Z' 7 ? Ale I Ivoo q7g GALICIAN DAILY LIFE AND SOCIAL CUSTOMS AS SEEN IN PARDO BAZAN'S RURAL SHORT STORIES THESIS Presented to the Graduate Council of the North Texas State University in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements For the Degree of MASTER OF ARTS By Sally Cornette Laughlin, B.A. Denton, Texas December, 1973 TABLE OF .CONTENTS Chapter Page I. PARDO BAZAN'S SHORT STORIES.. .... ...... 1 II. LANDSCAPE IN THE SHORT STORIES..............14 III. GALICIAN DAILY LIFE AND CUSTOMS ... ...... 26 IV. THE PEOPLE.................... .......... 47 V. CONCLUSION........... ................... 93 BIBLIOGRAPHY......................................... 96 3- CHAPTER I PARDO BAZAN'S SHORT STORIES Emilia Pardo Bazan, one of the best-known women in the Spanish literary world, was born in La Coruna in the province of Galicia on September 16, 1851. Pardo Bazan was known as a gifted novelist and short-story writer of the Post-romantic period, and her contribution to both genres is significant. However, it is her novels rather than her short stories which have attracted critical attention. Pardo Bazdn is also famous for introducing naturalism in Spain with her critical essays in La cuesti6n palpitante and the now classic Los pazos de Ulloa and La madre Naturaleza. It is because of her role as a literary pioneer and as a great writer of fiction that many literary contemporaries, including Emile Zola,held her in high regard. Leopoldo Alas, to mention one, said that Pardo Baza'n was one of the two women writers in Spain who are of any worth (6, p. 208). As many writers do, Emilia tried her hand at various liter- ary forms such as criticism, poetry, novels,and short stories. Her first critical work, published in 1876, was entitled Estudio critico de las obras del Padre Feijoo. Federico Carlos S56inz de Robles in the introduction to a book of her complete works points out that Pardo Bazain's critical works were far inferior to her novels and stories. He says: "El valor como critico, 1 2 como investigadora, como polemista, de esta mujer . es in- ferior al que tiene como forjadora de ficciones" (15, p. 38). Likewise her poetry was of minor importance. Sdinz de Robles observes, "De todos los grandes autores de la segunda mitad del siglo XIX que escribieron versos, es la Pardo Bazan la menos Pardo poeta" C15, p. 47). After having written several poems not gave up the genre because she considered her poetic talent worthy of recognition (7, p. 189). Upon listing the different genres that Pardo Bazdn cultivated, Sdinz de Robles concludes, as most critics do, that her talent lies in the writing of novels and short stories. He remarks: Y t6ngase en cuenta que la Pardo Bazdn escribi6 novelas, cuentos, pol6mica literaria, biografia, viajes, estudios apolog6ticos, critica literaria, historia de la literatura, ensayos acerca de temas sociales. El valor maximo--y, por ende, la maxima valoraci6n--de Emilia Pardo Bazdn esta en su ingente labor como forjadora de ficciones--no- velas y cuentos--(15, pp. 37-38). When Pardo began writing, the regional novel, depicting certain geographical areas, their people and customs, was the of popular literary genre. This genre influenced her works fiction so that many of them dealt with people's daily lives and customs. Indeed, Pardo Bazdn's early works, such as her first novel Pascual L6pez, autobiografa _de uin estudiante, ex- hibit this realism, which she never abandoned, and a basic idealism reminiscent of the romantics. Pardo Bazdn later became interested in. naturalism, a new literary vogue which she pioneered in Spain. Naturalism, a 3 further development of Post-romanticism, had its. beginning in France with Emile Zola and his novel La Terre.: Zola's natu-. ralism exalted the horrible and ugly aspects of human existence rather than the beautiful and noble traits that writers and artists had explored and recommended in the past. According to Sainz de Robles, Zola might have adopted this style in order to achieve notoriety. Pardo Bazdn's naturalism, however, dif- fers from Zola's. In the words of the same critic, "Emilia Pardo Bazdn capt6 del naturalism brutal de Zola lo verdadera- mente aprovechable, esto es, la exaltaci6n de . la persona- lidad humana" (15, p. 42). Pardo Baza'n could not accept the determinism of Zola's naturalism because, as J.L. Perrier notes, she felt that determinism could not explain all the occurrences in one's life. Neither did she believe that man is "at the mercy of his environment," since she maintained that in everyone exists "an active principle of freedom" (13, p. 136). She did adopt, however, other elements present in naturalism, particularly the descriptive minuteness, presentation of low social classes, use of the language of the people, the influence of the environ- ment of human behavior (4, p. 1102). Diez-Echarri notes that Pardo Bazan defended the theories of this movement in La cuesti6n palpitante and later applied them in her novels Un viaje de novios, 'La Tribuna,' 'Los pazos de Uloa, and LaA madre Naturaleza (4, p. 1103). 