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Gald6s'. Use of Yellow in Character Delineation GALD6S'. USE OF YELLOW IN CHARACTER DELINEATION BY VERNON A. CHAMBERLIN HE USE of color by Gald6s has so far failed the cesante, Ramon Villamil (Fortunata y Jacinta, T to attract the detailed attention of literary Miau), with his "piel como la cascara de un scholars~ This lack of attention may perhaps be lim6n podrido" (v, 304) and his face as yellow as explained by the fact that Gald6s is so well that of a "tigre viejo y ti'.sico (v, 554).6 Similarly known and so esteemed for his extetnal and Gald6s says of the indiano, Agustin Caballero psychological realism that scholars have not been (La de Bringas, Tormento), "el color de su rostro inclined to seek special connotative values, [tez amarillenta (Iv, 1533)] era mallsinio, color de nuances, and interest for particular colors in his America, ... la insignia o marca del apostolado literary creativity. Gald6s' penchant for drawing colonizador ... " (iv, 1467). black-and-white sketches and two recent, very Furthermore, an occasional character turns careful, and highly regarded studies-which only momentarily-not white as a sheet, as in Eng- mention in passing specific instances of Gald6s' lish-but "mas amarillo que la cera" ;7 and there lack of. concen trati on regarding color1-Iikewise are a number of other characters whose yellow- fail to hint at its importance in his novels. That ness is not so much, or exclusively, evidence of Gald6s was interested in color, however, may be external realism. These personajes reflect a much seen in.his perennial use of yellow-an especially more subjective and symbolical character deline- important chroma which occurs not only promi- ation than that ordinarily credited to Gald6s. nently at critical junctures in certain-novels2 but One can best get at the heart of this matter also as the surname of an important character: through a consideration of Juan Amarillo, Juan Amarillo in Gloria; 3 Gald6s' most strikingly yellow character. Un- It has become a· generally accepted fact in like many other characters, Amarillo is a Galdosian criticism that the names Gald6s gave non-reappearing personaje; he was created to his personajes were not incidental tags but especially for the novel Gloria (1876-77) and ap- were often carefully chosen to 'reflect essential pears ill no· other. This is the only Galdosian facets of the character's personality and fre- novel to have a Jewish hero (Daniel Morton), quently to carry additional symbolic connota- and Juan Amarillo is clearly cast as the opposing tions.4 Thus when Gald6s says of Juan Amarillo: villain. Gald6s completely and purposefully re- "[su] apellido es de los que mas admirablemente verses a number of age-old popular concepts and se conforman con la persona" (Iv, 584), one may reasonably surmise that Gald6s had a definite use 1 Walter T. Pattison, Benito Perez Gald6s and the Creative for yellow in his characterization technique. Process (Minneapolis, Minn., 1954), p. 99, n. 335; and William However, yellow-complexioned personajes ap- H. Shoemaker, "Gald6s' Literary Creativity: D. Jose Ido del Sagrario," HR, XIX (1951), 212. pear throughout Gald6s' social novels from La 2 La Fontana de Oro, Dona Perfecta, Torquemada en la Fontana de Oro (1870) to Casandra (1905), and hoguera, and others as will be shown in the text of this study. one must be careful to remember that Gald6s was 3 This is the only instance where Gald6s ever used a color a consummate realist as well as a symbolist. Con- for the surname of an important character. Cf. "Ensayo de sequently, un censo de personajes galdosianos," Obras completas, ed. special connotative insinuations are F. C. Sainz de Robles (Madrid), vr, 1705-2078. All references not apparent in the case of those characters whose to Gald6s' works in the present study are to be found in this jaundiced complexion is but a symptom of ill series; volume IV is the tercera edicion (1954), and v and VI health. Gald6s was well aware that any illness are the segunda (1950, 1951). damaging normal liver function results in a yel- 4 Shoemaker, p. 232. 6 Gald6s definitely associated y~llow with consumption. lowish coloring to the skin. Thus Pepe Carrillo Fifteen years earlier, in La Fontana de Oro, he had described (Lo prohibido), suffering from some "cosa de a lone flower in a patio as "pobre clave! amarillento y tfsico" hlgado" (Iv, 1738), has a "rostro demacrado, con (1v, 37). For Jacinta in Fortunata y Jacinta, yellow "tiene amarillez azafranosa" (IV, 1755); and the titular cierto aire de poesfa mezclado con la tisis, coma en La Traviata" (v, 99). protagonist Angel Guerra turns yellow after his 6 Textual chronology seems to indicate that Gald6s liver has been pierced by an assassin's knife (v, worked from the color yellow (Fortuna/a y Jacinta, v, 304) 1532). Jaundice heralds the approaching death of to the image of a tiger (Miau, v, 554, col. 2) to give Villamil the tubercular Alejandro Miquis (El doctor a somewhat feline countenance to blend with that of the fe- Centeno; IV, 1402, 1436).5 Long years of civil male members ("las tres Miau") of his family (p. 554, col. 1). 