proving her husband’s identity and alerting her to his possible assassination should she choose to not comply with their demands.
Lucía’s body—and memory—appears to be disintegrating and devoured by the passage of time.20 Once she is in her hotel room in Amsterdam to supposedly follow a lead in her husband’s case, Lucía reflects on her obsessive desire to compensate for and suppress aspects of her past. She observes that the anti-aging creams, gels and dentures that have come to represent her life are a lie designed to conceal painful truths: her inevitable mortality and the memory of a fatal accident. As if she were looking at her own reflection in the bathroom mirror or engaging in conversation with a friend, she says both to herself and her interlocutor:
Al envejecer te ibas desintegrando, y los objetos, baratos sucedáneos del
sujeto que fuiste, iban suplantando tu existencia cada vez más rota y
fragmentada. […] A medida que envejecemos nos vamos llenando de
130 lugares comunes y de objetos, para cubrir los vacíos que se nos abren
dentro.
[As you got older, you started disintegrating, and objects, cheap
substitutes of the subject you once were, kept supplanting your existence,
an existence that was more and more broken and fragmented. […] As we
get older, we fill ourselves with public spaces and objects to cover up the
fissures that form inside of us.] (210)
While the creams, pomades, tonics and prosthetics serve to fill in the crevices and abysses of the flesh, they also substitute various aspects of Lucía’s disintegrating existence and memory, thus causing her to embody the juxtaposition of the seemingly incompatible notions of the foreign and the familiar, truth and lie. Curiously, the narrator- protagonist implicates the reader-interlocutor in this cannibalistic act, for she declares that as we age we all internalize shared spaces and objects to replace the loss of innocence, youth and idealism.
Although the fragmentation and disintegration that Lucía references here and has previously attributed to masculine figures are symbolic and metaphorical, other instances are real and tangible and effectively evince a body and mind marked by repressed traumas. Near the end of the novel (in chapter twenty-eight), the reader learns that the narrator-protagonist has chosen to withhold an essential piece of information: that she had been in a serious automobile accident three years before in which her car collided with the rear end of a truck. She describes the catastrophic event in a deceivingly detached manner, perhaps the result of years of a self-imposed repression:
131 Todos los hierros del mundo se metieron en mi boca. Todos menos uno
que me agujereó el vientre. Yo estaba embarazada de seis meses. Era una
niña […] La había visto en la pantalla de la ecografía, mi niña en blanco y
negro, totalmente formada, un brumoso prodigio de mi carne. La maté en
aquel choque; y perdí el útero, de paso […] ahora estoy vacía. […] Pero
cada vez que me quito la dentadura falsa y veo el vacío negro y sonrosado
de la parte de arriba de mi boca, recuerdo el momento en que los hierros se
hincaron en mi cara; y el dolor, y la expulsión de sangre, de fragmentos
óseos, de trozos de carne. […] Mi boca es el sepulcro de mi hija.
[All of the iron pieces in the world entered my mouth. All but one, which
punctured a hole in my womb. I was six-months pregnant. It was a girl.
[…] I had seen her on the ultrasound screen, my daughter in black and
white, completely formed, a blurry miracle of my flesh. I killed her in that
accident; and I lost my uterus in the processs […] and am empty now. […]
But each time I take out my dentures and I see the black and pink
emptiness of the roof of my mouth, I remember the moment in which the
iron pieces were thrust into my face; and the pain, and the expulsion of
blood, bone fragments, and pieces of flesh. […] My mouth is my
daughter’s tomb.] (314-315)
The loss of Lucía’s teeth is linked to the loss of her unborn baby, and her inability to conceive and leave behind a legacy for the next generation. She claims that she is a woman who has never experienced childbirth, which, for her, is as unnatural as a deer that does not know how to run (314). As a result, the protagonist considers herself to be
132 hollowed out, incomplete, and defective, for by definition a woman and human being should be able to perpetuate the species. Because she was under anesthesia when the doctors removed the fetus from her damaged womb, Lucía has no memory of the extraction. Yet, she says that each time she removes her dentures and sees the empty black space in the upper part of her mouth, she remembers the pain, the discharge of blood, bone and fleshy fragments, and associates the memory with the experience of childbirth. The hollow cavities previously occupied by Lucía’s teeth and uterus are not only representative of a physical loss, but also of the many gaps in her cognitive memory, thus establishing the complex relationship between bodily and psychological memory.
Therefore, Lucía’s mouth—like the rest of her aging body—is a personal lieu de mémoire that evokes the memory of her traumatic accident and ensuing miscarriage, both of which, ultimately, come to define her. As Ofelia Ferrán posits, “Memory cannot be disassociated from feeling and affect” (175), and although Lucía seems to describe her accident with as little emotion as possible, she writes, and remembers, from a locus of physical and emotional pain. A symbol of her own physical and cognitive fragmentation,
Lucía’s text communicates an “affective history” that literally embodies her attempt to remember. Hélène Cixous’s theory of l’écriture féminine encourages women to write themselves through the body, as if the written text were an extension of themselves.
Martin Jay emphasizes the importance of memory, explaining that “the imperative to rescue what had been forgotten by the victors of history” is reflected in Walter
Benjamin’s affirmation that the task of remembrance is “to save what has miscarried”
(qtd. in Jay 230). Through the writing of her text, Lucía confronts loss and recovers not only her memory and past, but also a suppressed voice. As both Irigaray and Cixous have
133 maintained, if women writers are to discover and communicate who they are, to uncover what phallo(go)centric discourse and history have repressed in them, they must begin with the body and attempt to restructure the world around them. What is more, Cixous and Irigaray declare that in order to rewrite a women’s history, it is necessary to recover the ties between mother and daughter, or a matrilineal heritage.
Her subsequent feelings of guilt, emptiness, and purposelessness can be linked to the androcentric emphasis on women’s purely biological function in society. As she repeats to her reader that she is empty, or emptied, after her miscarriage, she alludes to a sense of camaraderie shared with other women who have experienced a similar trauma:
Y ahora estoy vacía. Así lo dicen las mujeres que han sido sometidas a la
misma operación que yo: Me han vaciado. Como si todo lo que son fuera
ese útero. Los romanos no le otorgaban ningún lugar social a la mujer sin
hijos. Y eso está enterrado en nuestra memoria.
[And now I am empty. That’s what women who have had the same
operation I’ve had say: They have emptied me out. Just as if everything
they are were that uterus. The Romans denied those women without
children any social status. And that is embedded in our memory.] (314)
Lucía references a genetic memory shared by all women, something that could be considered a point of solidarity among women of different generations. After all, by using the possessive pronoun “nuestra” (our), Lucía transcends the boundaries of her account and connects with her female reader. Although Lucía maintains an emotional distance when narrating the traumatic incident, it is evident that she feels responsible for her unborn daughter’s death. As she indicates, she has thought about the accident many
134 times, often wondering what would have happened if the road conditions had been ideal, or if she had not been so tired driving home that fateful night. As Cixous has argued, women are trained to feel guilty at every turn in their lives: “for having desires, for not having any; for being frigid, for being ‘too hot’; for not being both at once; for being too motherly and not enough; for having children and for not having any; for nursing and for not nursing…” (351). The scholar believes that the act of writing will allow women to kill the “false woman” (351) who is keeping the real one from living her life.21
Lucía’s sterility and stifled creativity only intensify her existential angst and reinforce her need to generate something that would serve as an extension of herself.
Ashlee Smith Balena argues that because Lucía is unable to reproduce through childbirth, she is in fact able to procreate and duplicate herself through the writing process (2). Like many writers before her, she is able to be the progenitor of something immortal, such as her documented testimony.
Lucía’s recurrent allusion to scars, wrinkles, and surgical procedures indicates the significant amount of pain inscribed on the narrator-protagonist’s memory and body. As philosopher Edward Casey postulates in his study, Remembering: A Phenomenological
Study (2000), the particularization characteristic of traumatic body memories relates to
“the fragmentation of the lived body” (155). He contends that a traumatic body memory bears on what Lacan identified as le corps morcelé, in that it disables the efficacy, and implies the dissolution and fragmentation, of the intact body and identity. Lucía’s body, just like her emotional state and text, is chaotic and fractured, reminiscent of the schizophrenic condition. The fact that the narrator-protagonist conceals the truth about her accident until her final series of confessions near the end of her memoir demonstrates
135 her own reticence to come to terms with her scars and traumatic past. Reiterating the image of the mouth, she admits to her readers: “Todo esto que ahora estoy contando es algo de lo que nunca hablé” [Everything I am saying is something about which I have never spoken] (315). By confessing her story—and using her mouth-womb to convey it to her interlocutor—Lucía makes her suffering meaningful and audible, thus giving birth to her text and re-writing a newly fashioned sense of self.22 Casey argues that the recollection of traumatic body memories—which we can suppose is what Lucía does through her text—calls for a narrative structure, often related in testimonial evidence
(162). She uses her account to release and expose the painful content of these memories, for she knows that both cognitive and bodily memories are critical to her re-constitution of self. The narrator-protagonist’s belated revelation indicates her gradual acknowledgement and acceptance of an upsetting past.
Nevertheless, as we read further, it becomes apparent that Lucía makes the most of her appellation and connection to cannibalism, and uses it to her advantage. More specifically, by writing and presumably publishing her account, Lucía seeks to challenge and invert the oppression (cannibalism and silence) to which she has been subjected.
Nevertheless, as Ross Chambers asserts in his study Room for Maneuver: Reading (the)
Oppositional (in) Narrative, which recognizes narrative as a site of agency and as a medium for change, Lucía eventually appropriates and propagates a similar power structure in her role as principal narrator, or creator, of her story. Lucía, however, does not make use of “cannibalism” to oppress others, as is the case of patriarchal structures; she engages with cannibalistic strategies to survive better within a cannibalistic system.
By appropriating Félix’s wisdom and memories and some of Adrián’s youthful idealism
136 to compile her account, Lucía extricates herself—and Félix—from silence. Near the end of the novel, Félix remarks that Lucía’s text allows him to “no morir del todo, en fin, me he puesto en tus oídos. Que es como decir que me he puesto de tus manos” [not die completely, because in the end I have placed myself in your ears. Which is like saying that I have placed myself in your hands] (324). Through the writing process, Lucía prolongs the memory and existence of the octogenarian and inherits his existential legacy.
Memory in Montero’s novel therefore functions not only as a personal phenomenon, but as a collective one that must be shared with others. By receiving—and digesting—Félix’s memories as if they were her own, Lucía and the octogenarian resist the politically enforced forgetting that was characteristic of Francoism and the Transition periods and allow the past to live on in and through future generations. Unlike traditional, androcentric versions of the past, the novelist calls attention to the hybrid, collaborative nature of Lucía’s account, which includes both male and female perspectives. Montero presents remembrance as a responsibility toward the past, the future, and the other by expanding on what María Teresa León has called “transmemory,” the collective sharing and incorporation of others’ life experiences.
La hija del Caníbal suggests that all living beings possess a cannibalistic tendency, for we are forever giving, taking, and connecting with one another. While expounding on the cannibal trope to underscore its relation to the formation and assimilation of identity or identities, Montero (or is it Romero?) positions the reader as yet another cannibal-consumer who devours the text and the philosophies developed therein. After consuming the account, the reader, or “other,” is forever changed as s/he
137 digests (consumes and concurrently reflects on) her or his own existence and philosophies. Montero’s portrayal of the interrelation between personal and collective identities, histories and memories is a crucial one, as it stresses the continual interdependency and influence of the one on the other, something which can be applied to gender relations and the relations between the present and past. With the help of her protagonists, Montero evinces a wounded Spanish nation laden with fissures and scars, which serve as reminders of a long suppressed and painful history that must finally be acknowledged and retold. Throughout the narrative, Montero’s characters swap stories about the physical and emotional scars that inform their memory and, in the process, give a voice to the once silence(d) victims of a cannibalistic, amnesic culture.
1 Jeffrey Alexander claims that cultural trauma takes place when members of a collectivity feel they have been subjected to a horrendous event that leaves permanent marks upon their group consciousness, “marking their memories forever and changing their future identity in fundamental and irrevocable ways” (3).
2 Maggie Kilgour argues that the concept of cannibalism brings to light questions of difference and identity: “cannibalism involves both the establishing of absolute difference, the opposites of eater and eaten, and the dissolution of that difference, through the act of incorporation which identifies them, and makes the two one” (240).
3 Robert Spires maintains that the Spanish novel of the late 1970s no longer focuses exclusively on the story itself, but rather on “the process of creating the story, either through the act of writing or through the act of reading” (16), which I believe can still be relevant to the narrative of the 1990s.
4 Montero has been very clear in her conviction that militant feminism and essentialist positions have no place in literature (Interview with Rosa Montero, October 1993), particularly hers, and that radical feminist criticism should not be forced upon a literary text in order to maintain “una tesis feminista absurda” (233). The novelist shares this
138 belief with fellow women writers Abad, Fernández Cubas and Puértolas, as stated in the interview conducted by Vicente Carmona et al. While Montero’s first three novels reveal clear feminist undertones, literary critics Catherine Davies and Javier Escudero have argued that her later work lacks overt, if any, references to feminism. In La narrativa de Rosa Montero, Escudero argues that the feminist label has negatively influenced the appreciation of the author’s work and that it is not as relevant as some critics have claimed (14-16). He does maintain, however, that Montero’s decision to center her attention on the female subject in her narratives is intended to criticize the different systems of power that limit the individual in contemporary society (16). 5 The timeframe during which the novel is related is significant, for the New Year is often considered the best time to make changes and reinvent oneself, a theme that will resonate throughout the text as the protagonist seeks to draft a new sense of identity in the wake of her husband’s disappearance.
6 The rejection of her mother as role model or as a symbol of her ineluctable destiny indicates Lucía’s anxieties regarding 1) the aging process, 2) the repetition of her mother’s past mistakes, and similarly 3) a lack of progress from one generation to the next.
7 While describing the accident, Lucía admits that she had been a primípara añosa [an old, pregnant mare], as it had taken her many years to decide whether or not she would ever have children. She recalls that it took a considerable amount of determination to finally vanquish “esa voz interior que me aconsejaba que no tuviera hijos” [that internal voice that advised me to never have children], the requirement for survival that her mother had so often whispered in her ear (314).
8 The theme of el desamor, or the disenchantment with love (and with other aspects of life), is a prevalent theme throughout Montero’s work, perhaps most noticeably in her second novel La crónica del desamor (1979).
9 Much like Montero’s Temblor (1990) and Bella y oscura (1993), in La hija del Caníbal it is the principal narrator who progresses from a position of ignorance and insecurity to one of knowledge and stability. Similarly, the primary narrative voice relies on the authority and testimony of a secondary narrator (in this case, Félix), representative of wisdom and experience, to direct her in her maturation process.
10 In tandem with postmodern literary strategies, Lucía senses that she is a spectator of her own life, as if she were caught up in someone else’s plot. Guy Debord affirms that “In societies where modern conditions of production prevail, all of life presents itself as an immense accumulation of spectacles” (7).
11 Similarly, Montero’s text also blurs the supposed distinction between historical truth and fiction, as the author cleverly incorporates various names and events from early
139 twentieth-century-Spanish history into the narrative. Furthermore, the novel begins with what appears to be a type of prologue, in which Montero cites the biographical sources that inform the historical context of La hija del Caníbal. She reminds her readers that if certain aspects of the novel seem real, it is only because “la realidad es una materia vidriosa que a menudo se empeña en imitar a la ficción” [reality is deceiving thing that often tries to imitate fiction] (8). The re-writing of history is presented as a reconstructive, inventive, and manipulative process that (like Lucía’s text), deliberately or not, overemphasizes certain events while omitting others. What is more, Montero’s prologue foregrounds the metafictional and intertextual quality of the entire account, reiterating the complex relationship that exists between history, fiction, and reality.
12 In his explication of the autobiographical mode, Philippe Lejeune defines autobiography as “[r]etrospective prose narrative written by a real person concerning his own existence, where the focus is his individual life, in particular the story of his personality” (On Autobiography 19).
13 In Vilarós’s study, entitled El mono del desencanto: una crítica cultural de la transición española, the critic admits that her depiction and consideration of Spanish culture during the Transition are heavily influenced by her own personal experience with it. She claims that, at times, her analysis adopts an autobiographical, subjective tone, nevertheless she believes that her personal story is representative of Spanish History, reminiscent of feminism’s dictum that the personal is political: “mi historia sí es Historia” (22).
14 In response to the Freudian notion that female sexuality represents a lack and the Lacanian contention that the phallus is the ultimate signifier of desire, French feminist philosophers have worked to undermine the Symbolic Order of language and culture dictated by Lacan’s “law of the Father.” These feminist theorists have sought to create a new way of expressing themselves in a language closer to the female body and identified with the mother and not the father. Hélène Cixous stresses the need for an escape from “male desires for mastery and domination” through a rewriting of woman’s place in history.
15 It is interesting to note that Equatorial Guinea (a former Spanish colony), along with many other West African—and later, Caribbean cultures—is a country that has been said to engage in anthropophagic practices. In recent years, the cannibal trope has resurfaced, as current Guinean President Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo has embraced the label, boasting that he eats the body parts of his political opponents.
16 During the search for her husband, Lucía questions what it is that makes her the same person today that she was when she was a young girl and realizes that her body, perhaps like her identity, has changed and is no longer the same: “Tampoco mi cuerpo sigue siendo el mismo: no sé dónde leí que cada siete años renovamos todas las células de nuestro organism. Así es que ni siquiera mis huesos, de los que hubiera esperado cierta
140 contumacia y continuidad, son presencias fiables en el tiempo.” [My body isn’t even the same—I don’t know where I read that every seven years we renew all the cells of our organism. Therefore, not even my bones, from which I would have expected a certain degree of obstinacy and continuity, are trustworthy presences over time.] (51).
17 Although I mention earlier that Lucía suffers from a narrative schizophrenia, the fact that Félix and Adrián serve as her alter egos resembles the description of Dissociative Identity Disorder, a psychiatric condition in which an individual displays multiple personalities or identities. Clearly, Lucía’s case is not a literal or clinical one, yet, it is interesting to consider the similarities between her experience and the clinical causes of the condition: “the interaction of overwhelming stress, traumatic antecedents, insufficient childhood nurturing, and an innate ability to dissociate memories or experience from consciousness.”
18 Lucía’s appropriation and incorporation of Félix’s testimonial account calls attention to the existence of a collective Spanish history and memory that encompass the silenced and the exalted, a history that belongs to everyone.
19 It should be noted that neither Félix nor Adrían fit the mold of the stereotypical machista male. Both men show solidarity with the protagonist, and help her in the search for her husband and ultimately herself. They empower Lucía rather than repress her, and seem to be repulsed by the endemic corruption of contemporary society.
20 Interestingly, Saturn, or Chronos (the personification of time in Classical Antiquity), who devoured his own sons, is often identified as “Father Time.”
21 Although French feminist theory has not had as strong an influence in Spain as in the United States or Great Britain, the impact of the concept of l’écriture féminine and its relation with Montero’s novel should not be ignored. As Elizabeth J. Ordóñez notes in her research on Spanish feminist fiction in the post-Franco era, the 1980s brought more feminist literature and theory from abroad, “bringing with its presence a tendency among young women writers to often identify more with foreign models than with their own Spanish literary foremothers” (Voices of Their Own 127).
22 Curiously, writer Sylvia Plath equates the mother’s mouth with the womb in her novel, The Bell Jar.
Chapter 3
Re-Fashioning the “Female Gothic”: Awakened Ghosts, Mistaken Identities, and Multiple Selves in Espido Freire’s Melocotones helados
In woman, personal history blends together with the history of all women, as well as national and World history. As a militant, she is an integral part of all liberations. —Hélène Cixous, “The Laugh of the Medusa”
"Female Gothic" narratives are known for their exposure of the problems of female oppression and persecution (Heiland156) within a misogynist society, and seek to examine and redefine notions of sexuality and power in such a highly gendered and patriarchal context. In short, “Female Gothic” writers fashioned their own peculiar feminism that yielded empowering (female-created) fantasies that countered those of their male counterparts. Considered by female novelists to be a coded expression whereby they could stealthily communicate to their female audience a growing sense of displeasure with the patriarchal establishment of the time (Hoeveler 5), the “Female
Gothic” novel of the nineteenth century is a translation of the conventional Gothic created by female writers to address the intolerable pressures on women in phallocentric society (Stein 126). While Moer’s “Female Gothic” label often references strictly nineteenth-century British texts—namely, those of Radcliffe, Shelley, and the Brontë sisters—and their influence on women’s literature of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, little critical attention has been given to the relationship between the genre and its influence on the postmodern Spanish novel.1 The present chapter seeks to
142 underscore the continued silencing and persecution of women at the brink of the twenty- first century, as illustrated through a contemporary Gothic Spanish text that adjusts the genre to question the reasons for women’s sustained suffering and propose the need for a more effective feminist discourse.
With the onset of Generation X popularity in Spain in the 1990s, many Peninsular novelists choose to depict the socio-political and moral desencanto of the time (Urioste
466), a sense of disillusionment with the democratic transition that echoes the pessimism and despair of the Gothic texts of the Victorian fin de siècle.2 Perhaps with the exception of Ana María Matute, Cristina Fernández Cubas, and Adelaida García Morales, few female Spanish novelists have been linked to the “Female Gothic” in the latter half of the twentieth century. Nevertheless, Abigail Lee Six compellingly argues in a recent study
(2010) that Espido Freire’s novel, Diabulus in musica (2001), can be read through a contemporary Gothic prism, given its distinctive theme of duplication. Curiously, however, Six’s analysis neglects to address the role of the Gothic in Freire’s earlier novels, specifically Irlanda (1998) and Melocotones helados (1999), which subvert the fantastic and conventional fairy tale genres and pay homage to the literary production of nineteenth-century British novelists Jane Austen and the Brontës.3 Freire effectively revises and combines the fantastic and fairy tale traditions with various tropes commonly associated with the Gothic—generally understood as a subgenre of the fantastic—to create a feminist-inspired fairy tale or ghost story that reflects a late twentieth-century
Spanish culture still haunted by its recent past and conditioned by the repression and machista propaganda of the Franco regime. It is through her engagement with the popular mode, whether in ghost stories, fairy tales, and legends, and by way of her refashioning
143 of the “Female Gothic,” that in Melocotones helados Freire is capable of bringing to the fore “verdades ocultas” [hidden truths] that have been repressed by a culture which has sought to disremember a painful past and refuses to recognize the dangerous implications of historical amnesia.4 She stresses that Spain’s reluctance to acknowledge the past inevitably leads to its misunderstanding and ensuing return in spectral form. By appropriating the Gothic’s fascination with the past and its phantoms (Punter, “The
Gothic,” 156), and combining it with the “Female Gothic’s” criticism of the status quo in the domestic realm, the novelist salvages and revises what she considers to be a suppressed and forgotten (female) history, proposing the need for a new, recalibrated feminist consciousness.
In the present study, I read Freire’s second novel, Melocotones helados, through a
“Female (or Feminist) Gothic” lens so as to show how Gothic conventions serve the author’s own preoccupations with female identity and agency at the end of a twentieth century characterized by socio-political and moral disenchantment, or desencanto. Like
Castro and Montero, Freire carefully relates the deliberate forgetting of recent history to an existing crisis in female identity, and stresses its potentially tragic ramifications for the women in the novel. By expounding on the themes of absence, secrecy, and historical ignorance, the novelist reveals that sixty years of political repression and the suppression of historical “truths” correlate with the silencing of female perspectives and experience, thereby effectively illustrating the Gothic theme of female subjugation. Although Freire’s text does not show the most obvious characteristics of the genre—haunted castles, gloomy landscapes, and the classic image of the locked-up madwoman—the novelist employs and revises a series of Gothic motifs in order to produce in her readers a
144 heightened sense of cultural crisis in contemporary Spanish society. More specifically,
Freire employs the typical Gothic themes of female persecution, oppression, and violence against women to insert into the narrative her own not-so-veiled critique of patriarchal institutions and troubled gender relations. She links women’s problematic internalization of conventional gender norms to inevitable self-destruction, and in the process incites a potentially subversive feminist awareness in her protagonists and readers. Through her female characters, Freire infuses the novel with a sense of urgency for the recuperation of forgotten histories and the creation of a new, more effective feminist discourse that calls on women to refuse complicity with the status quo.
Reminiscent of the Gothic tradition, the novel appropriates the motifs of haunting family secrets and the return of the past in spectral form, predetermination, variations on madness and masochism, and the systematic oppression and silencing of women. These
Gothic elements help to expose a pervasive problem in late twentieth- and early twenty- first-century Spanish society: the perpetuation of a historically-ignorant, repressive, and misogynist atmosphere that hinders social progress and propagates atavism. These literary devices must not be isolated from the rest, for they are interrelated themes that, in some form or another, accentuate the chaotic duplication and fragmented subjectivity of the female characters. One of the primary Gothic motifs explored in this chapter is the duplicity and blurred nature of identity, manifest in Freire’s consideration of the female doppelgänger and the typically Gothic fear of the Other (woman).5 The recurrent device of the double or splintered self exposes not only the existential fears and uncertainties felt by the women of the millennium era, but also the manifestation of their spectral status, for the figure of the doppelgänger evokes the return of the ghosts of the past (Cuñado
145 117). The female subject is depicted as an allegorical figure that not only interprets a specific role within the text but also represents the experience(s) of the female population at large, hence serving a subtle, didactic purpose. Therefore, Melocotones expands on the claim that “the personal is political,” by making the particular cases of its female protagonists universally relevant.
