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Psychosocial Development and Female Identity in Laforet's La Psychosocial Development and Female Identity in Laforet’s La mujer nueva MARK P. DEL MASTRO The Citadel Abstract Of Carmen Laforet’s fi ve published novels, three — Nada (1945), La isla y los demo- nios (1952) and La insolación (1963) — highlight adolescent identity development as their predominant themes. With La mujer nueva, however, Laforet takes a slightly different turn by portraying an adult’s search for a new identity, specifi cally the quest of the married protagonist, Paulina. While past critical attention has focused almost exclusively on Paulina’s religious conversion to Catholicism, this study exam- ines the protagonist’s formation in La mujer nueva, using primarily Erik Erikson’s stages of psychosocial development and his identity theory, an important appli- cation given the autobiographical elements of this novel. Ultimately and in spite of La mujer nueva’s deceptive conclusion, this analysis also shows the protagonist’s growth as a subtle call for female autonomy despite the suppressive values of the Catholic church and Francisco Franco’s regime. Resumen De las cinco novelas publicadas por Carmen Laforet, tres — Nada (1945), La isla y los demonios (1952) y La insolación (1963) — tienen como tema principal el desarrollo de la identidad adolescente. En la mujer nueva este tema varía un poco al describirse la búsqueda de identidad de una adulta casada, la protagonista Paulina. Aunque pasados estudios se han dedicado casi exclusivamente a la conversión católica de Paulina, este artículo examina la formación de la protagonista usando como refe- rencia principal las fases del desarrollo psicosocial y la teoría de la identidad de Erik Erikson, lo cual es un enfoque destacado al considerar los elementos autobiográ- fi cos de esta novela. Finalmente, y a pesar de la conclusión engañosa de La mujer nueva, este análisis también señala que el progreso de la protagonista es una petición sutil para la autonomía femenina, a pesar de los valores represivos que entrañaban la Iglesia Católica y el régimen franquista. The recurrent theme of identity development in Carmen Laforet’s novels clearly refl ects the author’s exploration and struggles with the multiple, sometimes confl icting roles — both public and private — that she held throughout her LLUP_BHS83_6_5_Maestro.inddUP_BHS83_6_5_Maestro.indd 509509 33/1/07/1/07 119:42:469:42:46 510 Mark P. del Mastro bhs, 83 (2006) own life as renowned writer, intellectual, wife, mother and Catholic. Of her fi ve novels, three — Nada (1945), La isla y los demonios (1952) and La insolación (1963) — highlight adolescent identity development. With La mujer nueva (1955), however, Laforet takes a slightly different turn by portraying an adult’s identity crisis and subsequent search-for-self.1 Specifi cally, it is the story of Paulina, a 33-year- old mother of one who chooses to leave home in Villa de Robre (summer of 1949) to re-establish her sense of identity in Madrid because of ideological differ- ences with conservative Spain, guilt for an ongoing love affair with Antonio, her husband’s cousin, and emotional distance from her spouse. While on the train to Spain’s capital, Paulina subsequently experiences a sort of spiritual conversion that instead of resolving her issues of identity (her confl icting roles of mother, spouse, working woman, mistress and Catholic), actually fosters her continued journey of refl ection and self-discovery in the city. In a 1989 interview, Laforet herself explains the 1951 event that both provoked a similar search in her own life and inspired the novel: It [La mujer nueva] grew out of something that happened to me while I was passing by a fountain at El Retiro Park in Madrid. All of a sudden, I felt a tremendous surge of happiness and a certainty that humanity was moving toward something wonderful, namely God. I spent three days saying I discovered the world, I discovered life, I discovered religion. I was so happy when I woke up each morning that I would wander in awe in the streets and think that all the horrible, ugly people I saw were actually wonderful because we were all moving toward God. The third day I woke up as I was before, without understanding anything, but knowing that this had happened to me. (Gazarian 1991: 157) After this ‘quasi-mystical experience’ (Johnson 1981: 28), Laforet spent one to two years trying to be ‘dogmatically religious’ (Gazarian 1991: 157), and a total of nearly seven years attempting to reconcile her questions about the Catholic faith. Her husband Manuel Cerezales, whom Laforet married in 1946 but from whom she separated defi nitively in 1970, motivated her to write La mujer nueva to portray this spiritual experience, one that Laforet depicts in her novel as a complex psychological process of a woman — in many ways like the author herself — who, in addition to and beyond gaining religious perspec- tive, seeks a free identity in an oppressive society.2 Despite this profound treat- 1 In Al volver la esquina (May 2004), Laforet’s fi fth and last