7 For example, el Marques de Tellerfa in La f am ilia de Leon service in Cuba and the Philippines-lands ram- Roch (IV, 856). See Jose M. Sbarbi, Diccionario de refranes pant with yellow fever and malaria-have left de la lengua espanola (Buenos Aires, 1943), p. 64. 158 Vernon A. Chamberlin 159 makes his Jewish hero kind, noble, and generous. secret hoard of ancient gold coins, Dona Salome In contrast, the Christian villain, Juan Amarillo changes from the complete beata that Gald6s has (his surname being the color perennially assigned described throughout the story into a greedy pan- to Jews by their enemies),8 is a mean, sordid, and ther-"estaba amarilla y jadeante de rencor, pathologically greedy moneylender; he is also envidia y ansiedad." When the coins spill on the yellow-complexioned (1v, 584) and such an abso- floor, she viciously attacks the others present like lute villain that in both volumes of the novel his a wild beast, gets the money a way from them in a despicable and treacherous actions bring about mad scramble, and then disappears forever with the tragic denouement (rv, 584-585; 664.:_668). the "aureas piezas." Gald6s reinforces his symbolism with a wife for In Gald6s' second novel El audaz (1871), the the villain, who is just as greedy and equally man hired to kill the heroine, Clara Chac6n- yellow. She has "amarillas manos,'' "dorada piel who is being detained as a helpless prisoner-is de la frente" (rv, 598); and her little grey eyes "flaco, amarillo y esctialido" (rv, 362). He is not become "a veces dorados" (rv, 596). When la de only lascivious but so cowardly that he bungles Amarillo, whose countenance has a "brillo meta- the murder (rv, 362-363). lico,'' gets an opportunity to meet Ester Morton, Dona Perfecta is probably Gald6s' best-known a Jewess whom she knows to be wealthy, "la cara villainess. Throughout the novel bearing her de Teresita brillaba mas entonces. Aquel lustre name (1876), the.reader sees her in perfidious ac- metruico era el si'.ntoma de las agitaciones de su tion; but it is only in the climactic moments just alma ... " (rv, 652). Here Gald6s is expressing a before she orders the murder of Pepe Rey that sentiment similar to that of Abraham Cowley, Gald6s gives his first detailed physical descrip- the seventeenth-century English writer, who de- . tion. It is important, at this point; for the reader scribed avariciousness as "the love of gold-that to know that she has "[una] intensa amarillez de jaundice of the soul which makes it look so gilded su rostro, indicando una fuerte constituci6n and so foul." 9 Gald6s' technique, not only here biliosa" (rv, 495). There can be no doubt that but in many of his other social novels, is to reflect Gald6s' use of yellow for Dona Perfecta is con- the jaundice-gilded, foul inner condition of the scious and deliberate because recent scholarsl]Jp personaje by using yellow in the external physical has demonstrated that he rewrote the ending t6 description of the character. this novel.10 Among the more mature, more An examination of the novels preceding Gloria sophisticated changes he made, one finds an addi- reveals that Gald6s' use of yellow to delineate tional use of yellow, which echoes the quotation greedy, obnoxious, and villainous characters did noted above and not only gives Perfecta a kind of not originate in his desire to remove the tradi- ironic repayment for her evil deeds but also leaves tionally stigmatizing color from his Jewish hero the reader with a final and consistently yellow and stamp it aggressively (by means of surname image of her. Instead of allowing Perfecta to re- and yellow complexion) upon the latter's villain- main healthy, happy, and unpunished, Gald6s ous antagonists. On the contrary, Gald6s, from changed his mind and added, "ha perdido el the beginning of his career, held yellow to be an apetito de una manera alarmante ... hay un important and useful color for delineating anti- principio de ictericia ... [y] ella vuelve cada dfa pathetic characters. In his first novel, La Fon- mas amarilla" (rv, 501).11 tana de Oro (1870), "Coletilla" (D. Elfas Morejon In the light, idyllic Marianela there is no char- Y Paredes) has "la piel de la frente ... amarilla acter low or evil enough to merit yellow, but as Y arrugada como las hojas de un incunable" (rv, Gald6s returned to the religious question in La 21).
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