Jo Labanyi contends that “the whole of modern Spanish culture can be read as one big ghost story” (Constructing Identity 1), haunted, as it is, by the neglected memory of its history. Labanyi notes that in Specters of Marx (1994), Derrida portrays ghosts as the traces of those who were not allowed to leave a trace; they are the repressed victims, or losers, of history, whose stories have been erased from conscious memory by the victors
(“Theorizing” 1, 6). As the forgotten victims of the past, [women’s] ghosts return to demand reparation, and thus insist that their name be acknowledged (Labanyi “History”
66). These spirits are a constant, yet muffled, reminder of the inconvenient truths surrounding the events of the Civil War and the consecutive thirty-six years of Francoist repression: that memories have been so deliberately suppressed throughout recent
Spanish history.
In the epigraph taken from Konstantin Kavafis’ poem, “The City,” Freire prepares her readers for the nostalgic, spectral undercurrent that pervades her novel, reminding them of the Gothic sense of the inescapability of the past. The allusion to the poem anticipates the novelist’s portrayal of the tension between remembrance and oblivion and her consideration of the repetitive, cyclical nature of history. As Cuñado says of Javier
Marías’s body of work, Freire invokes the stylistic and thematic techniques of repetition, circularity, the dead, and the fragmented memory of the past to emphasize the spectrality
146 of her text (27). The continuity and permeability of supposed temporal boundaries underscore the uncanny correspondences between past and present. “Every effort of mine is condemned by fate,” declares the poetic voice of Kavafis’s poem. Instead, the poet reveals to the interlocutor that he will never locate the external solution to a problem that is rooted in him, for it will follow him wherever he decides to go: “You will always arrive in this city. To another land—do not hope—there is no ship for you, there is no road.” The epigraph elicits the relapse and eternal return discernable throughout the novel, not to mention the futility of attempting to evade one’s past, present, or future condition.
Although it is not clear where or when the novel takes place, many contextual details remind the reader of twentieth-century Spain: the fictional city of Desrein can be likened to the industrial city of Bilbao, and the battle of Besra is similar to the Battle of the Ebro, the last great Republican offensive in the Spanish Civil War. As with many of
Freire’s other novels, the action of Melocotones transpires in a time parallel to a reality that is in constant dialogue with the past. By choosing to situate her novel in a seemingly ambiguous setting and time, Freire calls further attention to the deliberate censoring and manipulation of historical memory carried out by the Spanish state. While the novelist clearly appears to be referencing a particularly Spanish problem, the lack of spatial or temporal specificity points to a more widespread crisis.6 Freire’s effective use of metaphors and constant confusion of past and present events allow her to draw parallels between the fictional reality of her novel and the actual problems of contemporary society. For example, through her depiction of the allegorical La Orden del Grial [The
147 Order of the Grail] the novelist criticizes the violence and oppressive forces present in contemporary (Spanish) culture as well.
Narrated by an omniscient, third-person narrator, Melocotones helados recounts the experiences of three women of the same name and family, whose lives and fates continuously parallel and intersect with one another only to contribute to instances of mistaken identity and existential angst. As the victims of a covert pact of silence, neither of the younger Elsas has a clear understanding of her familial past; while each knows that she is named after an aunt she never met, neither knows anything about the latter’s mysterious disappearance forty-five years before. The narrative voice first introduces the reader to protagonist Elsa grande, a painter, who is the recipient of a series of mysterious death threats from a religious cult. Recognizing that her life may be in danger, she feels compelled to leave her home, source of livelihood, and significant other with the hope of seeking asylum with her grandfather, Esteban, in a nearby city. Elsa grande soon learns that the threatening phone calls and letters she received prior to her departure were in fact intended for her younger cousin, with whom she shares both her first and last names. Elsa pequeña, a troubled young woman who is seemingly different from her older cousin, falls prey to the predatory recruitment tactics of La Orden del Grial—a cult that targets young, marginalized, and dissatisfied members of society so as to exploit them for their money and blind allegiance to a sinister cause. Her desperate need for acceptance and a heightened sense of identity solidify her willingness to submit completely to the questionable philosophy and practices of the cult. Her indoctrination and eventual abandonment and indictment of the group prove to be fatal, as she is ultimately silenced.
Although the novel centers on serious, detailed cases of misogyny and the abuse of
148 women, these occurrences are narrated with a certain degree of coldness and desensitization that camouflages an underlying feminist message to the reader.7
Forced to seek asylum in the fictional city of Duino—a journey that is representative of a return to roots for the protagonist—Elsa grande is surprised to find her grandfather’s house in a state of disarray resulting from a recent termite invasion. Freire appropriates Gothic conventions in her portrayal of Esteban’s residence, a home whose frenzied interior and structural damage reflect the old man’s psychological torment. The termite invasion is emblematic of the disintegration and decay of Esteban’s family unit due to past and existing feelings of resentment, missed opportunities, and the presence of disturbing and incriminating secrets that have never been revealed. Moreover, the presence of the unwanted insects doubles as the haunting return of feared and undesirable memories to both Esteban and his home. As Hogle claims that within the space of the home “are hidden some secrets from the past (or the recent past) that haunt the characters psychologically, physically […] to manifest unresolved crimes or conflicts that can no longer be successfully buried from view” (2). Out of curiosity, Elsa grande begins to peruse the collection of family mementos and artifacts that her grandfather has tried to ignore over the years: old menus, wedding invitations, and photographs from years gone by. It is here, specifically, that a discourse involving the suppression of history first enters
Melocotones helados, for the keepsakes Elsa discovers have likely been stowed away and consigned to oblivion for decades. Repressed memories and ghosts of the past emerge from trunks filled with personal effects and from the nooks and crannies of the house itself. Largely unaware of her family’s history, she feels compelled to learn more about it, though she cannot rely on her grandfather or father to assist her in her endeavor. She
149 must attempt to fill in the fissures of her family’s past on her own, so as to gain a better understanding of her own identity and present reality.
The past endures as a ghostly (and feminine) presence, returning to haunt those who have attempted to control and suppress it. Calling to mind the politics of memory prevalent throughout the Franco and Transition years, Freire depicts memory and forgetting as deliberate and gendered concepts. The text narrates a secret-keeping web in which male characters—the young women’s grandfather, their fathers, Miguel and
Carlos, an employee of the family business, César, and the men of La Orden del Grial— conspire to preserve their own innocence and the status quo by silencing all remnants of female memory.8 As with Spain’s pacto de olvido, these men seem to be united by an agreement of silence and repression that allows them to control and bury past memories with the intention of concealing all traces of culpability relating to past indiscretions.
Women (namely Elsita, Elsa grande, Elsa pequeña, and Antonia), along with their accounts, perspectives, and histories, are among those who are forcefully forgotten by the novel’s male characters. This is evidenced in the omission or erasure of their perspective regarding events of the past as portrayed throughout the novel, particularly with respect to Esteban’s amorous relationships with mother-daughter cabaret owners, Rosa and Silvia
Kodama (a possible homage to Borges, whose widow is María Kodama) and his wife,
Antonia.9 After marrying Antonia, Esteban fervently tries to erase the Kodamas from his memory and refuses to reveal anything to Antonia about his past or internal struggle, and instead, as the narrative voice suggests, “[l]a historia de Esteban continuó sin ser contada” [Esteban’s story remained untold] (109). While the narrator insinuates that
Esteban has forgotten Elsita and the days surrounding her puzzling disappearance and
150 probable death (89-90), his palpable psychological torment indicates otherwise, for he is still haunted by her ghost, despite trying to convince himself that she is gone forever.
Both she and Silvia evoke a past that he dreads and wishes he could erase. Just as the act of remembering requires a concerted effort on the part of the individual, so does the task of disremembering. Total amnesia, given that it is self-imposed, is impossible, as disremembering, unlike the more passive act of forgetting, is an active and conscious process. Esteban suppresses his pain, his memories and his bitterness throughout the years, becoming a victim of his own devices: “él callaba, […] sonreía y escondía aún más su pena” [he was silent, […] smiled and further concealed his suffering] (138).
In a manner analogous to Spanish society’s attempt to censure the historical crimes of its past, César and Carlos choose to remain silent and not tell the truth regarding Elsita’s whereabouts and the events leading to her disappearance, hence perpetuating the falsification and ignorance of (family) history. Carlos, the only person who definitively knows of Elsita’s death after having found her body on the mountainside, chooses to keep his sister’s death a mystery. After stumbling upon her,
Carlos “la enterró y calló […]. El miedo obligaba a adoptar resoluciones extrañas”
[buried her and never said a word […]. Fear caused one to make strange decisions] (308).
Elsita’s makeshift burial serves as a metaphor for the impetuous, myopic desire to forget the misfortunes of the past and erase all evidence of culpability. Because her remains are barely concealed, Freire stresses the superficial and erroneous representation of progress so desired by the falsifiers of history. While Carlos and Miguel form a pact to never forget their dead sister—a promise whose premise, while based on a very different objective, is, ironically, reminiscent of Spain’s pact of oblivion—the narrator reveals that,
151 unlike his mother, Carlos does not want his sister to reappear, but instead prays that “la vida normal cayera como un manto cálido sobre ellos y alejara de una vez las sensaciones descarnadas de las noches de búsqueda, el llanto de su madre y el prolongado sufrimiento del padre” [all would return to normal and that the cruel memories of the nights searching for his sister would seem distant, and that his mother’s weeping and his father’s prolonged suffering would soon end] (95-96).10
Evidence of Elsita’s spectral presence and memory abounds throughout the account, haunting the male characters with the realization that they will never escape history or its phantoms. Despite Carlos and Miguel’s mutual agreement, Elsita is forgotten—and intentionally, for that matter. The truth surrounding her premature death is never revealed, as her account is forever silenced in death. In the light of Derrida’s assertions, it is the conscious suppression of Elsita’s memory and the calculated erasure of her brief life story that cause her ghost to linger and haunt the various generations of her family. Because she is nowhere to be found and has been denied a burial and gravestone, Elsita and her memory are considered neither dead nor alive, a fact that contributes to her wandering, spectral status. Without the inscription of her name on a gravestone (a lieu de mémoire), it is as if Elsita never existed. Carlos, whose efforts to suppress the truth regarding his sister’s whereabouts, fears that her (vindictive and restless) spirit will escape her makeshift tomb and return to them in a gust of wind, seeking reparations:
No hubo funeral por la niña Elsa: su nombre, una lápida en mitad del
olvido, no habitaba en el cementerio. […] Escondía una historia que no
había sido contada. Sabía, también, que el fantasma de la niña revolteaba
152 cerca de la superficie, […] apenas cubierta por una capa de arena. Y que
un viento enfurecido podría desenterrarla y traerla de vuelta entre ellos.
[…] Y pensar en ello, en la fragilidad de la muerte y del descanso de los
muertos, le aterrorizaba.
[There was no funeral for little Elsa: her name, a headstone lost in
oblivion, did not inhabit the cemetery. […] He concealed a (hi)story that
had never been told. He also knew that the ghost of the little girl lingered
near the surface, […] hardly covered by a layer of soil. He knew that a
gust of wind could unearth her and bring her back to them. […] And the
thought of the fragility of death and the repose of the dead terrified him.]
(114-115)
Because Elsita’s story is never told, she not only represents the conventional silenced female victim of the Gothic mode, but also the “forgotten” casualties of Spain’s civil conflict, namely women and children, and anyone associated with the Republican effort.
Elsita’s undetermined whereabouts relegate her to the status of a “desaparecida,” or even one that is “forgotten.” Her death is never confirmed nor are her physical remains ever knowingly found. Fittingly, her nieces, Elsa grande and Elsa pequeña, could also be considered “desaparecidas” [disappeared] or fugitives, in that they both must seek exile and disappear from public society for an indefinite period of time. While they are still technically alive, they must become invisible in order to survive, and therefore assume a ghostly presence, similar to that of Elsita. Consequently, the cousins, like their aunt, are neither completely living nor dead, but rather, embodiments of the “living-dead.”
According to Avery Gordon, ghosts give “embodiment to those figures from the past who
153 have been rendered invisible: that is, the “desaparecidos” (qtd. in Labanyi 70). For
Gordon, ghosts are the ‘might have beens’ of history that return as a feasible, embodied alternative reality; or, the actual form in which the past lives on in the present. Therefore, the traces of Elsita’s specter live on in her nieces, and Elsa grande and Elsa pequeña could very well be manifestations of their aunt’s spirit. Gordon claims that the memories of the lost and disappeared must be honored because they impart a different kind of knowledge, an understanding of problematic, existing social institutions that need to be modified to guarantee a more conscientious society. She writes that the ghost reminds the haunted that, while it is barely visible and often forgotten (8), it cannot be completely erased and must be acknowledged.11
Elsita’s improperly buried body “resides” on the mountainside—much like a living being would—a fact that causes her to resemble what Derrida would describe as
“the living-dead” (Specters of Marx), or the “un-dead,” reminiscent of the Gothic genre.12
As a ghost, Elsita tries to communicate with or warn those who pass by her resting place, however she soon realizes that to do so is futile, for death has silenced her and the indifference of the living has rendered her impotent. She is a mere “fantasmita pequeño, apenas el espectro de una niña, y hacía todo lo que podía. Eso era lo terrible de la muerte.
Gritar y que nadie la oyera. Presenciar en silencio las desgracias. Como le pasaba con
Elsa pequeña” [little ghost, hardly the specter of a girl, and she did what she could. That was what was terrible about death. To yell and not be heard. To witness misfortunes in silence. Like those of Elsa pequeña] (308). Both young women, irrespective of their ontological status, must endure their pain and torture in silence, as their voices are muffled and thus ineffective. Formally speaking, Elsita’s premonitions, warnings, and
154 wishes are differentiated from the rest of the text, as they are written in italics—a technique that in this case stresses the young girl’s otherness: “Fue ella, ya fría y azul, con el aliento de la vida acabado, quien le susurró a su hermano, entiérrame, Carlos, no me dejes sola en mitad del monte, no permitas que me olviden, no te vayas nunca del todo, Carlos” [It was she, now cold, blue, and breathless, who whispered to her brother, bury me, Carlos, do not leave me alone on this hill, do not allow them to forget me, never leave for good, Carlos] (247). It is unclear whether or not Carlos hears Elsita’s pleas, however it is evident that he is haunted by the discovery and subsequent abandonment of her remains (115).
Years later, in one final effort to communicate with and warn the occasional passerby on the mountain, Elsita tries to make her troubled niece-”daughter” aware of the dangers of her indoctrination and involvement with the cult. Such an attempt echoes the
Gothic feminist impetus for heroines to conspire and rebel against their oppressors.13 As she roams the same mountainside during a purification ritual, Elsa pequeña stumbles upon what, unbeknownst to her, are her dead aunt’s bones. Realizing the impotence of her spectral voice, Elsita employs the physical, and not the audible, to trigger in Elsa pequeña the will to survive and escape her aggressors from La Orden del Grial. Forty- five years before, the little girl had been led to the mountain, and now, as a ghost, “se entretenía, ya muerta, en enviar presagios: los huesos blancos y livianos con los que Elsa pequeña se tropezó, poco antes de escapar en el monte, eran los suyos” [she entertained herself, now dead, in sending omens: the white, lightweight bones on which Elsa pequeña stumbled, soon before escaping the hillside, were hers] (247). The transcendental, cross- generational connection and camaraderie between two women who have been the victims
155 of male oppression and oblivion point to the need for mutual assistance and understanding among women. Because no one else can awaken Elsa pequeña from her trance, it is significant that her aunt’s ghost is finally able to do so. Analogous to the absent or dead mother who is central to the Gothic text, we see here how Elsa pequeña inadvertently “unearths” the buried body of her metaphorical mother and simultaneously redeems her by reasserting what Diane Long Hoeveler, in her analysis of Gothic feminism, claims is the heroine’s “inheritance in a long-lost female-coded tradition” (23).
In the light of Hoeveler’s characterization of the relationship between the female Gothic protagonist and her dead mother (23), by perceiving her aunt’s message, Elsa pequeña— like the Gothic feminist heroine—locates her own body and voice only after liberating and embracing her aunt / ”mother” and, by extension, the ghosts of her past.
The identity crises and confusion experienced by Elsa grande and Elsa pequeña in the present are conditioned by their family’s enigmatic and fragmented history.14 For the two protagonists, the importance of remembering and having a voice strongly correlates to identity formation and realization. Like the traditional Gothic heroine, the young women yearn to uncover and make sense of an effaced past so as to formulate a stronger awareness of the self. As Hoeveler claims in her analysis of Gothic feminism, “The gothic heroine’s goal throughout most of the text is to ascertain the ‘secret’ that the patriarchy has managed to keep from her” (21). Therefore, Freire’s portrayal of female existential angst, dysfunctional family dynamics, and the pervasive inequities in gender- power relations serve as a severe indictment of patriarchal authority. Because of this
(male) refusal and failure to come to terms with personal history, Elsa grande and Elsa pequeña pay for their fathers’ mistakes and are destined to repeat the (missteps of the)
156 past. A lack of communication and the reluctance to discuss the past both within and across generational lines engender historical ignorance and existential angst in the cousins. Furthermore, Miguel, Carlos, and Esteban do little to investigate or reveal the truth regarding the events leading up to Elsita’s disappearance on the hillside, and then attempt to suppress any and all traces of her. It is not until past secrets are uncovered that the Elsas can acquire a clearer understanding of themselves and a stronger desire to change the status quo. In the light of Gordon’s assertions, both Elsas must resolve the enigma of their family history by acknowledging the unseen, banished ghosts of their past so as to move forward and better understand themselves, for without the recognition and incorporation of the marginalized, evolution is impossible (196).
As a result of the forgetting and silencing of the past, the novel’s female protagonists are condemned to repeat the same fate(s) as those who have preceded them, something that Hertz argues is at the heart of the uncanny (97). The Gothic reveals that the active process of forgetting is destined for failure, for in the form of ghosts and haunted spaces, it proves that it is impossible to fully turn away from the past. Neither cousin is truly aware of her family history, nor has either ever met the aunt after whom she was named. It is each girl’s mother who reveals the details of the family’s past, whereas their fathers and grandfather remain silent, imposing the forgetting on everyone else: “Ella y su prima debían el nombre a esa niña. Lo supieron por sus madres, porque los padres nunca mencionaban nada al respecto” [She and her cousin were named after that little girl. They learned this from their mothers, because their fathers never mentioned anything about it to them] (16). Elsita’s ghost haunts her “daughters” and compels them to believe that she represents a muted version of their own destiny—a
157 destiny that, as Dryden asserts in her characterization of tales of doubling, foreshadows elements of Gothic horror and inevitable death (38). As a teenager, Elsa grande decides that it was in very poor taste to name both cousins after their deceased aunt, whose body was never recovered or laid to rest. It is unsettling for her to think that “una tía con dos sobrinas de nombre y apellidos idénticos podría vagar por el mundo, naufragando en todas las confusiones posibles” [an aunt with two nieces whose first and last names were identical could be wandering the earth, in a sea of confusion] (16). Similar to many
Gothic characters, Elsa grande suffers from existential insecurity and paranoia, and fears losing her self in the “Other.” Dryden maintains that to be haunted by another, by a ghost, is uncanny enough, however to be haunted by one’s own double(s) “strikes at the foundations of identity” (41), as the doppelgänger destabilizes the cohesion of the self
(39). Elsa grande’s fearful suspicions foreshadow the eventual chaos and mistaking / blurring of identities that ensue—the mistaking of Elsa grande for Elsa pequeña, all because of the repetition of a name.
The repetition, or recycling, of names within the family unit, while indicative of a desire to keep the past alive further emphasizes the reappearance of the past in a suppressed, spectral form. Ironically, the girls’ fathers name their daughters after Elsita in an effort to memorialize her, however this supposed attempt to sustain her memory is a superficial and false one, for they, along with Esteban, refuse to mention her or invoke her memory at all. Therefore, by impeding the continuity of historical and personal memory, Carlos and Miguel further propagate a crisis of historical consciousness. The
Modern perception of historical progress as “linear and irreversible, flowing irresistibly onwards” (Calinescu 13) is therefore discredited, as it seems that history continually
158 repeats itself with minor variations. In the light of Labanyi’s observations regarding
Spanish culture, I assert that Melocotones helados represents life and culture as a recycling process in which nothing is lost (or gained), but rather, returns in new, hybridized forms, adapting to changed circumstances. Labanyi maintains that this recycling process responds to a view of history as discontinuous but also characterized by doublings-up and superimpositions (“Theorizing” 12). The frequent references to the color red and its significance to each individual (representative of fear for some and rebellion for others, not to mention a color symbolic of the repressed losers / victims of the Civil War), the physical and emotional trajectories of the characters, the repetition of the Elsas’ fates and names, and the recurrence of the number three make it appear as if the women share one common experience.15 Correspondingly, at both the beginning and end of the novel, Freire’s omniscient narrator references society’s attempt to censor and forget the inconvenient memories and ghosts of a traumatic past. At the beginning, the narrator declares that one does not die completely until she or he is forgotten: “Existen muchos modos de matar a una persona y escapar sin culpa… Se olvida todos los días.
Todos los días llega la muerte” [There are many ways in which to kill a person and get away with it… We forget every day. Death is a daily occurence] (10). And at the end of the novel, the narrator echoes similar assertions, but this time in a more decisive manner:
Existen infinitos modos de matar a una persona. […] Existe el olvido,
llega la muerte. Se olvida todos los días […]. No regresan [los muertos] de
la muerte. Ni del olvido. Olvidaron a Elsa tantas veces, tanta gente. A
tantas Elsas. Simplemente, pasó su tiempo, continuó la vida y su lugar fue
ocupado por otras cosas, por otras personas.
159 [There are an infinite number of ways in which to kill a person. […] First,
there is forgetting, and then death arrives. Things and people are forgotten
every day […]. The deceased never return from the dead. Nor from
oblivion. Elsa was forgotten so many times, by so many people. So many
Elsas. Simply, her time passed, life went on and her place came to be
occupied by other things, by other people.] 16 (328, my emphasis)
Because of the ambiguous nature of Freire’s closing sentence, the reader is hard-pressed to discern which of the Elsa’s the narrator is referencing, as if there were no recognizable difference between the three women. Moreover, it is insinuated that the Elsa in question will be replaced by, or reincarnated in, another “Elsa.” The placement of such pronouncements—and the confusion regarding the actual identity of the mentioned
Elsa—serves to assign the novel a distinctive narrative frame and further emphasizes the circularity, interconnectedness and spectral nature of life.
According to Nietzsche’s interpretation of “eternal recurrence,” the past returns and is repeated an infinite number of times in the present. As mentioned above, the manner in which the novel begins and ends underlines this very notion and the typically
Gothic fear that there is no escape from an oppressive present. In commencing and concluding the account in a similar fashion, the narrative voice stresses the cyclical nature of life, which in this case indicates that a certain degree of repression and censorship still exists in contemporary, “democratic” society, and that progress—and success—has yet to be achieved. The idea that the two cousins are destined to repeat their aunt’s tragic fate is suggestive of the inevitability and pessimism characteristic of predetermination. While Nietzsche’s theory may initially seem pessimistic, the concept of
160 eternal recurrence or eternal return also subscribes to the idea that the circles of life improve with time, eternally returning until reaching their perfect form after many flawed attempts. Therefore, it is possible that by the end of the novel Elsa grande has reached a more perfect status, and more ideal fate, than those of the other Elsas. Nietzsche believed that the question “Do you desire this once more and innumerable times more?” would either defeat the individual—or society—or lead him or her to transform their life and break with the mistakes of the past. Nevertheless, the following citation illustrates
Freire’s fixation with the perpetual duplication of time, events, and individual identity:
Pero habían ocurrido muchas cosas, demasiadas mentiras, demasiadas
historias no contadas, demasiadas palabras ocultas y venenosas que se
repetían una y otra vez, como si fueran las mismas. Por eso el tiempo
parecía repetirse. Como los nombres se repetían (Elsa grande, Elsa
pequeña, la niña Elsa, Antonia, Antonio), se repetían también los hechos,
las huidas. Se repetían las palabras. Las historias.
[But many things had happened, too many lies, and too many (hi)stories
left untold, too many hidden and poisonous words that were repeated over
and over again, as if they were all the same. For that reason, time seemed
to repeat itself. Just as names were repeated (Elsa grande, Elsa pequeña,
little Elsa, Antonia, Antonio), events and escapes were also repeated.
Repeated words. (Hi)stories.] (Freire 98)
The narrator’s words seem laden with pessimism and frustration, as evidenced by the constant use of the adjective “demasiado.” It is as if the narrative voice were reflecting the resignation and compliance of the characters to repeat a past whose force
161 they consider to be too potent to escape. The author’s utilization of recurrence and repetition throughout the novel operates as a metaphor for the continuation of Francoist institutions and missteps in Transition and post-Transition Spain, and more specifically, of Spanish culture’s recurring oppression of women. Joan Ramon Resina maintains that
“[a]tavism, relapse, non-contemporaneity” and anachronism (11) are all common descriptors of the Transition period in Spain. He claims that a “specter is haunting Spain”
(11), one that is symbolic of the “return of the repressed.” The propensity for a relapse of the past can be attributed to the nation’s aversion to confronting its recent history. In order to break with this trend, Gordon proposes that the haunting and ghostly facets of life must be dealt with if these forces are ever to be minimized or eradicated.
The implications of historical amnesia are palpable in the perpetuation of female subordination across generations. While women are often depicted as the victims of male oppression in the novel, Freire establishes that they, too, are complicit in their own victimization and the propagation of gender stereotypes. Antonia, who suspects that
Esteban has been keeping secrets from her, chooses to remain passive and oblivious to her husband’s previous indiscretions, relationships, and existing regrets throughout the remainder of their marriage. Not unlike her husband, she prefers to disregard her frustration with reality and immerse herself in the fantastical realm of novelas rosa and fairy tales instead; her reading and imaginative mind, not to mention the anesthetic effect of the novels, limit her ability to distinguish between reality and fiction, a trait that is also inherited by her only daughter.17 Depicted by the narrative voice as a naive and emotionally unstable woman, Antonia appropriates and internalizes gender stereotypes endorsed by women’s magazines, fairy tales, and patriarchal discourse. As a young,
162 unmarried woman, she daydreams about her sentimental future and possibilities of marriage, believing that “[a]lgún día aparecería un caballero y, sin ni siquiera mirarla, la elegiría” [someday a gentleman would appear and, without even looking at her, he would choose her] (107).