published novel and the sequel to La insolación, the 47-year-old protagonist, Martín Soto, searches the past for existen- tial meaning with the aid of Dr. Leutari, a female psychotherapist. Although this process of recollection does not resolve for Martín his questions of identity, it does refl ect the author’s profound awareness of psychological development, a predominant theme in La mujer nueva and Laforet’s other novels. Al volver la esquina and La insolación correspond to the trilogy Tres pasos fuera del tiempo, but Laforet never fi nished the series’ last book, Jaque mate. With the exception of corrections that she incorporated later, Laforet completed Al volver la esquina by the end of 1973, but she did not authorize its publication until shortly before her death on February 28, 2004. 2 For more extensive biographical accounts of Laforet’s life, see the books by Inmaculada de la Fuente (2002), Laforet’s youngest son, Agustín Cerezales (1982), and Roberta Johnson (1981). LLUP_BHS83_6_5_Maestro.inddUP_BHS83_6_5_Maestro.indd 510510 33/1/07/1/07 119:42:469:42:46 bhs, 83 (2006) Psychosocial Development and Female Identity in La mujer nueva 511 ment of self-discovery, and since the novel’s publication, critical attention has focused almost exclusively on Paulina’s religious conversion to Catholicism.3 Even recent studies by Pedraza Jiménez and Rodríguez Cáceres (2000), Barroso (1997), and Quintana Tejera (1997) still fi xate on the protagonist’s conversion despite Roberta Johnson’s attempt in 1981 to sway scholars to examine the novel’s second layer, ‘the implicit sociocritical aspect’ of Laforet’s work (84).4 However, two critics seem to have responded to Johnson’s prompting: Rolón Barada (Laforet 2003) identifi es the novel’s social criticism in terms of Laforet’s ‘contribución personal al movimiento feminista de la literatura española de posguerra’ (11, 13), and Francisca López (1995) asserts that reading ‘entre líneas’ exposes the feminist message found in the questioning of Spain’s myths of marriage, contraceptives, etc (49). Still absent from published studies, never- theless, is an effort to explain the novel’s theme of female identity development through a psychoanalytical study of the protagonist, although some scholars have indeed alluded to the novel’s psychological dimension.5 In an attempt to fi ll this void, the following study will examine Paulina’s formation in La mujer nueva using primarily Erik Erikson’s stages of psychosocial development and his identity theory, an important application given the autobiographical elements of this novel.6 Ultimately and in spite of La mujer nueva’s deceptive conclusion, this analysis will also show the protagonist’s growth as a subtle call for female 3 A group of ‘altos dignatarios de la Iglesia’ (Prjevalinsky Ferrer 1961: 214), a judges’ panel ‘instituido para galardonar las novelas que exaltaron los valores humanos y cristianos’ initiated this analytical trend by awarding La mujer nueva the Premio Menorca in 1955 (De la Fuente 2002: 101). In 1956, Spain’s Ministry of Information and Tourism presented the Miguel de Cervantes prize, also known as the Premio Nacional de Literatura to La mujer nueva, thereby further endorsing what the approving censor Luis Pereda initially and superfi - cially interpreted as a novel with an ‘intención doctrinal […] ejemplarizadora’ (quoted in O’Byrne 1999: 207). Only novels and books of short stories published during the previous six months and submitted directly by authors and publishers were considered for the Miguel de Cervantes award (Martínez Cachero 1985: 238). 4 Studies by Pérez Firmat (1991), Ullman (1970), Prjevalinsky Ferrer (1961) and Hornedo (1957), among others, also focus on Paulina’s conversion. 5 Johnson’s work on La mujer nueva does not include a psychoanalytical study based upon contemporary theory, but her acknowledgement of Laforet’s ‘enriched handling of human psychology’ (84) in addition to her recognition of Laforet’s own references to social scien- tists Freud and Adler suggest that Johnson sees the importance of such an approach. Fernando Barroso identifi es the adult identity search in La mujer nueva, but he avoids a psychological analysis in favor of highlighting Paulina’s conversion. Also sidestepping social science are Francisca López in her explanation of Paulina’s psychological trajectory as ‘poco creíble en más de una ocasión’ (1995: 46), and Illanes Adaro in her vague descrip- tion of La mujer nueva as ‘una obra esencialmente psicológica’ (1971: 132). 6 Although one could justify an alternative psychoanalytic study using the renowned theories of Freud (ideological mentor of Erikson, though Erikson rejected the signifi cant Freudian concepts of instinct and the unconscious) and Jung, this article intentionally avoids such an approach for two connected reasons: 1) the diffi culty for social scientists to generate empirical data to support Freud and Jung’s ideas about the unconscious; 2) the consequent waning presence of Freud and Jung’s theories in contemporary human- development literature.
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