After marrying Esteban, she continues believing in the impossible and living in a fantasy world, similar to the ones described in her romance novels. This tendency serves as a defense mechanism for Antonia, for if she did not maintain a certain level of naiveté, her reality would most likely be a painful disappointment. She uses the novelas rosa and fairy tales as a means of escape from her unsatisfying situation. After Elsita’s disappearance, Antonia convinces herself that: “El resto de sus sueños permanecían intactos. […] Cualquier día despertaría y se encontraría que la guerra aún no había comenzado, que ella era joven y soltera, y que todo había sido un mal sueño. Mientras tanto, leía novelas rosa” [The rest of her dreams remained intact. […] Any day now, she would awake and realize that the war had not yet begun, that she was young and single, and that everything had been a bad dream. In the meantime, she read romance novels]
(144). Although the nightmare to which the narrator refers above most likely relates to the trauma of Elsita’s disappearance, Antonia’s desire to wake up and discover that she is young and single again implies that she is generally unhappy with the course her life has taken and that she would do things differently if she had the chance. She exercises no authority or autonomy in her life, for while she runs the pastry shop, her husband is still technically her supervisor and moneylender: “Quien mandaba en la pastelería, quien era obedecido ciegamente, era su marido” [The person who really was in charge of the pastry shop, who was obeyed blindly, was her husband] (130). No one listens to her or takes her
163 ideas seriously; her pleas are ignored and she is silenced. After her death, Esteban reflects on Antonia’s life and recognizes that she never had anything to call her own: “no había poseído nada propio; ni siquiera una opinión. Era él quien se las dictaba” [she never had anything to call her own; not even an opinion. It was he who expressed them for her]
(139). In retrospect, he feels that he should have paid more attention to her and her desires, nevertheless, he still tries to convince himself of the possibility that Antonia was indeed happy with her role as wife and mother, “y una esposa así, sumisa pero feliz, era lo que él había deseado” [and such a wife, who was submissive but happy, was what he had wanted] (139). Esteban does not consider his desire for a submissive but content wife to be a paradox or an ingenuous patriarchal fantasy, but rather, a model to which all women should aspire.18
Not surprisingly, Elsita inherits her mother’s obsession with fantasy and fairy tales, as she believes that “no había nada más femenino que atarse las piernas” [there was nothing more feminine than tying one’s legs] (117), or than to remain inactive and pure
(123). After reading about foot binding in her teacher’s encyclopedia—which more closely resembles the Gothic than the scholarly—Elsita becomes captivated by the practice and internalizes many of the rituals and beliefs enumerated in the book.19 Her mother’s fascination with fairy tales, chivalric romances and medieval legends are passed down to her daughter, who becomes intrigued by the images of damsels in distress and medieval knights, both representations of hyper-femininity and masculinity. Though an avid reader, Antonia either fails to recognize, or resigns herself to, the fact that fairy tales and romance novels help to reinforce the status quo and the dissemination of exaggerated
164 gender archetypes, and therefore fails to help her daughter identify the blatant sexism and discrimination so characteristic of the fairy tale genre.
Although Antonia expresses concern over her daughter’s practice of foot binding, her apprehension is soon tempered when la Tata reminds her that Elsita most likely read about the custom in the schoolteacher’s encyclopedia (124). Antonia considers the knowledge afforded by erudite texts and various types of literature—fairy tales, legends, chivalric romances, and the Bible—to be representative of a universal truth, regardless of their temporal irrelevance or perpetuation of gender and racial stereotypes.20 By allowing
Elsita to continue reading about and internalizing antiquated, misogynist practices,
Antonia and la Tata contribute to the little girl’s misunderstanding of reality and acceptance of senseless and oppressive rituals. Even before her death, the little girl shamefully remembers that she had been running and jumping all along the path up the mountain, and that her behavior was very uncharacteristic of a respectable lady. The cord
Elsita uses to tie her feet together is evocative of women’s self-imposed oppression and censorship. Ultimately, Elsita’s obsession with embodying the characteristics of extreme femininity, particularly at such a young age, is what leads her to her tragic self- destruction.
The adoption of such restricting conventions and practices is not only limited to the women of the traditional Gothic or past generations (Antonia, Elsita, and the Kodama women), but is passed down to those of today. Freire’s criticism of the perpetuation of female subordination is further emphasized through her depiction of the matrilineal legacy of said traditions and the inability or unwillingness to learn from the past and break with bad habits. All three Elsas are described as being “tied” down, controlled, or
165 constrained in some fashion, be it by physical or psychological restraints. Images of women’s limbs being tied or broken are prevalent throughout the narrative, thus emphasizing the literal and figurative crippling effects of a culture that limits and debilitates women. While theoretically “liberated” (financially, professionally, and even sexually), Elsa grande seems inhibited in her daily life and interactions. Her parents would like for her to travel, see the world, and enjoy life as a young thirty-something, but they suspect that Rodrigo has curbed her spontaneity by “pisote[án]do[le] las alas”
[stepping on her wings] (197). During the week-long Purificaciones with the cult—
“purification” rituals during which the women of the Orden fast and both men and women are required to walk through the mountains, meditate and consume hallucinatory drugs—Elsa pequeña is led to the mountainside as if she were a prisoner, with her hands tied behind her back (163). Her wrists are still restrained during the sexual rituals, in which she and the other women are forced to accept the advances of the Caballeros
[gentlemen, or knights].
Like their aunt, and the conventional Gothic heroine, Elsa pequeña and Elsa grande acquire their grandmother’s attraction, or addiction, to fairy tales and chivalric romances. Surprisingly, even the sensible Elsa grande is influenced by the idealism characteristic of the fairy tale genre, as she secretly wishes that Rodrigo would behave as a gentleman, or as her knight in shining armor who protects her from evil: “demuestra que me amas, sácame de aquí, sé mi héroe” [show me that you love me, take me away, be my hero] (44).21 She has certain expectations established in her mind regarding the adherence to gender roles, and tries to impose them on her unsuspecting and passive boyfriend. Paradoxically, Elsa grande wants, and feels that she needs, a significant other
166 who lives up to the patriarchal ideal of virility. Elsa pequeña, while seemingly opposed to the observance of social conventions, is eventually seduced by the imaginary world of the
Orden.22 As Kietrys argues, the cult resembles a theatrical representation of medieval rituals and chivalric tradition (8) in which gender archetypes are strictly enforced: the
Caballeros enjoy a dominant, indulgent, and almost consequence-free existence, while their female counterparts are relegated to a slave-like status, as they are expected to offer themselves willingly to the masked men whenever they desire it:
A veces, en mitad de la noche, cuando se encontraban en el campo, en los
distintos niveles de la Purificación, aparecían Caballeros con capas rojas y
negras, y escogían a las mujeres que más les gustaban. No debían
resistirse. […] Se les permitía que disfrutaran del sexo como les parecía, y
ellas debían sentirse honradas si las elegían como compañeras.
[Sometimes, in the middle of the night, when they were lying in the field,
in the different levels of Purification, the Caballeros would appear with
their red and black capes, and they would choose the women they desired
the most. They were not to deny them. […] They were allowed to partake
in sexual relations as they saw fit, and the women were expected to feel
honored if they were chosen as partners.] (176)
If they did resist the advances of the Caballeros, the women would be subjected to punishment and a series of beatings. Elsa pequeña follows the rules set forth by the
Orden and obediently lifts her bound wrists above her head when a mysterious and terrifying masked man lies next to her, lifts her robe, and assaults her. However, both the
Caballeros and the narrative voice willfully omit this last detail from the text. By failing
167 to classify Elsa pequeña’s “purification” as rape, her aggressors try to camouflage the gravity of their crime, manipulating their victims into accepting the assault as a necessary rite. The Caballeros’ attempt to legitimize their wrongdoing accentuates patriarchy’s continual occultation and justification of violence against women. Conversely, the narrator’s calculated silence and moral detachment from the act only further emphasizes its horror.23 Even Elsa pequeña wishes to ignore the presence of her assailant or Guía
[Guide], as she keeps her eyes open, fixating on the stars in the night sky, but is careful to avoid the frightening reality of her situation.24 In her self-induced trance, she tries to convince herself that what she likes most about the precepts of the cult is the freedom of being outdoors.
The oppressive, archaic robes required by the cult are another means by which the
Caballeros can restrict female agency and ensure their eventual subordination and indoctrination. Nevertheless, Elsa pequeña secretly hides a scarlet, silk-like material in her closet, knowing that if such an object were to be discovered by the grialistas, she would surely be admonished for her disobedience and locura [madness]. The narrator reveals that sometimes the young protagonist would hold up the cloth to her body and dance around the room before “coming to her senses” and finally folding and returning the garment to her closet. In these intermittent outbursts of clandestine rebellion, Elsa is reminded momentarily of her own subjugation. Despite her nonexistent autonomy, Elsa pequeña trains herself to believe that she is free and content as she roams the hillside and is exploited by those around her.25 The narrator reveals Elsa’s problematic internalization of the cult’s misogynist teachings and her self-inflicted repression:
168 Si hubiera podido elegir, se hubiese limitado a caminar durante días con
sus vestidos largos primorosamente confeccionados, el corpiño floreado,
la falda que cumplía las normas más severas de la Orden, y las manos
atadas. […] Ningún compromiso, ni pasado, ni miedos al futuro.
[If she would have had a choice, she would have limited herself to walking
for days in her long, exquisitely made dresses, flowery bodice, the skirt
that met the most severe standards of the Order, and her hands tied. […]
No obligations, or past, or fears of what the future might bring.] (177)
What is alarming here is that the women of the cult—perhaps representative of the novelist’s characterization of women in contemporary society—believe that they are liberated, yet are still expected to subscribe to gender norms and societal rules that at first glance appear to be reasonable but are, in fact, designed to propagate social inequalities.
As illustrated in the above citation, Elsa’s ability to choose is completely hypothetical—a fact that underscores her inability to choose, and her repression at the hands of the grialistas.
Kietrys remarks that the men of the cult do not want the women to be conscious of their subordinate role within the group, but hope that they believe “falsamente que son libres y que se hallan en el camino correcto para encontrarse a sí mismas de verdad”
[erroneously that they are free and that they are on the right path to finding their true selves] (10).26 Elsa pequeña chooses the man who “discovered” her on the bus to be her spiritual guide, or Guía, who will supposedly help her to determine her “true” identity.
He initially earns credibility with Elsa by accurately detecting that she is in the midst of an existential crisis. Her Guía encourages her to try to ascend in hierarchical ranking
169 within the cult, for he claims that she possesses “grandes dones” [great talents] and that she is “rica en cualidades” [rich in virtues] (177) that she should share with others. This
“sharing” involves her body, as she must acquiesce to her Guía’s sexual advances (sexual assault) and the physical and emotional abuse of the rest of the clan. He tells her that her most celebrated virtues are her willingness to obey her superiors, her beauty, her submissive and tender blue eyes, and, most importantly, her sterility (178).27 The cult, like (Spanish) phallocentric society, privileges female docility, reverence, self-sacrifice, and physical beauty, while condemning any sign of dissent or critical thinking. Elsa’s extreme passivity, in conjunction with her silence and inability to procreate liken her to
Derrida’s notion of the “living-dead.” The apparent death of what was once a rebellious, independently-minded spirit that wanders aimlessly throughout life with no clear destination likens Elsa pequeña to a phantasm. Like the ghost of her deceased aunt, Elsa pequeña roams the mountainside, seemingly disregarded by the whole of society. Clearly,
Freire depicts the Orden as an extreme microcosm of patriarchal society, in which women have been deceived by hegemonic authority into believing that they are liberated, autonomous individuals who should be sufficiently satisfied with their situation in society. They are led to believe that if they are ever unhappy with their mistreatment or deplorable status in society their discontent is unfounded and a product of their own doing. As a result, patriarchal institutions thrive when women are lacking a strong sense of identity.
The female subject is clearly presented as being in a perpetual state of existential crisis, manifested in her alienation, internal fragmentation, and perceived monstrosity, all characteristics of the prototypical Gothic heroine. Stein argues that in Gothic narratives,
170 women display an inherent discord “between a socially acceptable passive, congenial,
‘feminine’ self and a suppressed, monstrous hidden self” (123). As a result of this inner conflict, both Elsa grande and Elsa pequeña are consumed with the desire to resolve the issue of their true identity. Such a quest for selfhood is observed in the recurrent presence of mirrors or paintings (reflective images and portraits that resemble the protagonists), which serve as the places in which the cousins seek themselves. The (Gothic, Borgesian) mirror becomes an object that duplicates their (in-) existence (Linares 216) by introducing the theme of the double and of identity as a fluid, yet fragmentary, concept.28
The visual representation provided by the looking glass can also contribute to the young women’s fears regarding selfhood and can complicate their understanding of the latter. In the courtroom cafeteria, Elsa pequeña catches a glimpse of her reflection on the metallic coffeepot in front of her, and realizes that everything in the image appears deformed and inverted, causing her to resemble a monster (Freire 275). The image not only highlights her apparent physical abnormalities but also an inner, psychological fragmentation in a manner analogous to the child who stares into the concave—or in this case convex— multifaceted fun house mirror and gazes at the distorted, unrecognizable self, or mocking double, looking back at her. The reflection evokes the grotesque nature (esperpento) of contemporary society, most likely rooted in her haunting experience with the cult, her disillusionment with the rehabilitation process after her escape, and with the slow and irregular justice system (277). Moreover, the warped image staring back at her reveals a perceived failure to conform to patriarchy’s ideals of feminine beauty and submissive conduct.29 Her search for truth and agency is considered bizarre and monstrous, and therefore unacceptable to patriarchal culture. Instead of generating a narcissistic reaction
171 in her, the mirror causes Elsa pequeña to feel estranged from herself, not to mention misunderstood and forgotten by the whole of society.
Elsa pequeña’s perceived misrepresentation, or monstrosity, as reflected by the metallic coffeepot, points to the Gothic dichotomy between self and Other. No longer considered separate entities, monstrosity, as Six contends, “is definable as a transgression of boundaries, such as human and animal, alive and dead […]. Thus, limits are effaced or at least challenged in the figure of the monster” (Haunting Words 31). The act of staring at herself in this “mirror,” challenges her longing for individuality by further confusing and blurring her self-image. In this private moment of self-contemplation, Elsa considers that her reflection merges with that of a frightening, unknown identity. Whether she likes it or not, she has been re-formed and re-cast by a misogynist culture; she is no longer the naïve young woman that she was prior to entering the cult. Elsa pequeña is strongly conflicted between her inner and outer selves and is hard-pressed to reconcile the two; her traumatic experiences with the Orden and society, in general, condition her physical and emotional states so deeply that she is unable to fully recognize herself.
The Gothic double plot outline helps to articulate the emotional distress and existential angst experienced by the two Elsas, who have always been defined by their doubleness and their desire for an unambiguous identity, free from the presence of the
“Other.” As Schmid states, the device of the double and situations of fearful persecution reveal manifestations of repression in the form of “thwarted cravings for the unorthodox” and the fear of “otherness” (13). Correspondingly, the presence of the female doppelgänger in Freire’s twenty-first century novel certainly reveals a repressed sense of agency and identity, coupled with a strong desire to challenge patriarchal authority
172 (present in Elsa pequeña’s character). The intricate combination of the double motif allows Freire to confirm the continuing relevance of the definition of identity and whether the self is either whole and uniform or separate from others (32). Perhaps rooted in their shared names, the protagonists define themselves in terms of others (the other
Elsas), and their identities therefore seem at once blurred and fragmented, sometimes causing them to lack individuality.30 Kietrys maintains that the lives and identities of the three Elsas are inextricably intertwined (4), and I propose that said parallels may even be considered reincarnations, for the lives of each Elsa seem to point to a similar, common fate. When Elsa grande contemplates the portrait of the young woman at the end of the novel, she not only recognizes in it her recently deceased cousin, but also the traces of her aunt and herself as well; the portrait here acts as a mirror through which Elsa sees reflected her many contradictory and complementary selves. Similarly, in an earlier instance of self-contemplation, Elsa grande comes across a self-portrait hastily drawn during the period in which she was receiving death threats from the Orden. Although she is indeed the subject of the sketch, the facial expression of the young woman seems hauntingly familiar, yet foreign, to her: “La Elsa del papel estaba asustada, y no era ella,
Elsa, la artista, la pintora. […] En su propio retrato asomaba Elsa pequeña, aquella prima desconcertante y lejana” [The Elsa on paper was frightened, and it was not she, Elsa, the artist, the painter. […] In her own portrait Elsa pequeña appears, that disconcerting and distant cousin] (244). Like her cousin in the courthouse cafeteria, Elsa grande is hard- pressed to recognize herself in what is supposedly her own interpretation of her physical and emotional state at the time. Such a realization causes Elsa grande to question her identity and previous conception of herself, as she cannot distinguish her self from the
173 other, supposedly separate entity. Elsa pequeña’s likeness practically invades Elsa grande’s self-portrait, as if the two women’s images were superimposed and Elsa pequeña’s anxieties, physical attributes, and doomed fate were now passed on to her cousin.
The connection among the three women is uncanny—and calls to mind the Gothic tropes of duplication and the permeability of identity—as Elsita’s ghost only seems to be able to communicate effectively with her namesakes. After being repeatedly raped by her
Guía and other men of the Orden, Elsa pequeña stumbles upon a pile of bones. Although she is unaware of their significance, the remains trigger within her a survival instinct, for they signal the possibility and proximity of her own fatality. Suddenly, Elsa uncharacteristically declares, “¡Quiero irme a casa!” [I want to go home!] (179), before being censored and punished by her male superiors. Her outburst and subsequent attempts to rebel against the grialistas (and hence the patriarchal establishment) result in her demotion within the cult; she is no longer considered a prized possession, but rather, a dangerous liability to the institution. Eventually, she runs away and attempts to hide from the cult and from her “boyfriend / Guía.” Nevertheless, her efforts to escape from their relentless surveillance are unsuccessful, as she continues to be observed even after seeking asylum, and is ultimately tracked down and brutally murdered. As with Elsita, the details surrounding Elsa pequeña’s death are considered a mystery by the authorities, while the reader is privy to the truth. Elsa pequeña’s death is reminiscent of her aunt’s many years before, however in the former case, the young woman’s body is recovered and identified without delay, consequently providing her family with a sense of closure, whereas Elsita’s whereabouts remain a mystery to everyone but Carlos and the reader.
174 While it appears as though Elsa pequeña’s death suggests a repetition of the past, or an instance of eternal recurrence, it is evocative of a spiral that gradually leads to evolution.
The blurring, duplication, and consequential splintering of the three identities accentuate the correlative nature of femininity. Because the three Elsas resemble each other physically, they are easily confused for one another by those around them. Even for many readers, it may be difficult to determine where the identity of one Elsa ends and that of another begins. This is evidenced in two specific instances of the novel, first, when Elsa pequeña stumbles upon the town of Virto, disheveled and dehydrated, after escaping from the cult, and César mistakes her for Elsita (182), her supernatural double or ghost. Similarly, in the second illustration la Tata comes to understand the reason for
Elsa grande’s mysterious arrival in Duino by associating her entrance in the house with the mysterious “disappearance” of Elsa pequeña (also reminiscent of Elsita’s unexplained disappearance). After the announcement of Elsa pequeña’s death, la Tata perceives the confusion of identities of the two (or three) women: “en ese momento la invadía un sentimiento confuso de que el final de una suponía el comienzo de la otra” [in that moment she was invaded by a confusing sense that the end of one signaled the beginning of the other] (324). She realizes that the lives of the two cousins are strongly entangled and that a certain degree of continuity exists linking the lives of the three women. As Six remarks when elaborating on Freire’s Diabulus in musica, Melocotones confronts its characters and audience with the troubling possibility that the self may not be whole, homogeneous, or separate from others, but instead a much more fragmented or permeable entity (Gothic Terrors, 63). In Fear of the Other (1996), Schmid maintains that “[t]he doubles’ relationships with each other, on the whole, indicate an enthralling fixation with
175 each other, which fatally binds them together. They are an integral part of each other”
(qtd. in Six’s Gothic Terrors 67). This fear of the other, emphasizes the ghostly, haunting quality of the double.31
For Schmid, the doppelgänger articulates the conflict between good and evil (43), a common theme found throughout much of Freire’s narrative (“la lucha entre el Bien y el Mal”) and the Gothic mode as well. While the Spanish writer’s protagonists resemble each other physically, they often embody diametrically-opposed personality traits. Elsa pequeña represents the contemporary equivalent of the “fallen woman,” whereas her older cousin has followed a more conventional life path by being an obedient daughter, pursuing a respectable career and maintaining a monogamous relationship with Rodrigo.
While in the traditional male-authored Gothic novel the opposing personalities would be embodied in one soul, Freire maximizes the doubling or splintering motif and on the complementary and imprecise nature of female identity by creating two separate women whose opposing personas, shared name and physical features confound the notion of absolute selfhood. The three Elsas are each other’s doppelgänger, as they all represent the others’ undeniable other self or selves. Once Elsa pequeña is killed and Elsa grande is the only “Elsa” left, she realizes that she represents the sum of the various Elsas. Each
Elsa represents the disjointed nature of identity across any given lifespan: Elsita personifies the innocence of childhood, Elsa pequeña the defiant nature of adolescence, and Elsa grande the anxieties and self-doubt characteristic of young adulthood. In the end, Elsa grande inherits her cousin’s desire for a better, more fulfilling existence and her aunt’s yearning for acknowledgement and a voice of her own. By the end of the novel, she comes to embody her cousin’s stubborn, rebellious nature along with her own sage,
176 responsible self; she has evolved into a complex, self-contradicting individual, and finally recognizes herself as such.
Freire employs and expands on the Victorian-Gothic conjunction of madness and femininity to explore the potential consequences of repressive contemporary patriarchal pressures and the act of forgetting on the female psyche. The characters’ “madness” is to some degree a psychosomatic response—or maladjustment—to an androcentric society that has ostensibly stripped them of all power. In reaction to a perceived lack of control or autonomy, some of the female characters in the novel demonstrate the overwhelming desire to reassert power over some aspect of their day-to-day existence that has not already been claimed by men or by misogynist culture. Ironically, such a need to exercise authority is manifest in the self-destructive urge to restrict and control food production and intake.32 Since the publication of Melocotones, Freire has expanded on her interpretation of the body dysmorphic disorder (B.D.D.) phenomenon in her study, entitled Cuando comer es un infierno [When Eating is Hell] (2002). As a victim and survivor of the illness herself, the author senses the urgency and importance in educating the Spanish public and reader about the reality of such an endemic and typically female disease.33 Due to the secretive nature of anorexia and bulimia and patriarchal society’s indifference to, or misunderstanding of, the illness and its causes, women’s suffering continues to be concealed, perpetuated and treated as a manifestation of female hysteria.34
For Freire, the causes of eating disorders can be found throughout Western culture: “En todos los sectores que favorecen una imagen femenina pasiva, débil (física y socialmente), las desigualdades, el machismo, la supresión de sentimientos…es decir,
[están] prácticamente en cualquier parte” [In every sector that favors a passive and weak
177 (physically and socially) female image, inequality, machismo, the suppression of feelings…that is to say, [they] are practically everwhere] (Cortázar. ABC. 29 March
2002). Freire’s indictment of patriarchal pressures, coupled with her belief that, as a writer, it is her “deber ético […] como una voz lo suficientemente afortunada como para ser escuchada es la de prestarla a los que no pueden hablar” [ethical duty […], as a voice fortunate enough to be heard, is to lend it to those who cannot speak]. Because many of the ideas expressed in interviews and in her publications on eating disorders can also be discerned in her novels, one might argue that Freire employs her narrative for rhetorical purposes, in an effort to inform her readers about the dangers of pervasive societal pressures on women, and to empower the reading public to not only understand women’s suffering, but to recognize the need for dramatic social change.
For many women with eating disorders, the dismissal of food doubles as a suppression of desire and the need to control the body (Gilbert and Gubar 58), but it can also represent a refutation of patriarchal authority and misogynist practices.35
Furthermore, those who suffer from eating disorders often feel undeserving of food, nutrition, or pleasure, hence signaling a more serious cultural and existential problem.
Coupled with the growing incidence of such disorders in contemporary culture—which reflect an increase in pervasive societal pressures—are heightened levels of anxiety, deficits in autonomy, shame, low self-esteem and self-hatred, predominantly in women
(Bordo 66). As with the corset and the binding of feet, the self-denial of food is done first, to appeal to an impossible idealized female form, and second, as a way of controlling the only thing over which they have a perceived command: their own bodies.
That women still endeavor to achieve these impossible aesthetic ideals—or, conversely,
178 that they use self-starvation to rebel against patriarchy—signals a possible defeat of some feminist agendas for women’s empowerment, as eating disorders tend to be an indication of female anxiety and impotence and, ironically, the internalization of patriarchal standards.36 Such a failure warrants a thorough re-examination of feminist discourse that addresses and counters the self-deprecation frequently fostered by androcentric culture.
The women who suffer from eating disorders in Freire’s novel—Silvia Kodama,
Blanca, and Elsa pequeña—manifest a sort of internal conflict, or duality, that both incites and is caused by a splintering of the (physical and emotional) self, given that the disease stems from a distorted body image, often the result of patriarchy’s obsession with and promotion of female thinness. All three cases involve bulimic or anorexic tendencies that seem to be prompted by an amalgamation of self-loathing and external traumas or conflicts; for Blanca, it is her botched relationship with Professor John Swordborn, for
Silvia, it is the brutality of the Civil War and ensuing death of her father, and for Elsa pequeña it is her experiences with the cult and her ontological insecurity. Interestingly, the control of food and repression of desire mimic the manipulation of memory, as these women attempt to suppress and substitute the memories of their distressing histories with the food of which they deprive themselves or choose to devour. Food, in Blanca’s case, serves to fill a void left by troubled histories with specific individuals (namely,
Swordborn and her parents) and feelings of dissatisfaction and disillusionment with her present reality.
Paradoxically, Blanca’s fierce desire to be in absolute control of her body results in her physical frailty, disintegration, and psychological vulnerability; there is a divorce, not only between her impression of herself and reality, but more importantly, between
179 mind and body. Blanca’s illness and anxiety are compared to the invasion of “la conciencia de algo sin nombre, un monstruo baboso y repugnante” [the awareness of something without a name, a slimy and repulsive monster] (232) that has planted itself in her brain and has begun to possess her, akin to the Gothic themes of female madness and hallucination. Blanca’s embodiment of the grotesque—like Elsa pequeña’s—can be interpreted as a manifestation of her inner torment, neuroses, and contradictory nature, most likely prompted by unreasonable patriarchal pressures and expectations. As seen in
Stevenson’s Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Blanca’s persona is split into two extremes— perhaps not into the dialectics of good and evil, but into the interplay of punishment and reward, success and failure, and varying degrees of self-loathing and inflated self-esteem characteristic of B.D.D. For Orbach, women who suffer from eating disorders exhibit
“internal conflicts of autonomy versus accommodation, denial versus desire, and the wish for invisibility versus the drive to be seen. These conflicts are expressed in self-starvation and in bingeing and purging behaviors” (ix). The etymology of the term “disorder” itself is suggestive of chaos or confusion and indicates a lack of cohesion within any given organism. In eating disorders, specifically, there tends to be a severe disconnect between the individual’s (psychological, emotional) perception of the body and physical reality.
Elsa pequeña first shows signs of a possible eating disorder when she returns to her parents’ house for dinner after the first set of Purificaciones with the cult. La Orden del Grial, representative of masculinist or patriarchal hegemony, promotes the practice of self-abnegation and starvation among the female members of the cult, whereas the
Caballeros are encouraged to satiate their ravenous appetites whenever desired. Such acts of self-refusal, according to Bordo, resemble the self-starvation of medieval saints, whose
180 objective was centered on a quest for spiritual perfection (68). The only difference is that most contemporary anorexics and bulimics strive for physical perfection, as opposed to spiritual beauty (nevertheless, the Orden exploits the argument for spiritual cleansing in order to appear to be a “legitimate” religious group). When her father encourages her to eat her favorite dish, Elsa is “incapaz […] de continuar comiendo” [unable […] to continue eating] (174). Carlos’ seemingly innocent attempt to convince his daughter to finish her meal is interpreted as yet another instance of male oppression, and Elsa, in the only way she knows how, rebels against his authority by refusing to eat.
Elsa pequeña’s adolescent angst and resentment are comparable to those of other young female characters in the Spanish narrative and film of the 1990s, namely Lulú from Las edades de Lulú (1990), Beatriz, from Beatriz y los cuerpos celestes (1998), and
Laura from Mensaka (1998) to name a few. Moreover, her naiveté and poor sense of judgment cause her to enter into dangerous situations without anticipating the possible repercussions of such decisions. Like the traditional Gothic heroine, she is predisposed to partaking in self-destructive and masochistic behavior, evidenced in her bout with anorexia and her preference for bigger, more muscular men who are also capable of physical and sexual domination, and perhaps even violence: “Cuando pensaba que [los novios] podían volverse contra ella, y estrellarla contra la pared de una bofetada, la conciencia de su pequeñez, de su fragilidad de cáscara de huevo, le resultaba deliciosa”
[When she thought that [her boyfriends] could use force against her, and slam her against the wall with one swift movement of the hand, the awareness of her small stature, of her eggshell-like fragility, seemed delicious to her] (173). What is troubling is that she finds pleasure in her own frailty and vulnerability in the face of male authority, a sign that her
181 propensity for victimization is inscribed in her by patriarchal society.37 In contrast, Elsa’s aversion to patriarchal authority and fondness for the boyish figure indicate that she may starve herself in order to avoid becoming a woman or desirable sexual object for men.
Orbach argues that a woman’s body is a central aspect of her existence and her “ability to adapt it […] plays a role in her sense of well-being and in her relation to herself” (130).
Women like Elsa pequeña, Silvia, and Blanca need to feel that something is uniquely their own and of their own creation, for they feel that throughout their lives they have been on a path shaped by others. Choosing not to eat, or controlling what is ingested, provides these women with a sense of agency, as tragic and as paradoxical as this may be.
Elsa pequeña betrays the Orden by publishing her testimony of the abuse and injustices carried out by the cult against its female members, signaling the inception of a feminist consciousness in the young protagonist. As the principal representative of a considerable group of silenced women—from both the cult and her own family—Elsa endeavors to break with this tendency, attempting to make her experiences with the
Orden known to the public. Nevertheless, her attempts to disclose painful memories regarding her sexual abuse at the hands of the Caballeros are only met with the silence and indifference of the judicial system. She is aware of the urgency to tell and document her story, so as to not allow it and herself to be relegated to oblivion, as were the accounts of her aunt, grandmother, Elsa grande, and many other women before her:
Si antes de tomar la decisión de marchar contra esta gente, me hubiera
muerto, ¿qué recuerdo hubiera quedado de mí? ¿Quién hubiera recordado
a Elsa? […] Veía el bien, veía el mal, contemplaba cómo el mal al que los
182 demás me sometían me devoraba y me destruía poco a poco, pero callaba.
Aún no sabía elegir.
[If, before deciding to fight these people, I had died, what memory would I
have left behind? Who would have remembered Elsa? […] I saw good, I
saw evil, and I looked on in silence as the evil to which I was being
subjected devoured and destroyed me, little by little. I still did not know
how to choose.] (190)
Elsa tries to recuperate—for herself and the other victims of the cult—what has for too long been a suppressed memory and silenced voice. Halbwachs observes that individual experience cannot be separated from collective memory, but rather, that the latter influences the former (53), and, likewise, Cixous points out that woman “is an integral part of all liberations” (253).
Therefore, Elsa pequeña’s own documented memories are also an essential part of a larger sense of history, as they evoke the suffering of a vast collective of women unknown to, or ignored, by society. Her monologue anticipates the closing paragraph of the novel, as referenced above, in which the narrative voice declares that “tantas Elsas”
[so many Elsas] were forgotten many times over by various individuals. The insinuation of Elsa’s plurality establishes a correspondence between the particular cases of Elsita,
Elsa pequeña, and Elsa grande and the combined circumstances of the many women ignored and mistreated in contemporary society and throughout the course of history. If, as Kietrys claims, the Orden is a microcosm of misogynist culture and tradition, Elsa and her peers are archetypes, who represent the marginalized and exploited of patriarchal society—who, in Freire’s novel, happen to be female. Whether she is aware of it or not,
183 Elsa pequeña thus acts as a proxy for her aunt’s ghost, and for silenced and disempowered women everywhere. Unsure as to what turn her fate may take, she wants to be remembered for who she believes herself to be and for the things she has done to bring those culpable to justice. Nevertheless, the grialistas are clearly threatened by
Elsa’s damning testimony, and while they are unable to censor completely what she has already uttered, they do try to ensure she will be silenced for good and thus rendered impotent in death. Her public denunciation of the cult is perceived as a formidable attack on patriarchy, for it highlights both her determination to defy the status quo and her appropriation of (the typically masculine realm of) official discourse. With her murder, it appears as though the novel establishes a correlation between the censuring of women and the silencing of historical truth reminiscent of the Franco years, for without Elsa pequeña’s full testimony—not to mention the relevant, yet suppressed, perspectives of
Silvia and Rosa Kodama, Antonia, and Elsita—her story is denied a place in history, and the “truth” is rendered incomplete and consequently erroneous. While it is not clear to the authorities that Elsa pequeña has been targeted and murdered, Elsa grande is certain that the case is a homicide (322). Ultimately, the judges of the case “no se atrevían a dictar un veredicto definitivo” [did not dare declare a definitive verdict] (315) due to a lack of sufficient incriminating evidence, and as a result—as is a common theme throughout the novel—there is no justice for the victims of the Orden or for their aggressors.
Before the trial for the indictment of the leaders of La Orden del Grial, Elsa addresses her fellow witnesses in a powerful discourse laden with feminist undertones and reminiscent of a Jane Eyre monologue. Encouraging her peers to refuse the label of victim, she argues that life is not, in spite of what they have been taught, a predetermined
184 thing, but rather, that every day everyone must choose who they will be and what they feel and think. While her declarations are representative of her own experiences and failures, the use of the possessive adjective “nuestro” implies universality and solidarity between the speaker and her audience. The juxtaposition and mutability of “nuestro”
[our] and “mi” [my] underscore the cogent correlation between the collective (or political) and the personal, making Elsa pequeña an archetype for women and the socially oppressed of contemporary culture:
Nuestras palabras y nuestros hechos no son otra cosa que elecciones. Yo
escogí moverme en la delgada línea que separa el bien y el mal, y cerré los
ojos. Entregué a otros mi vida y permití que ellos decidieran qué sería yo.
[Our words and actions are nothing more than choices. I chose to walk the
thin line that separates good from evil, and I closed my eyes. I handed
over my life to others and allowed them to decide who I would be.] (189)
She acknowledges that her previous poor judgment and passivity caused her to acquiesce to her own manipulation and subjugation at the hands of others, namely men. Elsa recognizes that she has allowed the Caballeros of the cult to infiltrate her thoughts, determine and undermine her identity, and ultimately seal her fate. The men designate her as a prized possession of the cult—given that her sterility removes all traces of their culpability—and they use such an identification to manipulate her into accepting her role as the object of male desire and exploitation.38
Ironically, Elsa uses her own example to make an argument against fatalism, although it is implied that any attempt to challenge the system is futile, as she becomes a victim of pre-determination in the end. The narrative voice suggests that Elsa pequeña
185 and her cousin share and will inherit their aunt’s fate, thereby serving as an implicit critique of a patriarchal society that divests all women of agency and steers them toward one inevitable, tragic end. While the narrative is full of references to silenced histories, the three Elsas—along with Blanca, who is an effective story-teller—are desperate to communicate their stories to whomever will listen. Yet, it appears as though their desire to be heard is not fulfilled, as the narrator emphasizes that no one ever listens to a young, pretty girl. Instead, the narrative voice pessimistically declares to the reader that young women are always considered objects of sexual desire, and are never “heard” or taken seriously, regardless of the urgency of their message (190). The narrator’s criticism of the families, social workers, and lawyers who claim, and then jointly neglect, to seek protection and vindication for society’s victims functions as yet another example of
Freire’s implicit critiques of contemporary culture, as she underscores the inefficacies of patriarchal society’s supposed efforts to improve women’s experience.
The partial, fragmented, nature of both history and female identity in the novel is reinforced through the author’s careful organization of the work.39 As is typical of much of Freire’s literary oeuvre, time is not linear, but disjointed and interrupted, as the narrator tends to confuse chronological sequence by making both forward and backward temporal leaps between past memories and present events. By oscillating between analepsis and prolepsis (and repetition), Freire emphasizes the correlative relationship (of causality) existent among the three time periods—first, Esteban’s experiences in the immediate post-war period at the Kodama’s cabaret / café, then, Elsita’s childhood and disappearance, and finally, what is the implied present moment of narration, the portrayal of Elsa grande and Elsa pequeña’s persecution—and among the members of different
186 generations. Consequently, Freire further problematizes the notion of social evolution by hinting at the atavistic nature of time and family dynamics, illustrated in the recurrence of female oppression.40
While the novel is divided into ten evenly measured chapters and an epilogue, the narrative flow of each chapter also seems disjointed and disconnected, primarily because of the inclusion of caesura-like pauses or gaps throughout the account. Such fractures within the narrative structure signal deliberate omissions and fissures in human memory and consciousness, as if to represent a type of amnesia; they serve to reinforce the recurring secrecy or suppression of truth, women’s experience, and familial history that appears throughout the novel. Unlike the narrative style of fellow female authors Esther
Tusquets, Cristina Fernández Cubas, and Paloma Díaz-Mas, Freire’s Melocotones manifests a straightforwardness typified by an abundance of colloquialisms and idiomatic expressions. As in Ana María Matute’s stories, the leitmotifs and social commentary that appear in the novel are anything but simple, but rather, complex, pessimistic, and melancholy in nature. Nevertheless, the novelist’s use of language welcomes mass consumption, and allows her readers to identify with and understand the plight of the protagonist(s) and the societal dilemmas of the present. When asked about her affinity for narrative fragmentation, Freire claims that the objective of her novels—namely, her first novel Irlanda—is to unsettle her readers: “La trama tiene como objetivo inquietar, no que se devore la novela sólo para averiguar el final. […] El tiempo no es lineal en esta novela, sino que se da mediante capas, y he elegido un punto de vista desorientado y que desoriente al lector” [The purpose of the plot is to disturb, and not to be devoured in an effort to discover the ending. […] Time is not linear in this novel, but is instead presented
187 in layers, and I have chosen a disoriented perspective that will confuse the reader.]
(Linares 213). In a number of interviews, Freire has admitted that nothing in her novels is what it seems at first glance, and so her readers must take it upon themselves to read between the lines if they are to understand the themes and implicit critiques present in her work. This type of assertion reveals to her reader that despite the perceived simplicity and coldness of her narrative, there is a latent criticism within that should not be ignored.
While it may be true that her narratives require further reader analysis, Freire’s words of advice may also be directed at her literary critics, who have been known to denigrate her work as lacking in critical merit.
To return once more to Labanyi, it is impossible for history’s losers to make public their own historical accounts, and therefore it is left up to future generations to take up their ghostly legacy, as an act of historical reparation (73). All three Elsas, in addition to Antonia and the Kodamas, are representative of a long history of censorship and gender oppression. Elsa pequeña tries to vindicate for herself, and by extension for all of patriarchy’s victims, a place in historical and personal memory through her public denunciation of the cult. By rummaging through her grandparents’ photographs, newspaper clippings, and old menus, along with other family artifacts, Elsa grande acts as a bricoleur who reassembles the pieces of her personal history and identity, thus granting the ghosts of her past their due attention. By the end of the novel, Elsa comes to terms with what she knows, and what she may never know, about her family’s past; she acknowledges the past as past, which, as Labanyi might contend, allows her to live with its traces, or ghosts (66). Upon learning of her cousin’s untimely death, Elsa grande realizes that she is the only “living” survivor of the triad, and therefore the only
188 remaining Elsa. She is no longer concerned about the chaos that her name will create within her family and patriarchal society, not because of Elsa pequeña’s death, but because she has finally embraced her fragmentary, tripartite self, not to mention the legacies of her deceased grandmother, aunt, and cousin. In the epilogue, Elsa’s meaningful contemplation of the portrait in a nearby art gallery represents the acknowledgement of her other selves, the traces of the other, sometimes incongruous,
Elsas that live on within her. The profile of the young girl dressed in red—the color prohibited by the Orden—bears an uncanny resemblance to that of her cousin, however
Elsa grande’s subsequent feeling of temporal and spatial disorientation implies an embodiment or amalgamation of the three women in one. If Elsa pequeña represents the antithesis of innocence and conformity (exemplified in Elsita’s’—and perhaps, to an extent, Elsa grande’s—character), Elsa grande comes to personify the synthesis of the two contradictions, a possible sign of progress or resolution of earlier conflicts or tensions.41 Therefore, Elsa grande can also be likened to the postmodern notion of bricolage, as she represents the fusion of assorted desires, histories, and identities. The mirror image no longer threatens Elsa’s autonomy or sense of self, but instead stimulates in her a sense of solidarity and support with the “Other” (women), whose memory she will never forget. The narrator insinuates that the protagonist leaves Rodrigo upon coming to the realization that the relationship divests her of agency and self- determination. The latter can be interpreted as a sign that Elsa has come to distrust the archaic and essentialist gender roles prescribed by various Francoist-patriarchal artifacts and institutions, such as popular romance novels, fairy tales, and marriage, and internalized by women such as her grandmother, aunt, and cousin. Unlike the heroines of
189 the novela rosa, fairy tale, or Gothic mode, Elsa grande breaks with clichéd patriarchal myths by rejecting the “happy ending” representative of the restoration of the status quo.
By acting as bricoleur of her family’s neglected history, Elsa grande is able to recover the pieces and fragments of her own life in order to reconstruct an identity for herself in the process. The acceptance and inheritance of her other selves provide Elsa with the internal strength and autonomy to play an active role in her life. She realizes that she is self-sufficient and not in need of anyone to be her hero or protector, barring herself.
Without any prominent models before her—excluding the mistakes and struggles of the women in her family—Elsa generates her own feminist consciousness, founded on the need to be remembered, heard, and the capability of determining her own fate. As the narrator specifies, Elsa returns home to continue to complete her untold story (328), a story that she, with the help of the other Elsas who were denied a voice and a place in history, will tell in her own words.
Melocotones helados, like Freire’s earlier Irlanda and Diabulus in musica, is an example of the novelist’s refashioning and amalgamation of the Gothic, fairy tale, and ghost story traditions into one in order to expose the victimization and oppression of women in the late twentieth-century Spanish context. Similar to the efforts of her predecessors in the “Female Gothic” movement, Freire employs Gothic and fairy tale conventions to highlight for her readers the existence of an endemic gender crisis that must be acknowledged and corrected. By providing her female protagonists with a voice to express their past and present experiences with oppression, Freire (like Elsa pequeña with her testimony) utilizes her text as a locus and vehicle for remembrance. As she pushes for a recuperation of the ghosts of the past, the novelist also proposes the need for
190 a more relevant and subversive Spanish feminist discourse that takes into account the suppressed struggles of past generations of women, condemns female victimization in all forms, and addresses the existential anxieties of twenty-first-century women.
1 Many critics have struggled to define the Gothic, however, as Fleenor purports, “it has many levels and many forms and is a protean entity not one thing” (4). Therefore, there is not just one Gothic, but many Gothics. Consequently, this chapter does not attempt to define or re-define the genre, but rather, examine how the “Female Gothic” and its motifs can be reinvented and applied to the contemporary Spanish novel.
2 Teresa Vilarós’s study, El mono del desencanto: una crítica cultural de la transición española incorporates Michel de Certeau’s notion of the return of the repressed into her central argument, which emphasizes that the Transition was characterized by a problematic and unconscious series of withdrawal symptoms left behind by the disappearance of the Franco dictatorship.
3 Ordóñez declares that the fantastic “dares to articulate the unsaid or give voice to that which is customarily prohibited by culture” and that it challenges “laws and beliefs that seek to insure cultural order and established ideological hegemony” (260). Freire fuses the fantastic, the fairy tale, and the Gothic to fashion a new feminist discourse.
4 In 1995, four years before the publication of Freire’s Melocotones, Javier Marías reflects on contemporary Spanish society’s injudicious attempt to disremember the Franco legacy by arguing that this past has not been successfully forgotten, but that it is always present, hidden, and about to resurface at any given point (Cortanze 28).
5 Although the double motif tends to be associated with the masculine (Schmid), Freire adjusts her account to expand on the splintered nature of the female subject.
6 Moreover, as Six contends in her analysis of Ella, Drácula [She, Dracula] (2005), the Gothic conventions of universality and temporal and spatial ambiguity allow Freire to transfer “our deepest anxieties to a seemingly safe distance, enabling both author and reader to approach matters that would be intolerably disturbing at closer quarters” (Gothic Terrors, 148).
7 The narrator’s veiled feminist criticism of women’s suppression is evinced in the description of Esteban’s loss of control over his lover, Silvia Kodama, to another man: “Ya no era suya. Estaba marcada, como una vaca. Ahora pertenecía a Melchor Arana” [She was no longer his. She was branded, like a cow. She now belonged to Melchor Arana] (293).
8 Another instance of male solidarity in the text is when the men of Virto travel to Desrein to patronize its cabarets and brothels, unbeknownst to their wives. The men
191 cover for each other’s indiscretions and are always careful to not reveal the true reason for their voyage upon their return to the small town.
9 The (obscure) details surrounding Esteban’s pre-marital affair with Silvia are only representative of his perspective; he is oblivious to Silvia’s suffering and fails to recognize that she feels exploited by him (288). As a result of Esteban’s negligence, the reader never learns of her feelings and impressions regarding the relationship and its demise, and instead she becomes an enigma for Esteban, the reader, and the female protagonists.
10 So as not to reopen old wounds, the Spanish government unofficially implemented a pact of oblivion (el pacto de olvido), based upon a “collective amnesia,” and a disremembering and suppression of past events and traumatic memories. While such an attempt at erasing and reinventing recent history was believed by many politicians to stimulate progress and secure democratic freedom, it, ironically, led to a regression in societal advances and generated a complex national crisis in identity, discernable in the confusion and insecurity characteristic of the late 1970s and 1980s.
11 Gordon promotes a new way of knowing about the past that is more in tune with the echoes and whispers of things and individuals forgotten and lost but which are still present among us “in the form of intimations, hints, suggestions, and portents” (Ghostly Matters x).
12 Bram Stoker thought about using “The Un-Dead” as a title for his novel, Dracula (1897). Stoker’s use of the term refers specifically to vampires, however it was later used to reference the existence of supernatural beings. Shelley’s Frankenstein, some of Poe’s tales, and Gothic texts, in general, expound on the motif of the “undead.”
13 While Hoeveler argues that Gothic feminist heroines “collude and conspire with their oppressors in a passive-aggressive dance of rebellion and compliance” (24), I contend that, in the case of Melocotones helados, Elsita tries to assist her niece in actively rebelling against patriarchal authority by first expressing her desires, defying the cult, and finally refusing the victim status imposed on her, hence deviating slightly from the “Female Gothic” tradition.
14 For more information on the Gothic motif of guilty secrets and ghosts, see Hogle, who explicates the concept of the secret as one that returns from the past to haunt the characters in question (2). Furthermore, Six offers her perspective on how Spanish contemporary writer García Morales utilizes the motif, by focusing on “the psychological impact of keeping it and how the narrative presents this” (Haunting Words, 107).
15 The number three has long occupied a significant place in Western mythology, religion, literature and mathematics, as it was considered to be evocative of perfection and sacredness. Freire incorporates the number three, or groups of three, throughout the course of the novel: Esteban and Antonia’s three children, the three Elsas, Elsita’s three
192 imaginary friends, and the three towns / cities of Desrein, Duino, and Virto, just to name a few.
16 Labanyi’s assertions developed in her essay on history and hauntology contradict Freire’s depiction of memory and forgetting, particularly insofar as she understands ghosts. Here, the narrator seems to claim that once someone is forgotten, the memory of them dies and never returns. Both Labanyi and I would diverge from this conviction, as it becomes evident that while many things and individuals are “forgotten,” their memory continues to haunt the living.
17 Throughout the Franco dictatorship, the regime appropriated the sentimental and melodramatic novel with the intent to perpetuate the traditional roles of wife and mother. By employing and revising the conventional fairy tale genre in her novel, Freire’s text renegotiates the models of women promulgated by the Franco government and embedded in the national psyche for nearly forty years.
18 Futhermore, Esteban is the male version of his wife, given that he also blindly accepts his role as a machista male.
19 The ancient Chinese custom of foot binding continued into the early twentieth century, and resulted in lifelong disabilities for its female victims. The resulting tiny, lotus-shaped feet were highly desired by patriarchal Chinese society. The ensuing inactivity, paralysis, and gait of women were considered sexually exciting by men. The limitations to women’s mobility impeded them from participating in politics, society, or being autonomous, and instead, they were forced to be completely dependent on their husbands for survival.
20 Elsita’s teacher frequently talks to the students about the parables of the Bible as if they were “ocurrencias graciosas” (122). He describes the Jews of the New Testament as big- nosed, billy goat bearded men who rubbed their hands together while plotting evil deeds. Instead of educating the children and promoting tolerance of other cultures, the teacher helps to reinforce and promulgate dangerous stereotypes. In doing this, Freire underlines the notion of eternal recurrence, for every generation seems to repeat and inherit the mistakes and prejudices of the one before.
21 Throughout the text, Freire employs italics to represent a character’s private thoughts or desires. Interestingly, the only characters associated with the use of italics are Elsa grande and Elsita. In both cases, the use of italics serves to emphasize the inability of (female) desires to ever be overtly expressed or heard.
22 Elsa pequeña can be likened to the twentieth-century chica rara [strange girl], while her cousin and grandmother are more akin to the female protagonist of the novela rosa [romance novel]. As Martín Gaite claims in Desde la ventana (1987), the chica rara, unlike the novela rosa heroine, challenges the status quo (98). The first represents societal problems, whereas the second is usually in denial of such issues.
193
23 The narrator’s ambiguity and silence regarding Elsa pequeña’s violation(s) should be interpreted as a subversive narrative strategy that underscores the failure of language to properly express such a monstrous act and patriarchal society’s tendency to avoid, or downplay, the seriousness of these abuses of women.
24 The true identities of the Caballeros or of Elsa pequeña’s Guía are never revealed to either Elsa or the reader. These men are able to maintain a degree of anonymity—thanks to their masks and absence of proper names—both within the cult and civil society, unlike Elsa pequeña or her fellow female victims, who are constantly being observed and followed by their male superiors.
25 Elsa’s tendency to convince herself of her own happiness, when, in reality, she is suffering considerably, is reminiscent of her grandmother, Antonia’s, self-censorship and martyrdom throughout the course of her marriage to Esteban.
26 La Orden del Grial resembles both the Opus Dei and the Basque nationalist / separatist organization, ETA. The name of the cult itself is also reminiscent of the medieval legends associated with the Holy Grail, and, not to mention, Spanish writer Paloma Díaz-Mas’s 1984 novel, El rapto del Santo Grial [The Abduction of the Holy Grail]. By blurring the religious with the political, Freire seems to equate the extremism of such institutions (cults and domestic terrorist organizations) with the prolonged abuse of power, elitism, misogyny, and truth of the Catholic Church.
27 While it is unclear where Freire found inspiration for these rituals, her rendition closely resembles Viking traditions and sacrifices. The novelist’s fascination with Norse mythology is evident throughout her literary endeavors, as seen in novels such as Irlanda (1998), Melocotones helados (1999), Nos espera la noche (2003), and Soria Moria (2007). Taylor relates that in Ibn Fadlan’s description of the burial of a Scandinavian high priest, a slave girl had to endure a series of sexual rites: first, she was violently raped by many of the priest’s attendants, who explained to her that they did what they did for the love of their leader; later, she entered the ship with the chieftain’s remains and was raped six times more before being strangled and stabbed. These sacrificial rites purportedly demonstrated that the young slave girl was the “chosen one,” who was considered a vessel for the transmission of life force to the deceased leader (The Buried Soul, 178). Though Elsa is not killed while still an active member of the cult, she must offer, or sacrifice, her body and mind to ensure the satisfaction of the Caballeros. Freire’s appropriation of ancient Norse mythology, particularly in her characterization of the modern-day Orden, serves to underscore the aggressive and barbaric nature of patriarchal society. She reminds her readers that violence directed at women is not a thing of myths and the past, but that it is at the core of contemporary culture.
28 Linda Alcoff elaborates on the “fluid identity of woman,” underscoring that woman does not fall into essentialism, but rather, she is “a position from which a feminist politics can emerge” (149). As Alcoff asserts, “being a ‘woman’ is to take up a position within a
194 moving historical context and to be able to choose what we make of this position and how we alter this context” (149). Elsa pequeña’s recognition of her mutability helps to heighten her awareness of her victimization, hence inciting a feminist consciousness in the young woman.
29 In Speculum de l’autre femme (1974), Irigaray considers that the flat Lacanian mirror denies the existence of women, while the speculum reaffirms female subjectivity. This convex “mirror” through which Elsa pequeña discerns her monstrous, fluid self could also be regarded as a catalyst that incites the young woman to seek self-fulfillment and improvement, for it is immediately after this scene that Elsa expresses her desire to study at University and make something of herself (275).
30 Freire has been known to establish certain parallels among members of different generations so as to emphasize the repetition and cyclical nature of time. In her first novel, Irlanda (1998), the author assigns a variation of the same name to two of her female characters: Hibernia and Irlanda. In the present novel, the lives and experiences of Antonia, Elsa grande, Elsa pequeña, and Elsita all seem to correspond with one another in various respects. The two cousins eventually rebel against the social prescriptions imposed upon them, while Elsa pequeña and Elsita pay for this noncompliance with their lives.
31 Six claims that the double motif can overlap with the conventions of the Gothic subgenre of the ghost story, since “a double often haunts a protagonist in a manner closely resembling that of a specter” (63).
32 Antonia’s obsession with the production of food is also relevant here. After marrying Esteban, the young woman’s only hope of acquiring agency or control in her life is to generate her own variations on traditional pastries. As the title indicates, it is Esteban’s favorite dessert, melocotones helados, which Antonia endeavors unsuccessfully to reproduce. Her eagerness and failure to satisfy his desires—due to the disappearance of recorded recipes—engender in her feelings of incompetence and insecurity throughout the duration of the couple’s union.
33 Freire is not the only contemporary writer to be documenting and giving attention to this characteristically postmodern disorder. Authors such as Ana María Moix (Vals negro), Lucía Etxebarria (Beatriz y los cuerpos celestes), Javier López García (Estela: Diario de una vida adolescente), Gemma Lienas (Billete de ida y vuelta), and Alberto Espina (Alicia y la luna) have written about anorexia nervosa and its relation to the female subject in literature.
34 According to Gilbert and Gubar: Hysteria […] is by definition a “female disease,” not so much because it takes its name from the Greek word for womb, hyster (the organ which was in the nineteenth century supposed to “cause” this emotional disturbance), but because hysteria did occur mainly among women […], and because throughout the nineteenth century this mental illness, like many other nervous disorders, was thought to
195 be caused by the female reproductive system, as if to elaborate upon Aristotle´s notion that femaleness was in and of itself a deformity. And, indeed, such diseases of maladjustment to the physical and social environment as anorexia and agoraphobia did and do strike a disproportionate number of women. Sufferers from anorexia—loss of appetite, self-starvation—are primarily adolescent girls. […] Such diseases are caused by patriarchal socialization in several ways. (54)
35 Spanish doctor Martínez-Fornés cites various possible causes of the disease, such as weight gain, trauma, stressful situations, “unfortunate” sexual relations (80), personal failure, and feelings of marginalization (81).
36 Freire maintains that these disorders derive from a general disrespect towards women. Eating disorders, she claims, are instigated by a society that hopes to control female behavior, body, and psyche by imposing impossible aesthetic ideals on women.
37 Michelle Massé elaborates on the masochistic nature of the Gothic heroines of the nineteenth century in her study, In the Name of Love (1992), asserting that it is culturally expected that women “should be masochistic if they are ‘normal’ women” (2). Massé portrays masochism as one of the reasons for women’s suffering in Gothic literature (3). While the problems of Freire’s heroines are more akin to those of the twentieth or twenty-first centuries than to those of the Victorian period, her female characters still exhibit signs of masochistic behavior, passivity, and a lack of agency and autonomy. The presence of masochism and masochistic fantasy in the female subject indicates a perpetuation of an oppressive status quo and a lack of drastic change or potential for women in contemporary society.
38 Elsa’s inability to have children can most likely be attributed to her eating disorder, as the absence of menses—along with weight loss—is one of the main criteria doctors use to diagnose the disease.
39 Urioste claims that the works of writers such as Freire, Mercedes Abad, Lucía Etxebarria, Belén Gopegui, Dulce Chacón, and Luisa Castro share a “preference for a woman or group of women as protagonists; and finally, fragmentation as a narrative technique” (285).
40 As Heise-von der Lippe maintains, the Gothic text’s inclination toward formal instability and fragmentation is reflected in the ostensibly mutilated, monstrous, and dislocated Gothic structural body.
41 If Freire was indeed inspired by Hegel’s Dialectic, Elsa grande may represent the concept of social progress. Nevertheless, as the philosopher’s theory suggests, the endless repetition of conflict and the continual merging of contradictory ideologies does not necessarily promise a change or evolution in society.
Chapter 4
The Ghosts of Identities Past: María de la Pau Janer’s Las mujeres que hay en mí and the Feminist or Mallorcan Uncanny
All woman is her mother / that’s the main thing. —Anne Sexton, “Housewife”
Lock the doors and close the shutters as she will […] woman fails to find complete security in her home. And precisely because she is incapable of grasping it [the male universe] […] she feels […] that she is surrounded by dangerous mysteries. It is [woman’s] duty to assure the monotonous repetition of life in all its mindless factuality. It is natural for woman to repeat, to begin again without ever inventing, for time to seem to her to go round and round without ever leading anywhere. —Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex
Mallorcan novelist María de la Pau Janer’s sixth novel, Las mujeres que hay en mí (2002), is a work that, like Freire’s Melocotones helados, links the omnipresence of the ghosts of Spain’s recent past to a long-suppressed crisis in female identity and memory.1 For Joan Ramon Resina, ghosts are the “symptom of a socially mandated invisibility,” forced to remain silent and “lurk in the shadows of rejected reality” (102) until they eventually re-surface seeking reparations for past wrongs. It is precisely the return of the repressed that lies at the heart of Freud’s interpretation of das Unheimliche
(“the uncanny”) and upon which the following analysis hinges. Freud knew of the uncanny sensation of a fate that forces one, albeit unconsciously, to repeat the same situation over and over again. While the specters that manifest themselves through
Carlota, the female protagonist of the novel, are far from invisible, as they are constantly
“seen”—in their pictorial renditions displayed throughout the house—and referenced—in oral accounts, it is their inability to leave a trace and communicate their personal histories
197 that causes them to haunt the old house. The novelist draws and expands on the conventional Gothic trope of the uncanny by underscoring various manifestations of repression, among which are the fluidity between self and other, the obsession with the ways in which the past dominates and conditions the present, and frequent allusions to the phantasmagoric. Janer seems to build on many of the Female Gothic themes developed by other Catalan and Mallorcan writers—namely, Carme Riera, Mercè
Rodoreda and Montserrat Roig—corroborating the possibility of an intertextual dialogue among these novelists regarding the Gothic-ness (or, for the sake of the present essay, the uncanniness) of female Catalan or Mallorcan identity.2 Analogous to Virginia Woolf’s assertion that “ghosts are living within ourselves” (“Across the Border,” 218-19), and as the title of the novel suggests, Sofía and Elisa—or the specters of Carlota’s grandmother and mother, respectively—inhabit, constitute, and haunt the protagonist, problematizing her understanding of her personal history and, consequently, her sense of self. The embodiment of her mothers’ ghosts causes fragments of Carlota’s subjectivity to be frighteningly unfamiliar (or familiar) to her, thereby rendering the protagonist a personification of the uncanny.
In the present chapter, I consider Janer’s exploration of the fluid, contradictory and fragmentary nature of female identity and its relation to the (Female) Gothic phenomenon of the uncanny, a concept that both Freud and Todorov link to feelings of existential uncertainty, repression and nostalgia. While my analysis draws heavily on
Freud’s paradoxical concepts of the heimlich and unheimlich, I propose that Las mujeres que hay en mí evinces the uncanny as a particularly “female” and Mallorcan characteristic that dismantles nostalgically patriarchal and Francoist versions of the past.
198 Because the novelist establishes a correlation between memory, feminism, and Spanish identity and history, I shall draw parallels between the author and protagonist’s desire for the reformulation of a comprehensive regional past and identity and the reconstruction of a shared female genealogy. Women’s embodiment of the uncanny in the novel becomes a metaphor for the national and cultural existential crisis felt throughout the peripheral regions of Spain during and after the Civil War and Franco dictatorship. I first consider the role of the domestic sphere as an uncanny locus of repression that conditions and exacerbates the protagonist’s existential anxiety. Freud’s contention that the house and its rooms generally represent the (uncanny) female body will reinforce the connection I draw between national, or regional, and female identities. As the protagonist herself discloses, her understanding of self depends almost entirely on her memory of her mothers—that is, the memory of her personal past.3 Through the active process of remembrance, Carlota shows how the past continues to have a presence, which can provide solace and comfort to the remembering subjects but can also be a source of confusion and conflict as well.
Significantly, Carlota’s “recollection” of these two women is necessarily inexact, grounded as it is in the imperfect reminiscences of her grandfather and the idealized artistic renditions of her mothers’ likenesses in portraits, which impede her from knowing the “originals”; as a result, the protagonist’s sense of self is equally distorted, fragmented and unfamiliar to her. The notions of heimlich and unheimlich converge in both the house and the protagonist, as she comes to embody the paradox of the familiar and unfamiliar, or the self and other. Distancing itself from the horror and patent misogyny that are paradigmatic of the conventional Female Gothic text, what is “terrifying” or unsettling for the protagonist in the novel is discernible in its variations on the uncanny: the
199 presence of the double or the blurring and transgression of existential boundaries, instances of telepathy and the sensation that the past is continually repeating itself (déjà vu).4 In this sense, the past continues to inhabit the present due to what Freud would identify as the “compulsion to repeat, to re-present, double, supplement; in the recurrence or re-establishment of similarity; in a return to the familiar that has been repressed”
(360). In the end, the protagonist—an embodiment of the uncanny herself—is also a narrator who creates her own uncanny text that serves to bring that which has been repressed to the fore.
In Las mujeres que hay en mí, the youngest and only surviving member of the three generations of women is Carlota, a young woman whose identity has been conditioned by the physical absence and imperfect recollection of her “mothers,” Sofía and Elisa, who both died under tragic circumstances at the age of twenty.5 Throughout her childhood and adolescence, Carlota lives with her aging grandfather, Mateo, his second wife, Margarita, and the ghosts of her mothers in their Mallorcan casona, La Casa de Albarca. Considered by Carlota to be her refuge (14), the large house is replete with the ghostly traces and constant physical reminders of the protagonist’s deceased mothers whose lives, perspectives, and deaths remain an enigma to the young woman. At the outset of the novel, Carlota explains that the circumstances surrounding her mother,
Elisa’s, death are kept from her by her grandfather and the gardener, Ramón: “se apresuraron en tejer el velo del misterio y del silencio, desde que era una niña” [they rushed to weave a veil of mystery and silence, from the time I was a young girl] (10). As a result of her family’s censored past, Carlota struggles to define herself, for her identity has always been linked and compared to those of her mother and grandmother. Eager to
200 unearth her family’s history and solve the riddle of her own existence, the protagonist tries to draw from her grandfather’s deficient memories and the information discovered in a collection of forgotten letters and other family archives in an upstairs bedroom of the old house. Her inquiries reveal to her that, aside from shared physical attributes and fates, the three women are tied to one another as a result of their erotic liaisons with Ramón, a mysterious and disquieting man.6 While the gardener is depicted as a gentle, soft-spoken individual, Carlota eventually exposes his secretive, manipulative nature and embodiment of a historically-repressive patriarchal mentality. Though Janer is careful to not portray him as the clear-cut villain of the account, he is the (sexual) tempter of all three women, and perhaps moderately culpable in the death of one.
The novel is divided into three parts of equal length, each dedicated to the description of each woman’s life in La Casa de Albarca. Following a chronological order, the first fragment commences with the portrayal of Sofía’s brief time spent in the house, her “affair” with the young gardener, and her ensuing death in childbirth.7 The subsequent section is a similar account of Elisa’s life, her own passionate relationship with Ramón, and her unresolved death. Curiously, these first two accounts are narrated by Carlota from a seemingly omniscient and detached point of view, as they are related in the third person. In doing this, Carlota seeks to lend a certain narrative quality to their stories. The third and final section centers on Carlota’s own narration of her life—now told in the first person—in the house and seduction by the same man. Although there is an attempt to separate the accounts of each woman, it becomes clear that each life and story is closely intertwined with the one that precedes it, for they parallel one another, eventually merging in their respective connections with Ramón. It is unclear whether the
201 accounts already resemble one another before Carlota gains access to the family archives, or if she deliberately tailors each experience to confirm an uncanny connection among the three women. Furthermore, the tripartite nature of the text reflects the protagonist’s uncanny embodiment of multiple and splintered subjectivities, as these three accounts showcase the complementary makeup of the three women. Unlike the first two, the third section represents Carlota’s version and re-writing of events—something that her mothers were unable to produce—coupled with an eventual feminist awakening that pushes the protagonist to determine her own destiny and identity.
Janet Pérez argues that the Spanish fascination with the Gothic emerged much later than in other Western cultures due to the delayed arrival of the Industrial Revolution to the Iberian Peninsula.8 For Pérez, cultural anxieties frequently tied to Gothic narrative are a direct consequence of the effects of industrialization: urbanization, the rise of the bourgeoisie, the redefinition of sex roles (91), and the widespread perception—and fear—of social change. In the novel, Carlota highlights the symbolic importance of the location of the finca, as it straddles the border that separates the town’s two very different entities: “La frontera entre los dos mundos—la calma del pasado y el caos del presente— se dibujaban sin resquicios, con trazo firme. Justo en el límite entre los dos mundos, situada en el umbral que separaba el ayer plácido del hoy bullicioso, estaba La Casa de
Albarca” [The border between the two worlds—the tranquility of the past and the chaos of the present—became blurred without clear distinction. Straddling the threshold that separated the tranquility of yesterday with the noise of today, La Casa de Albarca was situated in the exact point at which the two worlds converged] (13-14). Positioned at the heart of the conflict between the past and a threatening modernity, the house represents
202 the notion of a place out of time—a house where time does not elapse, or simply repeats itself from one generation to the next. Moreover, the images and identities of Elisa and
Sofía also seem to be frozen in time, as they symbolize Mateo’s desire for eternal preservation and are always depicted in the same pose in the paintings hung in the house.9
There is an intersection of time planes, for past, present, and future converge in and around the house, reiterating a comparable overlapping of past, present, and future female identities.
By situating her novel on the island of Mallorca, Janer further highlights the
Gothic tropes of alienation and entrapment of the female protagonists (Hattenhauer 5), and in doing so links them to the isolationism and repression emblematic of the Franco era, which were particularly severe in Catalonia and the Balearic Islands.10 The house, too, functions as an island within an island that is able to sustain itself without the influence and assistance of outsiders. Similar to Matia in Ana María Matute’s Primera memoria (1959), the island is a metaphor of the three women’s isolated and shared existence. As a result, over the years and across generations, the house and its residents change very little, and—much like the Spanish nation—history, and the histories of the young women, appears to repeat itself. There are constant references to the circularity of history and time and, by extension, to the fluidity of female identity.11 The protagonist ponders the cyclical nature of life and history, ultimately declaring that life “es una espiral: avanza, pero se va y vuelve” [is a spiral: it advances, but always returns] (292).
Near the end of the narrative, Carlota overhears two domestic servants chattering about the uncanny similarities between Carlota and her two mothers. The elderly woman confesses that she had always heard that stories (“las historias,” and History) repeat
203 themselves, but she never believed it to be true. Her conversation partner responds, assuring her that “Claro que se repiten, mujer. ¿No sabes que el mundo es una rueda?
Todo vuelve” [Of course they repeat themselves, dear. Don’t you realize that the world is a wheel?] (280). The two concur that Carlota strongly resembles her mothers and that she
“parece el fantasma de su madre que ha tomado forma de mujer, otra vez” [it appears that her mother’s ghost has taken the form of a woman, once again] (280). Like the fantastic text—as seen in García Márquez’s Cien años de soledad [One Hundred Years of
Solitude] and in Allende’s La casa de los espíritus [The House of Spirits]—time is cyclical in Mallorca and La Casa de Albarca:
En la isla […] el tiempo era un ciclo inmenso. Los hechos y las cosas
nunca se perdían del todo sino que siempre volvían. Tenían un curso
similar al de las estaciones. Esta idea circular del tiempo favorecía una
visión diferente de la vida […]. Todo renacerá, en un afán de vivir que
corresponde a un mundo que siempre vuelve.
[On the island time was an immense cycle. Events and things never were
completely lost, but rather, they always returned. They were very similar
to the seasons. This notion of circular time favored (161)
There is an element of hope latent in the narrator’s impressions of the island, for if everything repeats itself, the feeling of loss is only temporary and the people and memories of the past can be recovered. Nevertheless, as many Gothic narratives elucidate, the themes of atavism and relapse imply that nothing changes or evolves—a common sentiment during the dictatorship.
204 Throughout the novel, the locus of the garden is frequently likened to a gendered space which, like the female body, is nurtured and occupied by the gardener, who had been “[viviendo] en un jardín. Llevaba tiempo habitando el cuerpo de una mujer” [living in a garden. He had been inhabiting a woman’s body for quite some time] (218).12 The lushness and physical beauty of this locus amoenus are the result of Ramón’s tireless efforts to create his own idealistic rendition of the feminine which, like nature and time, continuously regenerates and repeats itself in an uninterrupted cycle of life. The recurring succession of life, death and rebirth of the garden mirrors the cyclical death and (re)birth of the novel’s female characters, who seem to be inexact reincarnations of the woman before them. Because Ramón alone controls this enclosed, regenerative and atemporal space, he is able to deny the passage of time and, by extension, the deaths of his former lovers. Ramón’s (and Mateo’s) desire to suspend time emblematizes the Francoist impetus to regress to the past and inhibit forward growth. The garden is a symbol of fecundity and the temptation of a forbidden fruit, as it happens to be the space around which all erotic encounters between Ramón and the young women revolve. For Pérez, sexuality is “one of the ‘dark secrets’ of Gothic fiction” (92) that often underscores the essential Gothic paradigms of prohibition and transgression, and for Carlota, the Edenic locus eventually yields a site of transformative knowledge that provides the protagonist with an important piece of information regarding her mother’s death. Although Ramón is not Elisa or Carlota’s father, the fact that he is involved romantically with both Sofía and
Elisa—and that the identity of Carlota’s biological father remains a mystery to both the reader and protagonist—suggests the potential for a metaphorical sexual transgression resembling incest, one of the dark, prohibited themes prototypical of the Gothic genre.13
205 The house is a Gothic space and metaphor for the nation in that it is haunted by the ghosts of its recent past, but it can also serve as an analogy for the female body and psyche.14 As expressed by Freud, the uncanny is fixed inherently in its apparent opposite, the heimlich, or domestic, thereby inciting problems in the process of identity formation involving notions relating to the self, the “other,” the material body and human consciousness. Such a correspondence underscores the strong connection existing between the psyche and the physical dwelling. In Poe’s “The Fall of the House of Usher,” the decay of the haunted mansion acts as a metaphor for the psychological disintegration of the Gothic hero(ine), whereas in Las mujeres, instead of portraying a house and protagonist in decay, the presence of ghosts in La Casa de Albarca suggests Carlota’s embodiment of her mothers’ fragmented spirits and repressed memories and identities.
What is more, Carlota is haunted by her mothers ghosts, just like the house in which she lives. In an analogous fashion, Janer links the rooms and hallways of the house to the comfort of the maternal body and the subjectivity of the female subject, for “the heroine’s active exploration of the Gothic house in which she is trapped is also an exploration of her relation to the maternal body that she shares” (Kahane 338). At the outset of the novel, Carlota informs her interlocutor that as a young girl she would search for
“rincones donde esconder[se] de los miedos infantiles, refugios absurdos donde [se] sentía segura” [corners in which to hide from her childhood fears, absurd hiding spots where she felt safe] (7). It is in these corners of the house that the protagonist senses her mothers’ constant presence: “[Elisa] estaba […] en los rincones de aquella casa que aprendió a hacer suya en un espacio de tiempo demasiado breve” [Elisa was present in the corners of that house that she learned to make her own (14). She declares that she
206 never wants to leave the house (“no quiero salir de esta casa que es mi refugio” [14]), thus implying that, like her mothers, she too will inhabit the house once she is dead. As a result, the house, while owned and operated by men, has a distinguishable female presence, echoing Freud’s assertions on the subconscious and uncanny that the house symbol represents the female body and consciousness. Like a mother’s womb, the house is portrayed as Carlota’s sanctuary—a paradisiacal, enclosed, and protective space where the young woman can stay connected to her mother(s). Furthermore, the protagonist’s desire to be near her mothers resembles what Shoshana Felman identifies as “womb nostalgia, a nostalgia for the woman as a familial and familiar essence” (63) for Carlota perceives the house as a comfortable and canny—or heimlich (homelike)—space.
Yet, the isolation and refuge afforded by the house restrict the protagonist’s worldview and ability to formulate a cohesive sense of identity, and therefore La Casa de
Albarca represents the paradox of security and repression or the familiar and unfamiliar.
While denoting familiarity and comfort, the adjective heimlich can turn into its opposite and refer to that which is hidden or secret, and the casona, while uncannily familiar to
Carlota, certainly conceals a substantial number of family enigmas. For Freud, what is considered familiar or known is already divided within by something foreign and unfamiliar to it, and therefore, La Casa de Albarca exemplifies what he would describe as the unheimlich (un-homely) or uncanny (153), for it is a space that is simultaneously familiar and threatening to Carlota.15 Although Freud explains that to exemplify the uncanny something must pass from seeming familiar to strange, there are instances throughout the narrative in which the reverse is true. The halls and rooms of La Casa de
Albarca tell Carlota about “los días perdidos, cuando yo aún no estaba” (35), and she is
207 convinced that she “remembers” her grandmother’s sweets, yet quickly recognizes that she has never tasted them, nor has she ever met Sofía: “La cocina me trae los olores de las confituras que preparaba la abuela Sofía, aunque nunca haya tenido la oportunidad de probarlas” [The kitchen brings back the aromas of the preserves that my grandmother
Sofía would prepare, although I never had the opportunity to try them] (35). The deceiving familiarity of past, unknown aromas could be interpreted as a result of the highly influential reminiscences of others or even Carlota’s own keen desire to remember her mothers. What is more, this Proustian-like nostalgia for something never actually known not only highlights the futility of volitional memory but also the blurring of personal experience.16 Be that as it may, this instance of confabulation also reiterates the possibility of an uncanny trans-generational bond existing among the three women that allows for the transmission of experience and memories from one woman to another. The house—as well as Carlota’s connection to her mothers—both fosters and confounds her sense of self, as she soon learns that her identity is not only her own but also composed of
“other(s).”
If, by the same token, we consider the Gothic notion that the haunted mansion or castle is a metonym for the psychological and physical condition of the protagonist,
Carlota also functions as a personification of the uncanny, for as the title insinuates, she is comprised of the juxtaposition of both the familiar and the foreign, present and past.17
Like La Casa de Albarca, Carlota is made up of forgotten memories and is inhabited by a series of suppressed female histories. Early in the narrative, the protagonist establishes the connection existing between the structure of the house, the female form, and memory:
208 Hay sentimientos que se guardan en un recodo de la casa, que llega a tener
tantos que incluso perdemos la cuenta, y ya no sabemos en qué agujero de
la pared escondimos el primer diente de leche, ni en qué baúl ocultamos el
secreto de una muerte. Poco a poco nos vamos haciendo a medida de la
casa. Nos adaptamos a cada rincón, tomamos la forma de los techos […].
[There are feelings that are hidden in the bends of the house; there are so
many that we almost forget about them, and we don’t know anymore in
what hole in the wall we hid the first baby tooth, nor in what chest we hid
the secret behind one’s death. Little by little, we start to take on the
characteristics of the house. We adapt to each corner, we take on the form
of the ceilings […]]. (35)
In the light of Gothic convention and Freud’s analysis of the uncanny, the female inhabitants of the casona assume the characteristics of the house itself. Janer conflates the categories of character and setting, for Carlota is so restricted by space that she begins to merge with the house. Similar to Louise Bourgeois’s series of drawings and sculptures entitled Femme-Maison (1946-47), in which the artist’s female subjects fuse with the houses they inhabit, La Casa de Albarca is at once house and female body, and therefore the domestic realm, as an isolated, enclosed and static space—while seemingly offering sanctuary to the women of the novel—in reality inhibits women’s subjectivity and contributes to their ontological anxiety.18 Bourgeois’s images depict female subjects and architectural habitats that are neither one nor divisible, thus emphasizing their hybridity.
The sketches and sculptures invoke claustrophobia and repression, and Carlota, like the artistic subjects of Bourgeois’s oeuvre, is trapped in and by both the past and herself.
209 Aside from elaborating on the uncanny nature of the female body and domestic spaces, Freud also correlates the uncanny to the figure of the “double” and the merging of seemingly separate selves. He argues that not only do doubles have certain physical attributes in common, but they also can share emotional or mental processes that can leap from one individual to another—through what he calls telepathy—“so that one possesses knowledge, feelings and experience in common with the other” (234). The appearance of the double, or doppelgänger, can signify the formation of the “super-ego,” revealing the presence of repressed feelings, fears, or other identities roaming about the subconscious.
Freud also references the subject’s tendency to identify with another individual or substitute the other self for his or her own. He emphasizes the identity crisis that ensues, for “there is a doubling, dividing and interchanging of the self,” followed by the
“constant recurrence of the same thing—the repetition of the same features or character- traits or vicissitudes, of the same crimes, or […] the same names through several consecutive generations” (234).
The disruption of temporal and existential boundaries occurs intermittently throughout the text, calling attention to the uncanny, seemingly telepathic interconnectedness of the three young women. In a scene that evokes the possibility of a shared identity or doubled subjectivity between Sofía and Elisa, the latter informs Ramón that she wishes their time together would never end, thus reiterating the novel’s preoccupation with the cyclical, repetitive nature of time and its relation to atavism, or the lack of forward progress commonly associated with the Gothic. She reveals to the gardener that being in his presence generates a very strange, but familiar impression in her: “Estar contigo se me hace raro y, a la vez, me parece lo más natural del mundo. No
210 puedo evitar preguntarme qué he hecho hasta hoy, cuando tengo la certeza de haber vivido para esperarte” [Being with you seems strange and, at the same time, it seems like the most natural thing in the world. I can’t avoid asking myself what I’ve done up until today, when I have the certainty of having lived solely to wait for you] (184-85). The paradoxical sensation she feels when she is in Ramón’s presence suggests not only an internal conflict within her, but also the uncanny sensation of déjà vu, fausse reconnaissance or the embodiment of a previous self, from an earlier life.19 For Freud, the sensation of already having experienced something calls to mind our familiarity with the mother’s womb or body during the gestational period. Therefore, Elisa’s inexplicable attraction to Ramón is actually representative of a transgressive connection between mother and daughter, or the possibility of a shared memory. Unaware of the gardener’s affair with her mother some twenty years before, Elisa’s words, while laden with sentimentalism and romantic clichés, conceal a possible unperceived and double meaning. Her inability to account for the past, along with her peculiar certainty that she was destined to love Ramón, points to the notion that her life and identity are not her own, but are instead a continuation of her mother, dictated by an inevitable fate. The reader perceives the ghostly traces of Sofía’s curtailed hopes, desires and existence in her daughter, thereby causing Elisa to manifest signs of a dual, composite, or even disunified self.
In a similar instance of temporal and existential transgression, Carlota confronts
Ramón one last time at the end of the novel to dismiss him from the house. His implication in Elisa’s death prompts feelings of rage in the protagonist—an anger that she does not fully comprehend, feel or believe. The confusion of the situation causes Carlota
211 to experience what she refers to as “una sensación curiosa” [a strange sensation], perhaps even a discernment of the uncanny, and blames words for communicating things that she does not feel, yet still manages to express. Such an internal conflict elicits the existence of a self divided between conscious and subconscious desires, or between her own sentiments and those of her mothers’ specters. As the protagonist recognizes, “Una parte de mí me preguntaba qué estaba haciendo, me lo reprochaba. […] Otra parte silenciaba a aquélla” [One part of me wondered what I was doing, and reproached me. […] The other part silenced that one] (295). While Carlota feels betrayed by the words she pronounces, she recognizes that language allows her mothers’ anger to take form and no longer be repressed: “Las palabras me servían para concretarla, la volvían real. Tuvieron la culpa las palabras, que me hacían decir cosas que no sentía cuando las pronunciaba.
Expresaban un rencor que no era del todo cierto, o que sólo constituía una cara de la realidad” [Words helped me to define her, they made her real. Words were to blame for making me say things I didn’t feel when I pronounced them. They expressed a resentment that wasn’t entirely true, or that only represented one side of reality] (295). As
Brad Epps declares, this phenomenon is an example of ventriloquism, “an act of speech that hides its sources and throws itself, disembodied, into the bodies of others” (292).
This uncanny slippage of words from one source to another underscores how the protagonist acts as a proxy for her mothers—whose voices and words have been silenced in death—by communicating their anger almost clairvoyantly and, by extension,
“remembering” them and giving them a place in history.
Ironically, Sofía and Elisa’s constant, yet muffled, presence underscores their quintessentially Gothic absence, loss, and resultant failure to pass on a feminist
212 consciousness to their (grand)daughter. Janer frequently plays with the juxtaposition and transgression between nonpresence and presence throughout the novel, which Carsten
Strathausen avers is a symptom of the uncanny (17). Through visual presence, the absent bodies (or corpses) of the two women are resurrected and therefore the non-visible is given form and visibility. Nevertheless, the intent of the portraits to preserve the young women’s presence also underscores their absence. While the women’s portraits are always within view and their memory has been perpetually supplanted and implanted in
Carlota’s consciousness by her grandfather, their conspicuous absence serves to emphasize the existential insecurity and paranoia of the female protagonist.20 For Lindsay
Tucker, the central conflict at the heart of the Female Gothic lies with the mother
(occasionally dead or absent) who often serves as a double to the protagonist and signifies the “problematics of femininity which the heroine must confront” (44).
Although she may not sense it herself, the omnipresence of Sofía and Elisa’s ghosts, coupled with their physical absence, threatens Carlota’s ability to fashion an autonomous identity separate from those of her mothers. In The Reproduction of Mothering, Nancy
Chodorow asserts that the fact that girls are mothered by women results in girls having
“more permeable ego boundaries” (93), and this fact makes it more problematic for girls to experience themselves as separate, autonomous beings. Furthermore, Chodorow declares that “girls come to define themselves more in relation to others” (93) rather than in a more autonomous fashion, as is typically the case with men. As a result of this trend, young women continuously alternate between desiring to differentiate themselves from the maternal figure and “feeling herself her mother’s double and [physical and psychical] extension” (Chodorow 138). Therefore, the term “reproduction” takes on a new meaning
213 in Janer’s account, for Carlota is not only Sofía and Elisa’s progeny, but a continuation and duplication of the two as well.
Carlota’s fear of becoming her mother and grandmother echoes the plot that feminist critics have identified as “matrophobia,” a theme commonly found in the Female
Gothic that centers on what Adrienne Rich maintains is a “womanly splitting of the self” out of fear of being oppressed [or dead] like the mother (236). Paradoxically, it is in her search for a more unified existence that Carlota grows more disunited as a subject. Tania
Modleski contends that the Female Gothic is best described as a “paranoid text” whose heroine fears “being like [her] mother, sharing the same fate, but also fear[s] being [her] mother”—which therefore explains the emphasis on identity in a physical appearance,
“the sensation of actually being possessed, the feeling that past and present are not merely similar but are ‘intertwined’” (62, emphasis in original). Though Carlota may convince herself that she will not repeat her mothers’ mistakes and successfully resist
Ramón’s advances, the fact that she, too, is seduced by him suggests, through repetition, a lack of forward progression and women’s inability to learn from the past.
Fina Llorca Antolín addresses the recurring absence of the mother in Mercè
Rodoreda’s oeuvre, claiming that even if alive, the mother’s role and influence for and over her daughter is limited by patriarchal society. For Llorca Antolín, this type of gender repression is evocative of the symbolic death of all mothers and their inability to successfully communicate with their progeny. She argues that these women somehow seem to be nonexistent for their daughters:
No en vano el feminismo ha tenido que rescatar, revalorizar, llenar de
sentido la relación madre-hija. Yo creo que es éste el hecho que habría que
214 interpretar simbólicamente: la madre muerta puede que sea la madre
que—además de no saber ser una imagen con la que la hija pueda
identificarse—no sabe qué decir, no sabe aconsejar, nunca habló a su hija
de lo que sería su vida […]. De manera que la orfandad de las heroínas de
Rodoreda puede ser entendida de manera simbólica y hecha extensible a
todas las mujeres.
[It hasn’t been in vain that feminism has had to rescue, adjust, and render
meaningful the mother-daughter relationship. I think that this is the fact
that must be interpreted symbolically: the dead mother could represent the
mother who—other than not knowing how to identify with her daughter—
doesn’t know what to say, she doesn’t know how to advise, and she never
spoke to her daughter about what her life would be like […]. Therefore,
the orphanhood of Rodoreda’s heroines can be understood symbolically
and extended to all women.] (173)
Although Sofía and Elisa’s absence is attributable to their actual deaths, the symbolic orphanage of Rodoreda’s heroines may have been a model for Janer to follow in her own novel. The novelist draws on the notion of a female “cultural orphanage” (Mainer, De postguerra 124) so as to expound on Carlota’s lack of historical reference and feminist consciousness. Regardless of whether or not the protagonist’s mothers are literally or figuratively dead, their ghostly status and silence imply what Llorca Antolín would consider to be their inability to communicate their struggles and experiences as women in a male-dominated house and society to their “daughter.” Carlota, like many female
215 protagonists before her, is motherless and therefore misunderstands her maternal legacy and, in turn, repeats the errors and choices of previous generations.
The physical absence of the mother in Janer’s text—first Sofía and then Elisa— highlights a significant contributing factor in Carlota’s troubled subjectivity, for it leads to gaps in the protagonist’s memory and maternal legacy, which, in turn, conditions her fragmented sense of self. If, as Jacques Lacan proposes, the presence of the mother figure is essential to the process of identity formation, the motherless child will inevitably question his or her ontology. In his explanation of the “mirror stage,” the psychoanalyst argues that human identity materializes when the infant perceives herself as an entity separate from the mother. However, because Carlota has never actually known her mothers, albeit through their portraits and her grandfather’s accounts, Lacan’s theory is reversed in this case, for the protagonist has always seen herself as “other.” She has been trained by her grandfather to identify more readily with the externalized version(s) of herself—her mothers’ portraits, whose images are highly idealized manifestations of
Carlota’s self—than with her own body.21 Analogous to Lacan’s suppositions, the images of Carlota’s mothers threaten the stability of her identity by fragmenting both her physical and psychological makeup. She perceives their likenesses to be representative of complete beings to be emulated, whereas in comparison she interprets her own as being flawed, excessive and distorted. It is the constant comparison with her mothers that haunts Carlota and undermines her subjectivity throughout the novel.
Sofía Riba Morell and Elisa Feliu Riba are presented as mythical, flawless beings whose artistic renderings serve as models and points of reference for the protagonist’s ontological formation. Their portraits were carried out by a male painter who, according
216 to the omniscient narrator, tried to control and adjust the image of the young women to comply with his own ideals of femininity, assigning to them the role of virtuous, yet sensuous, Gothic heroine.22 This is particularly the case in Elisa’s portrait, for Carlota discerns that the portrait artist must have perceived the subject’s rebellious nature as a threat to conventional femininity and therefore does his best to suppress her individuality and inquisitiveness:
Llevaba el pelo recogido en la nuca, pura convención, a propuesta
seguramente del pintor, que debía de considerar excesivos sus rasgos de
mujer que busca. El hombre se propondría contenerla y no se le ocurrió
otra cosa que sujetarle el pelo: grave error. En realidad, el mechón huidizo
era un signo de revuelta minúscula. La cabellera recogida servía,
contradicciones del retrato, para subrayar el óvalo de la cara, la forma
delicada de las sienes, la frente […] el cuello provocadoramente desnudo,
y una mirada demasiado intensa.
[She wore her hair up, a pure convention that was most likely proposed by
the painter, who probably considered her rebelliousness to be excessive.
The man must have tried to contain her and he must not have thought of
anything else: a grave error. In reality, the elusive strands of hair were a
sign of a mini-rebellion. The updo hairstyle served, paradoxically, to
underline the oval of her face, the delicate form of her temples, her
forehead […] her neck provocatively nude, and an extremely intense
gaze.] (12)
217 Carlota is conscious of the artist’s attempt to manipulate and sexualize Elisa’s likeness, however she determines that he has failed in his attempt to contain and essentialize her.
Instead, Carlota considers that her mother’s true “essence” overshadows the artist’s contrived endeavor to impose and refashion a new identity for the young female subject.
The representation of what was once a rebellious, dissatisfied, and inquisitive young woman is what Carlota discerns in her mother’s painting. Ultimately, however, the images depicted in the paintings are male constructs that do not accurately reflect the posing subject, a realization that the protagonist makes at the end of the narrative when
Ramón reveals to her that the three women were quite different from one another. The fact that the portraits are re-presentations of reality highlights not only their fictitious nature, but also the authority of the male artist, who manipulates reality and characterizes the female subject to suit his own interests or culturally embedded ideals.
Because of her grandfather’s recurrent allusion to their likenesses and his embellishment of their beauty and the past—not to mention the unrealistic artistic portrayal of the two women—Carlota idealizes (and idolizes) her mothers and fails to distinguish art from reality or the inanimate from the animate, therefore impeding her from identifying with or valuing her own image. She, like her grandfather, has elevated her mothers to a saint-like status, as if they were images of devotion, or exempla.23
Consequently, Mateo’s veneration and blurring of his wife and daughter’s memory condition the manner in which Carlota views them and herself. As she looks at her own reflection, the protagonist can only find faults and oddities with her image: “Cuando me miraba en el espejo, el rostro adolescente todavía no del todo perfilado, la piel con algún granito inoportuno, el pelo demasiado liso, no podía evitar comparar mi cara con las
218 suyas” [When I looked at myself in the mirror, my adolescent face still not well outlined, my skin with a blemish or two, my extremely straight hair, I couldn’t avoid comparing my face with theirs] (9). Carlota compares the imperfections that she perceives in the mirror to the artist’s idealized rendition of her mothers in the portraits and considers that her face is a series of disproportions (12). As a developing adolescent, Carlota’s facial features seem as though they do not “fit” her properly, and she is disappointed that the image gazing back at her in the looking glass does not mimic the “original” signified— her mothers:
Tengo unos ojos demasiado grandes, […], la nariz y la boca, un punto
exageradas. Mis rasgos son herencia de dos mujeres […]. Soy alta, pero
quizá delgada en exceso. Esto es lo que opina el abuelo, de la suma de
desproporciones que me configura.
[My eyes are too big, […], my nose and mouth are exaggerated points. My
facial features are the legacy of two women […]. I am tall, but perhaps too
thin. This is what my grandfather thinks, of the sum of my
disproportionate parts.] (59, my emphasis)
Mateo’s perception of his granddaughter’s physique conditions and fragments Carlota’s perception of herself. Echoing Gilbert and Gubar’s description of the mirror in The
Madwoman in the Attic, Margaret Persin claims that although women can see with their own eyes, their marginalized status in society forces them to perceive everything from a male’s perspective: “The female gaze is always and ever underwritten and framed by the male one, the dominant and dominating cultural force in society” (147). Instead of accepting Carlota’s physical attributes as a manifestation of her own individuality, the old
219 man treats his granddaughter as if she were a mere copy—or a compilation of various parts—of the original. The constant comparisons to the “other” make it impossible for
Carlota to formulate an identity all her own. This deconstruction of her image, the endless comparison with her mothers’ likenesses, and her resultant corporeal fragmentation liken
Carlota to Lacan’s fantasy of le corps morcelé and the monstrous, calling to mind
Frankenstein’s monster, the archetypal incarnation of uncanny materiality.24 Although she is not actually made up her mothers’ dead body parts, she is a collage of the fragments of a dead, or bygone, past. The sight of her own image in the mirror calls to mind Freud’s theme of the unheimlich, for she finds that which should be most familiar to her—her facial features—incongruous and foreign, while the characteristics of the
“other”—her mothers—are all too familiar to her. In an analogous fashion, Elisabeth
Bronfen purports that the uncanny “entails anxieties about fragmentation, about the disruption or destruction of any narcissistically informed sense of personal stability, body integrity, immortal individuality” (113). Bronfen argues that “this doubling, dividing and exchanging can, furthermore, involve the subject in his relation to others as he either identifies with another, as he substitutes the alterior self for his own, or as he finds himself incapable of deciding which of the two [or three] his self is” (113).
Like Carlota, Elisa matures in the constant shadow of her mother—a woman that she comes to “know” only through an artistic rendering—from whom she desperately wishes to separate and replicate all at once. As a little girl, she would grab a chair and sit in front of the portrait, contemplating and emulating the image gazing back at her: “En la quietud, repetía la postura de la figura pintada, la forma de colocar las manos, la inclinación del cuello y la barbilla. Insistió en que la modista del pueblo le cosiese un
220 vestido idéntico al que llevaba su madre” [Keeping still, she would repeat the posture of the painted figure, the way in which she placed her hands, the inclination of her neck and chin. She insisted that the town seamstress sew a dress just like her mother’s] (133). Just as her daughter would do with her own likeness years later, Elisa compares her image to that of her mother, as it is her only point of reference or connection to her unknown past.
Curiously, she prefers her mother’s rendering to her own image, and her desire to wear a dress similar to hers reflects Elisa’s wish to replicate her mother’s essence and consequently suppress her own. In her analysis of Poe’s “The Oval Portrait,” Bronfen argues that the story explores the “rivalry between a material presence of the body and its immaterial represence / representation in art” (111). In Janer’s account, both Elisa and
Carlota have complex relationships with their mothers’ portraits, for although they seek to emulate the image gazing back at them, they find themselves competing with the mother’s immaterial and unattainable artistic likeness.25
The leitmotif of mirrors, portraits, and windows underscores the fragmented and dual nature of female identity as it is often split between the image of the “self” and the
“other,” and the “familiar” and “unfamiliar,” always shifting, as is characteristic of the personification of the uncanny. The portraits act as mirrors, through which Carlota can decipher both her mothers and herself, even though the “reflections” staring back at her appear to be more distorted than an exact replica of her likeness.26 These “mirrors,” seem to replicate reality, however their actual function is to blur the boundaries between the
“real” and the artistic or the model and the copy, further complicating Carlota’s sense of history, reality, and personal identity. For that matter, Kathryn Everly posits that the painting that acts as a mirror reflects a terrible and undesirable reality (Catalan Women
221 78), which, for Carlota, is silence and an untimely death. Moreover, Sarah Kofman has compared the portrait to the uncanny double—“to the ghost hovering in a liminal zone, neither living nor dead, neither absent nor present, staging a duplicitous presence, at once sign of an absence and of an inaccessible other scene, of a beyond” (qtd. in Bronfen 116).
In Carlota’s case, the paintings and mirrors call attention to a repressed, seemingly foreign self within her that she had never acknowledged previously, due to her refusal to contemplate her own likeness in the mirror before the age of twenty. Therefore, when she finally glances at her image in the actual mirror, she perceives her own likeness as
“other” and unfamiliar.
Janer draws attention to the relationship between self and other in the construction of female identity by emphasizing the multiple configurations of similarities and differences present among the three women. Throughout her childhood and adolescence, the protagonist has had to construct an identity for herself in light of the “(m)other(s),” thus generating confusion and chaos in the form of doubles, substitutions, and misidentifications. As seen in much of Shirley Jackson’s American Gothic fiction, Janer characterizes Carlota as a disunified subject whose existential and psychological boundaries are infiltrated by others—Sofía and Elisa—in a process that Rosemary
Jackson (of no relation to the former Jackson) explains is “the slipping of object into subject” (82), or for the purposes of this study, the slippage between the unfamiliar and familiar. Similarly, William Patrick Day asserts that the “other in the Gothic is always the self as well” (18-23), a point that underscores Carlota’s representation of the uncanny, for she is at once self and other. Carlota’s selfhood consists of an embodiment of conflicting others, for she is a reproduction of her mothers’ differing identities and life experiences.
222 Ultimately, Carlota herself is a body or site of memory, as she represents the convergence of past secrets and identities and her present reality. Rosemary Jackson declares that narratives “structured around dualism […] reveal the internal origin of the other” (55).
The recurring allusion to portraits and mirrors highlights Carlota’s physical and inherent duality or multifaceted nature, for her mothers’ portraits reveal to her an alternate self, or a shared identity, inseparable from those of her mothers.
Perceived as a duplication of her mothers, Carlota personifies the Gothic concept of the uncanny repetition of the past, thus inciting chronological confusion in herself and those close to her. Her image reminds others—namely, Mateo and Ramón—and herself of her mothers, and she therefore appears to embody the curse of the return of the past.
Superstition and the fear of this family curse haunt Carlota throughout her childhood and adolescence; she develops what Otto Rank considers to be the pathological condition of spectrophobia (fear of reflection in mirrors or water). Until turning the symbolic age of twenty-one—one year older than her mothers were at the time of their premature deaths—Carlota is unable to face herself in the mirror without worrying about her future:
“Entonces me pregunté cómo era posible ser una mezcla tan exacta de dos caras; y tuve miedo” [Then I asked myself how it was possible to be such an exact hybrid of two faces, and I was afraid] (13). Like Riera’s protagonist in La meitat de l’ànima (2003), Carlota avoids glancing at herself in the mirror for fear that doing so would force her to face the same fate as her mother and grandmother.27 She is reminded constantly of the uncanny similarities that link the young women to one another and comes to see the vision of her framed likeness as an “uncanny harbinger of death” (Freud 235). For instance, she is told that she “había heredado los rasgos de su madre,” and even more disconcerting is the
223 assessment that she was “una prolongación de la madre muerta” [a continuation of the dead mother] (164). In an effort to warn Carlota about the dangers of entering a relationship with Ramón—and thus repeating Elisa’s mistakes—her step-grandmother tells her that she is following “el mismo camino de tu madre. Elisa hacía lo mismo que tú” [the same path as your mother. She would do the same things as you] (274), and hence implies that Carlota has learned very little from her mother’s past errors. As a result of these comparisons, Carlota is haunted by her mothers’ deaths and fears that she is destined to follow in their footsteps. Elisa’s portrait, in particular, haunts Carlota, as she believes that her mother’s eyes conceal the mysterious details surrounding her death.
The image acts as a displaced illustration of Carlota’s own mortality and the inevitability of the family curse or her ability to separate herself from her mothers and their fates:
Delante de mi cama, ocupando una parte considerable de la pared, colgaba
el retrato de mi madre […]. Tenía la misma edad que la otra, veinte años
mal contados, cuando murió en circunstancias extrañas. […] Hasta que
hube superado los veinte años no respiré tranquila liberada de una especie
de maldición familiar que había imaginado que se perpetuaría en mí.
[In front of my bed, occupying a considerable part of the wall, hung my
mother’s portrait. […] She was the same age as the other, twenty years,
when she died under strange circunstantes. […] Until I turned twenty-one
I couldn’t avoid the thought of a possible family curse that I had imagined
would perpetuate itself in me.] (10)
With the passing of time, Carlota observes how her mothers watch her, “sin inmutarse”
[without moving] (35) from the confinement of their portraits. Their constant
224 surveillance, more than their contrived poses, underlines the omnipresence of latent secrets and suppressed truths yet to be uncovered. Instead of being a source of continuous comfort for the protagonist—as she once considered them to be—their scrutinizing eyes now cause Carlota to feel uncomfortable and desire to escape the unsettling ghostly gaze, which “me producí[a] una mezcla de sentimientos. […] [M]e inquietaban” [they provoked mixed emotions. […] They disturbed me] (12). Elisa’s stare has very little in common with that of Sofía, as that of the former exhibits airs of noncomformity and a general dissatisfaction with the passive and monotonous life characteristic of women’s traditional lot. Elisa’s desire to break with the perpetuation of women’s marginalization and censorship can be considered a sign of forward progress in terms of female empowerment, yet her untimely death impedes this from happening. Her mother’s gaze unsettles her, for it seems to demand justice for a life cut tragically short before its time.
Avoiding what was considered to be a family curse, Carlota’s previous fear of becoming her mother and repeating her past mistakes dissipates and, curiously, she seeks to efface all differences separating mother from daughter. Although she knows very little about Ramón’s past relationship with her mother, Carlota senses that the gardener avoids pronouncing her name, for it reminds him of a painful, nagging truth: that Carlota is not
Elisa. She even perceives that he would prefer to call her Elisa, an observation that only further complicates the protagonist’s sense of self by inciting an internal discord between her conscious and subconscious desires:
Conscientemente, quería liberarme de una confusión de identidades. […]
En otro nivel, que me costaba dominar y admitir, inicié un proceso de
225 aproximación a mi madre. Me sorprendía ante el espejo insistiendo en
acentuar nuestro parecido. Además de peinarme como ella, procuraba
vestirme imitando su estilo. […] Nunca lo habría reconocido, pero vivía
dividida entre la realidad y una extraña ficción.
[Consciously, I wanted to free myself from identity confusion. […] On a
different level, which was difficult for me to admit, I began to resemble
my mother. I would surprise myself in front of the mirror, insisting on
accentuating our liknesses. Apart from brushing my hair like she did, I
also tried to find dresses that resembled her style. […] I would have never
admitted it, but I lived divided between reality and a strange fiction.] (275,
my emphasis)
Paradoxically, while she (consciously) claims to want to avoid identity confusion, Carlota subconsciously tries to become her mother—just like Elisa did with Sofía a generation before—by accentuating and appropriating what she believes to have been her mother’s essence. Instead of breaking with the past or differentiating herself from her mother, the protagonist seeks to fuse with Elisa’s likeness in an anachronistic fashion, believing that, in doing so, Ramón will continue to desire her. Carlota’s game of “dress-up” or
“charades,” devised chiefly for Ramón’s amusement, requires that she suppress aspects of her own identity to fulfill what she believes to be his fantasy. Nevertheless, it is to be noted that it is not Ramón who expressly requests this transformation, but rather Carlota herself who willingly alters her appearance. Although she may not have realized it at the time—the use of the conditional perfect above indicates a degree of temporal and critical distance and hence an epiphany by the time of narration—Carlota eventually senses that
226 her relationship with Ramón is anchored in fantasy, consisting of a disregard for reality and the conscious suppression of her mothers’ ghosts: “La ficción era el silencio que nos tocaba protagonizar, las suposiciones que se ocultan, las dudas que no se dicen” [Fiction was the silence that we had to tolerate, suppressed deductions, unexpressed doubts]
(276).
Carlota’s simultaneously deliberate and intrinsic embodiment of the uncanny causes Ramón, just as César does with Elsita and Elsa pequeña in Melocotones helados, to mistake Carlota for her mother—thus confounding past and present—for she reminds him of his former lover: “Cuando me vio en el dintel, realizó un esfuerzo por situarme en el mapa de los vivos y no lo consiguió. […] Lo miré como si recuperase a alguien, después de mucho tiempo” [When he saw me in the window, he tried to locate me on the map of the living and couldn’t. […] I looked at him as if he were recovering someone, after a long time] (268). As he gazes at her, the protagonist realizes that her image conjures memories of someone from the gardener’s past, and that for him the perception of her likeness elicits a fleeting recuperation of the past. Ramón’s inability to discern one woman from the other stresses Janer’s depiction of time as a repetitive, cyclical, and imprecise force. As they contemplate one another, Carlota senses the suspension and infinite nature of time, and she is unable to ascertain exactly how long the two have been gazing at one another: “Pasó un tiempo que no habría sabido calcular” [I couldn’t calculate the time that passed] (269). Ramón, like Mateo, is either unable or unwilling to distinguish Carlota from her mothers, thereby implying that time has stood still and that past and present are transposable. Carlota’s appearance in the garden—a lieu de mémoire, or space in which the past can be recreated, that reminds him of Elisa—is an anachronism
227 (or pertaining to another time) that disorients Ramón into believing that she is the embodiment of her dead mother. When Carlota greets Ramón, the confounding of time and identity manifests itself as he promptly says to her, “Buenas noches, Elisa” [Good evening, Elisa] (269). In retrospect, Carlota wishes that she would have corrected him,
“explicarle que Elisa no lo podía visitar de noche, porque estaba muerta, pero no llegué a tiempo” [explain to him that Elisa could not visit him at night, because she was dead, but
I didn’t say it in time] (270). By not correcting him straight away, Carlota accepts Elisa’s identity as her own and perpetuates the repetition of the past. She is overcome by the irresistible desire for physical contact with Ramón, for just like her portrayal of the casona, his comforting embrace is a welcome refuge. The uncanny familiarity of his touch signals yet another possible instance of temporal transgression and existential fluidity, or simply the internalization of her mothers’ experiences and memories, reminiscent of her earlier “memory” of Sofía’s preserves. Carlota comes to “need”
Ramón (272), and much like her mothers, she submits to him.
Instead of portraying men as the sole inhibitors of female subjectivity and autonomy, Janer underscores Carlota’s active role in the distortion of and alienation from her own image and self. Reminiscent of Julia in La segunda mujer, Carlota begins to modify her outward appearance in an effort to resemble her mother and thus seduce
Ramón more effectively: “Yo nunca había sido una persona muy preocupada por la ropa.
De repente, empecé a comprarme vestidos seductores. […] En una visita a la peluquería, me ricé el pelo” [I had never been one to worry about clothes. Suddenly, I began to buy myself seductive dresses. […] On one trip to the hairdresser, I requested a permanent]
(272). It seems that in evoking her mother’s image Carlota hopes, perhaps
228 subconsciously, to anchor herself in an uncertain past and regain a sense of origin to better understand her present self. Kahane posits that every Gothic heroine must face the
“mysteries of identity and the temptation to lose it by merging with a mother imago who threatens all boundaries between self and other” (340), and it is clear that in her attempt to embody the desirable other (the spirit of her dead mother), Carlota loses, or compromises, herself and values for Ramón, and like Julia, abandons her longtime friends and former life (273). As she confesses to her interlocutor, everything and everyone else loses significance when compared with him (272) and his desires— including herself. Consequently, Carlota inhibits the realization of her own subjectivity as she attempts to appeal to her own interpretation of male desire.
After realizing Ramón’s deceitfulness regarding his relationship with Elisa and his involvement in her death—both attempts at suppressing inconvenient truths—a disillusioned Carlota begins to formulate an awakened feminist consciousness. She returns to her closet and looks at her clothes hanging there, some with the price tags still attached, realizing that many of them were “disfraces” [costumes] that she had bought to resemble Elisa. By taking leave of Ramón (who, according to the protagonist, imposes silence and amnesia on those around him), Carlota is able to consider her transformation in a more critical light, and angrily asks herself, “¿Cómo había sido capaz de transformarme de aquella manera? Había perdido el tiempo tras un hombre que […] [m]e escondió una verdad que no era capaz de reconocer” [How had I been capable of transforming myself like that? I had wasted my time with a man who hid from me a truth that I was incapable of recognizing] (289). Recognizing that the clothes hanging in her closet are representative of an attempt to transform herself and personify a false
229 identity—thereby resulting in her own alienation and exacerbation of existential confusion—Carlota removes the “costumes” from the hangers and disposes of them in bags. As if she were purging herself of years of lies and rejecting this alter ego that she had appropriated as her own, she begins to feel that a great burden has been lifted and that she can now begin to recover a previously rejected self. Nevertheless, as Carlota glances in the mirror, perhaps in an attempt to affirm an autonomous identity and existence for herself, she notices that her hairstyle still exhibits traces of her ontological transformation: “[a]quello también formaba parte de la metamorfosis. Lo llevaba recogido atrás, como ella en el cuadro. Se escapaban algunos mechones que significaron su revuelta, pero no la mía” [that was also part of the metamorphosis. I had it pulled back, like she did in the portrait. A few of my hairs became loose, signifying her restlessness, but not mine] (289). While Carlota is eager to establish that this hint of rebelliousness is not representative of her, it becomes apparent that she has not only acquired many of her mother’s physical attributes, but some of her inherent personality traits as well. As she attempts to tame (or suppress) her unruly tresses and distance herself from her mother’s image, the protagonist senses that, despite her efforts to return to her previous self, she will never be the same: “Había vivido un proceso irreversible que me costaba aceptar”
(290). The consequences of her intended metamorphosis are more lasting than she had anticipated, for she admits that “[me] había adentrado en ella sin quererlo, cuando lo que deseaba era complacer a un hombre” [I had entered her by accident, when all that I desired was to please a man] (290). In the face of this realization, Carlota is forced to come to terms with her complex and fragmented identity, one that is inseparable, but also independent of those of her mothers. Not only has Carlota studied Elisa’s image
230 thoroughly in an attempt to copy it, but she has also infiltrated (as she indicates, unintentionally) and internalized her mother’s persona, thereby transgressing temporal and ontological boundaries.
Carlota’s confessed dependency on Ramón echoes what Teresa Vilarós has prominently termed el “mono del desencanto” (22-42), or the withdrawal symptoms felt by many Spaniards—particularly among leftists—after the disintegration of the Franco regime.28 The gardener’s consecutive seduction of all three women calls to mind the omnipresence of Francoist discourse in twentieth-century Spain and the difficulty many
Spaniards have found in kicking the “Franco habit.” Although Janer does not specify at what point in time Carlota’s account is narrated, the reader assumes that the lives of the three women are designed to coincide with the last sixty years of Spanish and Mallorcan history. Sofía’s life takes place during the immediate to late post-war years of political, cultural and sexual repression, whereas Elisa’s generation embodies the more “moderate” era of Francoism of the sixties, and the youngest generation, that of Carlota, comes of age in the post-authoritatian, Transición years of the eighties and nineties. Carlota’s existential crisis and growing interest in family history mirror the anxieties of an amnesiac Spanish society gradually transitioning into democracy and seeking to either move forward or make sense of the previous forty years.29 These loose correspondences allow the novelist to relate female experience to various stages in recent Spanish history, all the while emphasizing the notion of a collective and disjointed past and identity. The sense that each woman (and every generation) is a variation of the one before invokes the return of the “strangely familiar” or the déjà vu phenomenon, which in turn allows Janer to establish a correspondence between female and Spanish (or Mallorcan) identity and the
231 uncanny. While it is to be noted that Ramón himself is a victim of Francoist notions of history and memory, his lasting presence across the three generations of women, coupled with his ability to impose silence on those around him and his rejection of linear progress liken him to a personification of cultural repression. By the same token, because he seems unwilling to, or incapable of, distinguishing one woman from the next and appears to have a romanticized view of the past, he also exhibits signs of historical amnesia. In his relationship with Carlota, Ramón tries to arrest time, and like Mateo, ensure that everything stays the same. To a degree, Ramón personifies a type of nostalgia that Elisa and Carlota find impossible to resist; his continual presence and recurrent seduction of the young women also associate him with the lingering spectral presence of Spain’s fascist history that still haunts twenty-first-century culture.
Like Freire, Janer makes no overt reference to the Civil War or ensuing Franco dictatorship and its implications for the present, yet she seems to tie the oppression and silence that were so emblematic of these eras to the historical omission of women’s experience.30 By never expressly mentioning the conflict or the dictator, the novelist echoes the politics of amnesia prevalent in Spain during the Transition years, as exemplified in the pacto de olvido. Further elucidating this atmosphere of suppression,
Carlota, in first- and third-person narration, frequently alludes to the overwhelming silences and secrets present throughout the house and the family’s past, both metaphors that can be applied to Spain’s own censored history: “una casa demasiado silenciosa”
(55), “los secretos de los fantasmas de mis madres” [the secrets of my mothers’ ghosts]
(59). She compares the existence of secrets to the omnipresence and the unrelenting haunting nature of her mothers’ ghosts: “Son criaturas voladoras que no descansan nunca,
232 y que nos impiden encontrar el reposo” [They are creatures in flight that never rest and that impede us from resting] (59). The ghosts’ indefatigable nature accentuates their sustained repression and desire to be heard and vindicated by the living. Yearning to know more about her past, the protagonist wishes she could gather all of the secrets that mill around the house and place them in a box—in other words, capture and contain them so as to do something with them sooner or later.
Janer’s preoccupation with the recuperation of a personal and generational female history is representative of a broader contemporary socio-political discourse in Spain and its autonomous regions, for Las mujeres challenges the conventional notion of an official, historical truth. Its protagonist recreates her own version of her family’s recent past in an attempt to make sense of her mothers’ fragmented histories and, by extension, of her own
“distinctive,” disjointed identity.31 Janer, like many of her contemporaries, proves that
H/history and historical “truth” are fragmented concepts, rendering it impossible for
Carlota to ever really know her mothers or formulate a sense of “completeness”; as David
Herzberger affirms, the importance of examining history does not lie so much in reconstructing it as it does in exposing “the illusion of truth and wholeness” regarding our memories of the past. In the face of her grandfather’s memory lapses and his simultaneous desire to erase certain aspects of the past, Carlota confesses that she does not have “pruebas” [proof] of her mothers’ lives and secrets and that she must therefore
“reinvent” them (258). Early in the narrative, the protagonist describes “el espacio que
[l]e correspondía” [my space] (38)—the dust-covered attic— as a locus of forgotten memories and histories in which Carlota feels very much at home. It is in the “desván”
[attic] that she discovers stacks of old family photographs and letters that enable her to
233 piece together a seemingly inscrutable family past. Little by little, Carlota interprets and reconstructs history with her own words and imagination: “Las frases escritas me llevaron a reconstruir el hilo de una historia. No estaban escritas por mí, pero supe hacerlas mías” [The written words caused me to rework the thread of (hi)story. They were not written by me, but I discovered how to make them mine] (63). This disclosure implies that not only has she learned to make—and convince herself that—her mothers’ histories [are] her own, but she, admittedly, has manipulated them to suit her own obscure interests (like the painter), thereby further accentuating that the annals of history can never be known fully. Moreover, such an admission invites speculation into the veracity of the entire account, for it is Carlota who not only drafts her own story, but also reconstructs those of her mothers based on her own interpretation of their lives. As if she were defending herself, she declares, “una vida tiene muchas lecturas. Todo depende del punto de vista que adoptemos para contemplarala” [one life has many interpretations. It all depends on the point of view we adopt to contemplate it] (17). Writing is therefore a creative endeavor, for not only is the narrator-historian manipulating language to create stories on the page, but, in the case of Carlota, it is also a mode of self-construction, much like an autobiography. By writing her story, she ensures that her memory and likeness are not objectified or defined by others.
Through the act of “remembering,” or writing, Carlota creates her own text that embodies a recontextualization of Freud’s description of the uncanny, for it brings to light that which had originally been hidden and repressed. In light of Susan Sontag’s compelling description of the “pain of others,” Carlota appropriates her mothers’ imagined histories and painful memories, which were previously unknown and
234 unfamiliar to her, reinvents them and makes and fuses them with her own. This blending of “truth” and fantasy (a product of Carlota’s imagination) in her text also echoes Freud’s assertion that the uncanny arises when there is a breach between reality and fantasy
(244). She tries to piece together the many fragmented and uncanny parts of her past as a way of organizing her own present self or life in order to make sense of her own meaning in history. Moreover, as I stated at the beginning of this chapter, Carlota’s account bears an uncanny resemblance to those of her mothers, as each of their stories appears to repeat itself in or overlap with the next. By combining the three accounts in one, the collective text, just like the three women, lacks clear-cut boundaries, as the past continually infiltrates the present and vice versa. Her impulse to reclaim and communicate her mothers’ past experiences to an unspecified reader echoes Mary Jacobus’s assertion that
“thinking back through the mother becomes a gesture at once of recuperation and revision” (39). Carlota, then, “remembers” her past through and with the help of Sofía and Elisa’s accounts, both of which she has used and recreated, opportunistically, to condition and fit her present. Her evolving text represents the rewriting of the unheimlich in a new feminist register that is informed by the protagonist’s knowledge and reinterpretation of her maternal legacy.
Consumed with the desire to put back the pieces of her mothers’ lives, Carlota inadvertently loses sight of her own significance in history and experiences uncanny feelings of displacement. Feeling as if she does not belong or fit in her family history—a symptom of the uncanny—the protagonist attempts to reconstruct her own version and connection to the past, so as to make sense of the present. While she feels that she has been an impostor, posing (or performing, as Judith Butler might say), ineffectively, as
235 Elisa, Carlota accepts that she is part of an uncanny generational connection that ties her inextricably to her mothers:
Me pregunté cuál era mi papel en aquella historia. Había sido una torpe
copia de mi madre. […] El mismo viento que se la arrebató había querido
devolverle a otra mujer. Una mujer joven, llena de interrogantes, que
cometió el error de enamorarse.
[I asked myself what my role was in that (hi)story. I had been an awkward
copy of my mother. […] The same wind that snatched her up had wanted
to return her to another woman. A young woman, full of doubts, who
made the mistake of falling in love.] (286-87)
As the personification of the repressed, Elisa’s spirit returns to, and by way of,
Carlota; the identities of the two women converge, allowing Carlota to “see” her mistakes, through her mother’s eyes. In acknowledging her own missteps and lack of judgment in falling in love with Ramón, the protagonist no longer sees her mother as an intangible essence, but instead as an extension of herself (or she as an extension of her mother and her mother’s memory). Ultimately, the family curse of which Carlota is so afraid is not so much familial or generational as it is gendered. Sofía and Elisa’s deaths can be attributed to their status as women, for Sofía dies while giving birth to Elisa, and
Elisa—though it is not entirely clear to the reader, or the protagonist—either dies because
Ramón believes that he is no longer able to control her and subsequently pushes her to her death or because the young woman yearns for freedom and feels that in order to fulfill this desire she must challenge traditional, patriarchal authority.32 In the end, the protagonist seeks reparations for Elisa’s death and possible murder at the hands of
236 Ramón by forcing him out of the house that had tied him to the memory of his former lovers. While Janer is careful to leave the matter of the gardener’s guilt unclear, his compulsory exile from the estate is portrayed as a necessary step in Carlota’s continued process of self-realization.33
In the light of Jacobus’s affirmations, the novel itself—as well as Carlota’s implied account—can be read as a memory text, lieu de mémoire, or as an example of feminist historiography, for it provides women with a voice and the means to dismantle
“his-tory” and impart their own version of the past to the contemporary reader.34 From the outset of Las mujeres, the protagonist appears to be very aware and proud of the fictional, and even uncanny, quality of her home and daily existence. Her repeated references to the many stories (“historias”) that make up the identity of the casona underscore her desire to be a part of not only history but of the retelling of these accounts as well. The protagonist believes that La Casa de Albarca is filled with so many stories and histories that if one were able to document them all they would occupy thousands of pages of text (34). Nevertheless, Carlota acknowledges that they have, in fact, never been and could never all be recorded—indicated in her use of the imperfect subjunctive:
“Historias que tendrían muchas letras si se pudieran escribir” [(Hi)stories that would have many letters if they could be written] (34)—and hence continue to linger and haunt both the house and the young woman. Carlota’s desire to understand the histories of her past, and by extension, her own identity, is what incites her to seek out the truth regarding her mothers’ brief lives.
In a critical moment, before leaving her room to meet with Ramón for the last time, the protagonist catches a glimpse of herself in her grandmother’s old mirror and
237 discerns that her facial features have been altered slightly, causing her to resemble a phantasm: “Finalmente, yo también había adquirido las formas de un fantasma” [In the end, I, too, had begun to take on the form of a ghost] (293). It is unclear what Carlota means by this, for she does not specify exactly what she sees, or what has changed, in the reflection. Nevertheless, Resina reminds us that “one recognizes ghosts by their lack of reflection in a mirror” (3-4), thereby further problematizing the protagonist’s ontological status. In this scene, Carlota convincingly personifies the uncanny, for her image in the mirror is the result of the effacement of existential boundaries, as life and death, self and other become confused in her likeness; she is a stranger to herself. This recent recognition in the looking glass marks the inheritance of her mothers’ (previously unknown and idealized) legacy and physical characteristics. No longer appearing distorted or out of place, as her facial features had seemed to her before, Carlota’s image is now depicted in a “mirror-portrait” of its own, very similar to those of her mothers. In this reflection, the past and present (not to mention the identities of the three women) overlap and are confounded once more, as the living take on the qualities of the dead.
Similarly, when discussing his relationship with his parents, Nietzsche affirms, “I am at once the dead man and the living woman,” as if to say that he represents, and is both of, them. As Derrida declares, Nietzsche has in him the “living-dead”; he is composed of their ghosts, secrets (58), and the same can be said of Carlota, whose proximity to ghostliness echoes Derrida’s assertion that ghosts do not belong to the past, but rather to the future. What is more, the appearance of ghostly traits in Carlota signals not only a physical metamorphosis but also an ideological transformation, or heightened awareness regarding the protagonist’s sense of self. Carlota’s altered likeness effectively illustrates
238 and confirms the decisive assimilation of the three women’s identities, secrets and histories in one. Therefore, the protagonist’s ghostly image not only indicates that she houses a repressed maternal inheritance and memory but, even more importantly, that she incarnates the manifestation of their spectral return in the present, as she takes up their ghostly legacy in hopes of seeking reparations for their silenced histories.
Upon the realization that her obsession with the past—inculcated in her by her grandfather and materialized in Ramón (296)—has impeded her from living in the present, Carlota ultimately breaks with the repetition of history and banishes the gardener from the house he has occupied for so many years and records (or recreates) her own life story and memory text. In doing so, the protagonist locates her voice and reclaims the house as a female space—afterall, it was because of her grandmother’s dowry that Mateo was able to purchase the casona—revealing a newly realized feminist consciousness: “Tú no formas parte de ningún lugar. Mucho menos de la casa que fue de mi abuelo y que ahora es mía. Es mía y no te quiero aquí” [You belong nowhere. Much less to the house that was once my grandfather’s and is now mine. It is mine and I don’t want you here]
(295, my emphasis). As the most recent proprietor of La Casa de Albarca, Carlota feels a newfound sense of empowerment and autonomy, for she recognizes her ability to control not only her present and future, but also this locus of personal and familial memory, an extension of her own identity. Although she is not yet comfortable with her newly found voice and agency—for she fails to recognize herself as the assertive communicator of such austere words directed at Ramón, but instead senses that her pronouncements are those of another—her discomfort reflects a new and still unfamiliar feminist voice and consciousness.35
239 In her recontextualization and adaptation of Freud’s analysis of the uncanny,
Janer effectively links the notions of home, the feminine, and the unheimlich to underscore a contemporary crisis in female and national identities. Characterized by decades (or centuries, depending on one’s perspective) of marginalization and considerable political and cultural repression, forward progress in both Mallorca and the women’s movement has been slow, and instead time and history have appeared to perpetuate themselves. Janer draws heavily on the themes of repression and recurrence in order to emphasize women’s experience and Mallorcan identity as inherently uncanny entities that have been silenced and excluded from androcentric versions of history for far too long. Carlota’s confusion and uncertainty regarding her present incite her to try to make sense of her fragmented family history and identity by reinterpreting the past, an act that impels her to embrace the embodiment of a plurality of voices, memories and selves. By narrating her own story—a privilege not taken up by her mother or grandmother—the protagonist documents her version of a personal history and is therefore able to resist the erasure of her voice and testimony. As an extension of Sofía and Elisa, Carlota relays her mothers’ respective stories through her own intimations to an implied interlocutor, and in doing so vindicates her predecessors’ legacy and ensures that their names and experiences are no longer excluded in the annals of familial or collective history. The protagonist’s “text”—a portrait or mirror of her own reflecting a juxtaposed image that depicts the convergence of past and present—is the result of the superimposition of assorted female and generational perspectives that reveals an inseparable and complex matrilineal bond among the three women. Janer’s text suggests that this “female connection,” or joint legacy, unites all women (past, present, and future
240 and Spanish and Catalan) in their struggle to reclaim subjectivity and visibility, with the hope of revising a common, but diverse, history.
1 Las mujeres que hay en mí is Janer’s first novel published in Castilian, as she typically publishes in her native Catalan. In an interview with El Mundo, the novelist explains that she chose to write the novel in Castilian because she believes in linguistic diversity and plurality. Already considered one of the most widely read Catalan writers, Janer’s impetus to publish her work in multiple languages connects her with a broader audience and group of consumers. Janer’s oeuvre, like that of Castro and fellow Mallorcan Carme Riera, contributes to the reaction to Francoist attempts to erase regional identities; by writing most of her works in Catalan, Janer is able to recuperate a literary tradition that was heavily undermined during the Franco regime and even during the early years of the democratic Transition.
2 Cristina Fernández Cubas, born in Barcelona in 1945, is considered by many critics to be a master of the Gothic and its subgenre, the uncanny.
3 At various points throughout the narrative, Carlota refers to her mother and grandmother as her “mothers,” or “mis madres.” Never having met her biological father, Carlota is only slightly more familiar with her mother’s side of the family—nevertheless, she has never met her grandmother either, for that matter, nor does she have memories of her mother—and instead of using the familiar appellation, “mis padres” to refer to both mother and father, the protagonist emphasizes the weight of her matrilineal legacy, and the equal influence of these two women, on her conception of self.
4 Constance Penley posits that “repetition is the source of the uncanny” (149), while Elizabeth Wilson identifies the uncanny as “the persistent re-enactment of past unresolved conflicts in the present” (42). Both of these assertions address the recurrence of the past, and in Janer’s novel it is the past that returns to and conditions the protagonist.
5 Janer’s decision to center her account on three generations of women is not entirely original, as various other female Spanish authors before her have also chosen to do so. In Josefina Aldecoa’s novel, Mujeres de negro [Women in Black] (1994), it is Juana— representative of the youngest generation—who relates the experiences of her mother and grandmother to an interlocutor. Much like Carlota, Juana’s memories are merely subjective re-workings of the past, a realization that calls further attention to the problematic belief in the subject’s ability to recover a personal and collective history. Montserrat Roig’s Ramona, adéu (1974), also spans the life accounts of three generations of women.
241
6 The narrator does not sufficiently explicate the reasons for which Elisa and Carlota fall under the gardener’s spell. His physical traits are never mentioned, and other than his exile to India, the narrator abstains from describing the nature of his character. Similar to D.H. Lawrence’s Lady Chatterley’s Lover (1928), an upper-class, young married woman engages in an extramarital affair with a working-class man. Sofía clearly suffers from sexual frustration and existential confusion, thus leading her to engage in a simulated affair with Ramón, but the reasons behind Elisa and Carlota’s attraction to and involvement with him are elusive for the reader.
7 Sofía’s relationship with Ramón is a simulated one that is based entirely on the visual and voyeuristic. Their clandestine, erotic encounters consist of Sofía undressing in front of her bedroom window, all the while gazing at herself in the mirror, for Ramón, who observes her from the garden.
8 Pérez contends that Gothic fiction is a byproduct of the Industrial Revolution, a period that parallels the rise and fall of the Gothic as a literary and artistic genre (87). She maintains that Spain did not experience the industrialization process until the late nineteenth and early twentieth century—as opposed to the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century in England—resulting in a lag of a century in the development of the Spanish Gothic (87).
9 While the paintings never leave the house itself, they are repositioned strategically throughout the casona. Before Mateo’s second marriage, the portraits hang, prominently, in the main hallway where they are easily visible and accessible. After marrying Margarita, he chooses to “hide” them away in Carlota’s bedroom, so as to not make his new wife uncomfortable (we eventually learn that Margarita wishes to forget the past). As a result of this decision, the protagonist must literally and figuratively face her mothers on a daily basis.
10 Fellow Mallorcan novelist, Carme Riera, has described herself as triply marginalized, first because she is a woman, second because in Spain she forms part of a minority literature (Catalan, or Mallorcan, rather than Castilian), and within this minority literature, she is not from the center (Barcelona), but from the island of Mallorca. While Riera may not speak for Janer, the similarities between the two novelists’ circumstances should be noted here, particularly with respect to the isolation of the female protagonist.
11 When comparing the Gothic elements present in Henry James’s The Turn of the Screw to those in Adelaida García Morales’s Las mujeres de Héctor [Héctor’s Women], Abigail Lee Six argues that the fluidity between self and other is terrifying for both the reader and the characters involved. For Carlota, the uncanny similarities between her and her mothers frighten her, particularly because she fears repeating their tragic fates.
12 According to J. E. Cirlot, mystics have likened the feminine to closed spaces, such as a “house or a wall, as well as an enclosed garden” (146), as they all evince the notion of prohibition or repression and are attributes of the Gothic mode.
242
13 Carlota never meets her biological father who, like Elisa, was a teenager when the protagonist was born. The narrator describes him as a red-headed young man, whom Elisa never loved.
14 In their study entitled “Gothic Possibilities,” Norman Holland and Leona Sherman contend that “the castle [which in Las mujeres is the old casona] symbolizes the body” (281).
15 For Freud, the prefix “un” signifies repression (“The Uncanny” 245).
16 Carlota’s “memory” of her grandmother’s preserves is reminiscent of Proust’s episode of the madeleine in his À la recherche du temps perdu (1927).
17 Curiously, Lacan considers metonymy (the naming of a thing by substituting one of its attributes for the thing itself) as divisive and characteristically feminine.
18 The Femme-Maison series depicts women as part house, part human body. Typically, the house occupies the place in which the head and neck would be, while the breasts, hips, vagina, and legs are frequently recognizable. The house / woman’s arms are often visible and tend to be the most symbolic of the body parts, for, depending on their positioning (whether lying limply at the side or bent and raised), Bourgeois is able to shed some light on the female subject’s mood, emotional state, or agency.
19 Freud compares the fausse reconnaissance (false recognition or memory) of having already recounted a particular memory with the déjà vu experience (202).
20 Tania Modleski affirms that the conspicuous absence of the mother figure is a common trope of the Gothic mode (68), but the orphanage of the female protagonist is also evocative of a trend in female-authored Spanish post-war novels, as found in Carmen Laforet’s Nada, Carmen Martín Gaite’s Entre visillos, Ana María Matute’s Primera memoria, and Mercè Rodoreda’a La plaça del Diamant to name a few.
21 Marianne Hirsch argues that, more than oral or written accounts, “[photographic] images that survive massive devastation and outlive their subjects and owners function as ghostly revenants from an irretrievably lost past world” (115). These portraits, then, are Carlota’s connection to the past. She reads her mother’s faces as if they were a text that might be able to tell her something about her personal history and, by extension, her own identity.
22 Here, Janer confuses woman and art, a cultural convention used by Poe in his “The Oval Portrait.” As Marina Warner puts forth, this technique acts as a metaphor for the act of artistic creation as comparable, but converse, to natural birth where man is maker and woman is made.
243
23 The adoring veneration of the paintings is reminiscent of Franco’s exploitation of the images of the Virgin Mary, Saint Teresa of Ávila, and Isabel la Católica to promote the feminine ideal for Spanish women during the dictatorship. For the regime, these figures embodied passivity, moral and ethnic purity, and perfection, all patriarchal models for women that are anchored in an unattainable cultural paradigm. According to Barbara Weissberger, these propagandistic images, which were also designed to ground “the stability of the state and patriarchal family” (188), reversed the political and social gains Spanish women had made during the Second Republic (1931-36).
24 The comparison with Frankenstein’s monster is also appropriate because, like the creature, Carlota desires to know her origins.
25 When Carlota stumbles across a photograph of her mother in Ramón’s desk drawer, she is surprised at how different she looks from the portrait hanging on her bedroom wall: “Me sorprendió verla en aquel trozo de papel en blanco y negro. La percibí muy joven y muy vulnerable” (284). The supposed reliability provided by the artistic renditions is promptly destabilized: “La seguridad del retrato que conocía era sustituida por un aire débil, de persona a quien se la puede llevar el viento” [The certainty / security of the familiar portrait was substituted by a weak constitution, of a person who could be picked up by a gust of wind] (284). She realizes that the two images contradict one another, the one resembling a more realistic image of her mother, and the other representative of an artist’s subjective rendition of her, something partially fictional.
26 Hoeveler expounds on this idea in her consideration of Gothic feminism in The Mysteries of Udolpho, Wuthering Heights, and Northanger Abbey, declaring that many Gothic heroines dislike seeing their faces in the faces of others (81).
27 In Riera’s novel, C “Huía de los espejos […]. Los odiaba […] por el miedo de que el espejo me devolviera la nada, no el reflejo de mi cara, sino el vacío” [Avoided mirrors […]. She hated them […] for fear that the mirror would reflect, not the reflection of my face, but of a void space] (121). The existential fears of Riera’s protagonist resemble those experienced by Carlota, however the anxieties of the latter relate more closely to the fear of repeating the past than to the fear of nothingness.
28 Vilarós herself references the uncanny when exploring the nation’s dependency on former political and cultural paradigms, asserting that their re-emergence in post- Totalitarian society signals their superficial suppression during the years of the democratic Transition.
29 It is curious to note that, when added together, Sofía and Elisa’s years of life total approximately forty years, the same number to which many cultural critics allude when referencing the Franco era.
244
30 The hazy, lazy historicity upon which Janer centers her novel further accentuates the uncanniness and Gothic-ness of Spain’s recent past, for such ambiguity effects a strangely familiar sensation in the reader.
31 Novels such as Ángeles Caso’s Un largo silencio [A Long Silence] (2000), Javier Cercas’s Soldados de Salamina (2001), Dulce Chacón’s La voz dormida [The Sleeping Voice] (2002), Riera’s Dins el darrer blau [In the Last Blue] (1994) and La meitat de l’ànima [Half the Soul] (2004), and Almudena Grandes’s El corazón helado [The Frozen Heart] (2007) are just a few of the literary works published in the twenty-first century that address the polemical notion of (the recuperation and revision of) historical memory and truth.
32 In the scene preceding her death, Elisa defies Ramón and Miguel by deciding that the threesome will go and visit the lighthouse despite the men’s reservations about the inclement weather. She is annoyed by their determination to contradict her, and “le despertaban el deseo de enfrentarse a ellos” (234). Her desire to go to the lighthouse and look over the precipice reiterates her rebellious nature and longing for both freedom and agency.
33 Although Carlota made the mistake of falling for Ramón, there appear to be signs of incremental change—as if there were a learning curve of sorts—firstly, in the way in which the women interact with the gardener and secondly, in their ability to separate themselves from him.
34 When faced with the difficulty of incorporating women’s individual experience into official history, many feminists such as Hélène Cixous struggle to redefine the latter as a multidimensional and multivocal—and not monolithic—ideology that allows women to understand “their meaning in history” (245).
35 By forcing Ramón out of the house and relieving him of his gardening duties, Carlota reclaims the garden as a locus of female sexuality and empowerment.
Conclusion
The aim of the present study has been to expose a common and alarming trend in the narrative portrayal of female identity at the turn of the millennium which, as portrayed in
Luisa Castro’s La segunda mujer (2006), Rosa Montero’s La hija del Caníbal (1997), Espido
Freire’s Melocotones helados (1999), and Maria de la Pau Janer’s Las mujeres que hay en mí
(2002), presents what initially appears to be a regression rather than a progressive evolution in women’s subjectivity. While all of the protagonists in the texts analyzed in the preceding chapters have received a university education and appear to be independently-minded, autonomous and “liberated” individuals, the reader soon learns that they appear to revert back to the mistakes of their foremothers. Many of the women feel the need to be involved with a man for financial support or to feel validated and fulfilled, whereas some of the protagonists abandon their careers and autonomy for the chimera of love. Others situate or find themselves in physically- and psychologically-abusive relationships, while some very explicitly repeat the fates of their mothers, aunts and grandmothers in a seemingly endless cycle that implies a standstill in women’s progress and the failure of feminism to “stick” in contemporary Spanish society. The women depicted in these novels appear to have a limited understanding of their personal and collective histories and, as a result, are not very secure in their own identities. Eventually, however, as these protagonists seek to better understand themselves, whether it be through the writing process or a heightened awareness of their family’s past—or a combination of the two—they do show signs of evolution rather than
246 regression. Although the four novelists represent the intersections of female subjectivity and the splintering or duplication of consciousness and identity in very different ways, each novel considered here conspicuously addresses a crisis in female identity whose impact is triggered by a lack of knowledge about the past.
Guided by the well-known dictum of political historiography—“those who forget the past are condemned to repeat it”—these novels address the need for a reworking of women’s history and memory in order to establish not only cultural visibility, but to enable women to consider their present and future in the light of the past. While stylistically divergent in form and execution, the four texts analyzed here share various common attributes that corroborate the underlying thesis of this project, which is that a silencing of women’s history—whether it be through physical or emotional violence or other forms of oppression—conditions each protagonist’s splintered, unstable sense of self. It is in her struggle to understand her past and re-create herself through a self-conscious writing process that each character formulates a customized feminist awareness that allows her to separate from the oppressive forces in her life and embrace the traces of a her female legacy. The attention given to the self-reflexive novel is an important variant on the metatextual impulse that has been considered fundamental to the poetics of the contemporary Spanish novel at large. Robert Spires,
Concha Alborg, Phyllis Zatlin, Antonio Sobejano-Morán, Samuel Amago, and Ofelia Ferrán, are just a few of the many Hispanists who assess metatextual writing in their respective studies, tending to coincide in their view that the use of metafiction doubles as a subversive strategy that reveals the fabricated nature of history, memory, and identity. For Alborg, metafictional writing in Rosa Montero’s works serves to emphasize their feminist message, and it has been my contention that, through self-conscious literary or artistic production, all
247 of the protagonists (and authors) examined herein employ their texts to communicate and legitimize female experience and to—as Cixous proposes—incite in their readers a re- examination of the status quo and propose the need for change.
The first chapter introduced the problem domestic abuse in the case of a young, educated and professional woman who has clearly benefited from feminist and democratic advances. Despite an “unwomanly” ambition, Julia Varela has an unclear sense of purpose and does not fully appreciate the significance of her professional achievements and previous autonomy. Her decision to renounce everything for which she has worked to live with and eventually marry a man more than twice her age troubles the reader and indicates a problematic trend in female subjectivity. The splintering of Julia’s identity is perceived on various levels, first on a psychological and emotional level, as can be further discerned in the narrative structure, and then on a more physiological one. It is not until Julia returns to writing that she can make sense of her past mistakes, re-define herself through the narrative process, and transform what throughout her relationship with Gaspar had been a muted voice into an audible and powerful testimony of her rise, fall, and successive anagnorisis. In recording her account, Julia (and Castro) provides visibility to the traditionally proscribed issue of domestic violence and gives it and the victims of such abuse a place in History.
The second chapter addressed the issue of a middle-aged woman who, prompted by the mysterious disappearance of her husband, experiences a disorienting existential crisis.
While Lucía is not a victim of domestic abuse, per se, her corporal and textual bodies reveal signs of repressed physical and emotional trauma. The splintered, scarred, and incomplete nature of her body and psychological makeup is reflected in her implied text, which is communicated to her interlocutor through a variety of perspectives—one belonging to Félix,
248 and the other two to her own splintered and, at times, contradictory self or selves. It soon becomes apparent that Lucía’s text, just like her identity and memory, is comprised of the many life experiences, memories, and philosophies of those around her, thus reiterating the fragmentary, constructed, and permeable nature of human existence. Through an analysis of the cannibal trope, I considered Lucía’s appropriation and digestion of others’ perspectives and memories in her effort to fill in the gaps—or fissures—of her own existence.
The last two chapters established women’s history as a shared fate, recalling Arendt’s assertion that those who do not know their own history are doomed to live it as if it were their own destiny (71). In chapter three, I read Freire’s novel as a late twentieth-century
Female (or Feminist) Gothic text that, like those of her nineteenth-century predecessors, contains a veiled yet subversive feminist message that exposes the misogynist nature of contemporary Spanish society. The two female protagonists, similar to many characters of the so-called Generation X Peninsular novel, seem detached from and unaware of their family’s recent, enigmatic past. The fragmented structure of the narrative echoes the overwhelming silences, secrets and ellipses of the family history. The novel recounts the story of mistaken and confused identities among three women from the same family who share the same name—Elsa—and perhaps a similar fate. Unlike the first two chapters,
Melocotones helados centers more on the duplication and overlapping of female identity from one generation to the next, as evinced in the emblematic Gothic doppelgänger figure.
The confounding of identities and the perpetuation of the past in the present are issues that relate to the problematic suppression of painful histories frequently associated with the remembrance of women.
249 The final chapter also addresses the notion of a shared, but silenced, female history that conditions the protagonist’s identity. The absence of the mother figure—the main character’s connection to her immediate past and maternal genealogy—is felt most strongly here, for Carlota has little to no recollection of her “mothers,” whose artistic renditions and supposed ghosts haunt and determine her confused and fragmented sense of self. The application of Freud’s analysis of the uncanny helps to bring to light the transgression and splintering of female identity. As the embodiment of both the heimlich and unheimlich,
Carlota is comprised of various contradictory but complementary concepts, such as present and past, self and other, familiar and unfamiliar, and therefore serves as a viable representation of a contemporary Spain caught in the middle of an identity crisis. In these final chapters, Freire and Janer describe the haunting return of the repressed—of those individuals who were denied a memory or a voice in official accounts of the past. In these last two studies, the female protagonists seek to vindicate their disregarded foremothers by remembering and re-writing them into history.
The female characters of these novels struggle to find meaning and a sense of identity in unloving or abusive relationships frequently characterized by a lack of communication.
Curiously, Castro, Montero, Freire, and Janer seem to depict marriage or sentimental relationships in a negative light, insinuating that it is only by separating themselves from their husbands, significant others or lovers that the protagonists are able to assert themselves and refashion a sense of identity. Whether they find themselves in an unhappy or psychologically abusive relationship in which their significant others do not understand them, or they are threatened, raped, or mistreated by a religious cult or they are simply the victims of androcentric society, the suffering of these female protagonists allows the novelists to
250 bring to the fore the issue of gender violence and oppression. It is typically through the documentation of their own experiences and, at times, the reworking of their family histories that the women of these novels are able to contest their repression, resist silence, and fashion a more assertive sense of self. The testimonies they record serve as a sort of inheritance that can be passed on to both their descendants and readers. Unlike their foremothers, these protagonists are able to leave a trace, document and recreate their memories (and those of their progenitors), and claim an identity for themselves in the process.
The principal objective of this project is to give visibility to a pervasive problem in contemporary Spanish culture as portrayed in narrative by a series of female authors who call attention to women’s ongoing alienation and oppression in twenty-first century society. In a subversive fashion, the female writers of the contemporary novel seek to recover an ignored or forgotten past by providing their female characters with a voice and the ability to fashion a personal, peculiar form of feminism in order to resist their objectification and mistreatment in contemporary androcentric society. Castro, Montero, Freire and Janer exhibit a desire to give a voice to those who have been silenced for reasons of gender, class, regional identity, or politics. Although they deny that they insert a feminist discourse into their narratives, the writers here under scrutiny ultimately depict female characters whose desire to recover their past in order to both understand their present and locate a sense of autonomy is driven by a developing feminist consciousness. Although the term “feminist” can represent a number of ideas, the protagonists of the novels considered here demonstrate the wish “to articulate a self-consciousness about women’s identity both as inherited cultural fact and as process of social construction” (Heilbrun).
251 In this study, I have organized my chapters according to author and novel, however in a future extension of this project it might be effective to separate each chapter by common themes and parallels, for instance by each novelist’s engagement with the writing process, by each protagonist’s relationship with her respective mother (or mother-like figures), or by a comparison of each female character’s splintered or duplicated identity. Furthermore, this project considers a crisis in female identity, specifically, however most of the novels addressed here—and many others that are not included here—depict male characters that also suffer from varying degrees of existential confusion. What is more, while I have focused my attention on strictly female writers, I certainly do not believe that male authors are incapable of creating a convincing female subject in crisis. In La soledad era esto [This Was Solitude]
(1990) and Dos mujeres en Praga [Two Women in Prague] (2002), Juan José Millás blurs elements from “fact” and “fiction,” and stresses the characters’ contradictions, internal fragmentation and their subsequent need to reconstitute themselves through the narrative process. Nevertheless, the decision to analyze texts written specifically by women authors has allowed me to consider these novelists as rhetors who employ a certain feminist philosophy to appeal to and connect with a predominantly female audience.
Montserrat Roig’s Ramona, adéu! (1972), Dulce Chacón’s Algún amor que no mate
(1996) and La voz dormida (2002), Ángeles Caso’s Un largo silencio (2000), Carme Riera’s
La meitat de l’ànima (2003), and Elvira Lindo’s Una palabra tuya (2005) are all texts that could be included in the present study, as they address the need to recover, rewrite and communicate women’s experience and memory from a female—and at times, feminist— perspective. Like Julia, Lucía, Elsa, and Carlota, many of the protagonists of these novels manifest a physical and psychological splintering of identity and / or a blurring of self and
252 other. Furthermore, while I have centered my analysis on female characters that pertain to a specific age group—with Montero’s protagonist being the exception—it could be useful to consider identity crises in women of various generations so as to reflect other variations on or a progression (or retrogression) in female experience. As a future extension of this project it might be effective to include a novel whose protagonist grapples with questions of sexuality and gender, such as Etxebarria’s protagonist Beatriz, in Beatriz y los cuerpos celestes (1998),
Eduardo Mendicutti’s La Madelón in Una mala noche la tiene cualquiera (1982), or Esther
Tusquets’s protagonist in El mismo mar de todos los veranos (1978). Through the exploration of bisexuality, transgenderism, and lesbianism, respectively, these characters challenge hegemonic constructions of gender and sexuality, yet must also contend with the persistence of an oppressive past that threatens the possibility of achieving self-fulfillment.
As stated above, many of the male protagonists of these four novels display the distinctive symptoms of an identity crisis seemingly provoked by an imposed, collective amnesia.
Despite the fact that—or perhaps because—some of the descriptions of the male characters in these novels are hazy, negative, and seemingly incomplete, their cases also deserve further consideration.
While my analysis of these texts relies heavily on the contributions of French or Anglo-
American feminist theorists, I have also sought to address Roberta Johnson’s request for Spanish scholars to explore and privilege feminist literary criticism from Spain over the theoretical models of its foreign counterparts. In her articles “Spanish Feminist Theory Then and Now”
(2003) and “Issues and Arguments in Twentieth-Century Spanish Feminist Theory” (2005),
Johnson declares that “We have not been accustomed to considering Spanish thought when theorizing about feminist issues in Spanish writing, partly because that writing often does not
253 resemble theory, as we understand it” (“Issues” 247). Instead, she argues that Hispanists must be prepared to peruse the literary and artistic narratives or journalistic essays of female authors if they wish to locate a palpable Spanish feminist consciousness. In the light of the critic’s assertions, I have interpreted these four novels as literary works that, through their portrayal of women’s experience and the need to recover women’s history, reveal a salient feminist message.
Lucía Etxebarria, a contemporary Spanish novelist, cultural icon, and self-declared feminist, is well aware of the need for a comprehensive Spanish feminism, particularly among young women. Her collection of essays, entitled La Eva futura: Cómo seremos las mujeres del siglo XXI y en qué mundo nos tocará vivir [The Future Eve: How We, the
Women of the Twenty-First Century, Will Be and in What World Will We Live In] (2001), is a valuable resource in the study of Spanish feminism in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. In her essays, Etxebarria elaborates on her understanding of feminism and the need for a reconsideration of what it means to be a feminist:
En los noventa se requiere una redefinición, para que deje de existir ese absurdo
personaje de mujer que dice: “Yo no soy feminista, pero… (y a continuación va
desglosando los puntos fundamentales del ideario feminista, uno por uno)…pero
aspiro a ganar igual que un hombre, pero no me gusta que se me juzgue sólo por
mi físico, pero creo que los medios de comunicación presentan una imagen falsa
de lo que es la mujer, etc, etc etc…” […]. En el imaginario popular, una feminista
es la mujer que quiere ser más fuerte que los hombres, o que quiere vivir sin
hombres o que quiere ser un hombre. Pero para mí una mujer feminista no se
define en absoluto según su relación con los hombres, sino según su relación
consigo misma y con el resto de la población en general.
254 [In the nineties a new definition is necessary, so that we do away with that absurd
type of woman that says: “I am not a feminist, but… (and then continues to rattle
off the fundamental points of feminist ideals, one by one)… but I strive to earn
just as much as a man, but I do not like that I am judged only on my appearance,
but I think that the media presents a false image of women, etc., etc., etc….” […]
In the popular imaginary, a feminist is a woman who wants to be stronger than
men, or who wants to live without men, or who wants to be a man. But for me, a
feminist woman does not define herself at all in terms of her relationship with
men, but rather, according to her relationship with herself and with the rest of the
population in general.] (17)
Etxebarria’s definition of feminism seeks to discredit pervasive misconceptions about the philosophy and stresses the importance of a woman’s relationship with herself. Etxebarria’s
La Eva futura / La letra futura [The Future Eve / Future Writing] serves as an example of what Roberta Johnson would call Spanish feminist theory that Hispanists [and Spanish women] should read.
It is important to employ Spanish feminist theory when studying Spanish women writers so as to understand situations specific to the history of Spain. As Laura Freixas posits in
Literatura y mujeres, many female authors fear that they will be considered “writers for women” who only address “feminine,” and not universal, topics. For this reason, many contemporary women writers who claim to be feminists in their own lives reject the feminist label in their literary production. Johnson asserts that Spanish women have a long history of rejecting the
“feminist” label, for at the beginning of the twentieth century Carmen de Burgos “was a master of holding feminist positions and carrying out feminist activities, while strategically rejecting the
255 label” (246). Johnson argues that many female authors reject the feminist label to avoid the kinds of ridicule leveled at feminists, who were caricatured throughout the twentieth-century in the press and novels, as seen in Pío Baroja’s Paradox, rey and El mundo es ansí. In these novels and others by male writers, Johnson observes that the feminist characters tend to be foreign (from
France or Russia), thus emphasizing the perception that feminism was a foreign movement “that could invade Spanish soil where traditional womanhood formed part of the nation’s identity”
(“Issues and Arguments” 247). According to Johnson, unlike French or Anglo-American feminist scholars who tend to apply a “universalistic” approach to issues of women and gender,
Spanish feminist theory is more directly tied to specifically Spanish situations, “and Spanish feminist writers for the most part begin their analyses and arguments with a historical view in order to understand the present situation” (“Issues and Arguments” 249). Therefore, the issue of history is a necessary component of contemporary Spanish feminist thought because, as Johnson affirms, political history has fluctuated much more in twentieth-century Spain than in France,
Great Britain or the United States.
In the highly influential Reinventing Womanhood, Carolyn Heilbrun maintains that, while women have been participants in culture, they have been denied a place in history. She claims that their collective memory has been suppressed and must be “brought up from the darkness”
(209) before being reconsidered and reinvented. In this project, I have sought to address a perceived trend in turn-of-the-millennium female-authored narrative that portrays the female protagonist in the midst of a profound existential crisis prompted by a personal and / or collective ignorance of the past. As products of their environment—a culture characterized by both personal and collective amnesia—the female characters of these novels reflect the fragmented and contradictory nature of contemporary Spain. Although the women considered in this study
256 do not find all the answers to their existential queries, nor do they completely resolve their ontological confusion, they each arrive at a greater understanding of their splintered, ever- changing and incomplete identites.
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Delgado-Poust EDUCATION 2006-2011: Ph.D., Hispanic Literatures, The Pennsylvania State University 2004-2006: M.A., Hispanic Literatures, The Pennsylvania State University 1999-2003: B.A., Spanish and French, Cum Laude, Bucknell University FELLOWSHIPS, AWARDS, & HONORS 2010: Humanities Initiative Dissertation Support (Spring 2010) 2009: Edwin Erle Sparks Graduate Fellowship in the Humanities 2008: Jesús Díaz Award for exemplary achievement in the areas of service, teaching, and academics 2004-2009: Bunton-Waller Graduate Award 1999-2003: Alpha Lambda Delta National Academic Honor Society 2003: Helen A. Sprague Award for Excellence in Spanish TEACHING EXPERIENCE 2010-2011: Gettysburg College 2004-2010: The Pennsylvania State University 2003-2004: GW Community School CONFERENCE PAPERS AND PUBLICATIONS “La persistencia de la memoria franquista en Una mala noche la tiene cualquiera de Eduardo Mendicutti.” 61st Annual Kentucky Foreign Language Conference. University of Kentucky. Lexington, KY. (April 2008) “Wounded Body, Splintered Self: Luisa Castro’s La segunda mujer and Contemporary Spanish Feminism.” (Under review in Letras Femeninas.) INVITED LECTURE (Graduate Seminar) “What’s in a Name?: Mistaken Identities and Multiple Selves in Espido Freire’s Melocotones helados.” The Pennsylvania State University, Dept. of Spanish, Italian and Portuguese. Course: “Generation X” Literature, Film, and Media in Post-Transition Spain. (April 2010) OTHER PRESENTATIONS Refiguring Literary Feminism in Spain: The Splintering of Female Identity in the Contemporary Peninsular Novel. Poster presented at the twenty-fifth annual Graduate Exhibition. The Pennsylvania State University. University Park, PA. (March 2010) ACADEMIC / UNIVERSITY SERVICE Board Editor of Aleph (Penn State Graduate Student Journal) (Fall 2007-Spring 2008) Secretary of Spanish, Italian and Portuguese Graduate Student Organization (Fall 2007-Fall 2008)