4 In1La cuesti6n palpitante Pardo Bazdin gave a critical view of French naturalism and of Spanish literature in general. Although she did not agree with all of his naturalistic beliefs and techniques, Pardo defended Zola's use of the vulgar and repulsive by saying that masterpieces of literature, such as Don Qijo'te were in some parts lurid (12, p. 43). Examples of this aspect of naturalism are numerous in Pardo Baza'n's novels. In Un viaje de novios the subject of adulterous love and the scene of a man beating his wife are presented. In La tribuna a female factory worker, a likely subject for a naturalist writer, is seduced and left with an illegitimate child, as befitted a typical naturalistic heroine. Another example of naturalism in practice is' Los' pazos de Ulloa, which is concerned with a group of degenerates who retrogress to bestial behavior as a result of their environment. Not only is the theme of the book naturalistic, but also there are naturalistic scenes dealing with drunkenness, prolonged pazos de labor and childbirth (12, p. 51). A sequel to' ' Ulloa, La madre Naturaleza, illustrates how the laws of nature take precedence over social laws, a belief of the naturalists (12, p. 55). The basic characteristics of naturalism, as deiscussed above, are evident in the majority of Pardo Bazdn's rural short stories. For example, the' descriptive minuteness which is characteristic of this literary movement is exemplified in "El aire cativo." In this story she describes a dreaded 5 lizard-like. creature. She writes: Tenia figura de sapo, s6lo que era mayor , mss ancho, mds corpulento. Sobre su lomo, simftri: cas anchas anaranjadas le darian aspecto: de algo metlico, de un capricho de joyeria, si su boca de fuelle no se abriese amenazadora y su vientre blanquecino no subiese y bajase, en anchas aspiraciones, animado de una vida odiosa (10, p. 184). In this and in other short stories the novelist not only gives vivid descriptions of animals, but also paints pictures of landscape and intricately describes the people. Another characteristic of naturalism to be found in Pardo Baza'n's stories is the predominance of characters from the lower classes. The majority of the characters in her rural short stories are peasants. For example the main character of "La corpana" is an alcoholic old woman described with nat- uralistic relish as follows: . aquel ser degradado. No solamente degradado en lo moral, sino en lo fisico tambi6n. Daban horror su cara bulbosa, amoratada; sus grefias estro- pajosas, de un negro mate y polvoriento; su seno protuberante e informe; los andrajos tiesos de puro sucios que mal cubrian unas carnes color de ocre, y sobre todo la alcoh6lica tufarada que esparcia la sentina de la boca (10, p. 22). This alcoholic woman is only one of the types which she portrays in her stories. Other people of the lower social classessuch as beggars, thieves, servants, and peasants,populate many stories. With few exceptions, the portrayal of the lower social classes is one of the strongest characteristics of naturalism to be found in Pardo Bazin' s rural :short stories. 6 The use of colloquial language, another characteristic of naturalism, is present in some of her short stories. How- ever, since the Galician dialect would be incomprehensible to her Spanish readers, Pardo Baza'n employed good. Castilian Spanish. But in stories such as "Atavismos," in which peasants speak, she uses the words "fillos" for "hijos," "comere" for "comer," and "branco" instead of "blanco" to lend a flavor of the native language. G6mez-Baquero compliments Pardo Bazan's use of the language by saying: En cambio,.Emilia Pardo Bazan se acerca mucho al ideal que persigue la literatura moderna de aproximar todo lo posible la lengua literaria a la vulgar; de hacer una del habla de las letras y del habla de la vida; de fundir la lengua artis- tica y la lengua viva, terminando con la separa- ci6n tradicional entre el romdn paladino y la lengua sabia y alquitarada de los letrados. La divisa de esta fusion de lengua es naturalidad. Castiza y moderna, elegante y sencilla, el habla de la Pardo es.la mejor sintesis linguistica de su tiempo (5, p. 157). Another characteristic of naturalism, the influence of the environment on the conduct of the people, is best shown in the story "La ganadera." In this story the inhabitants of a town on a rugged coastline earn their subsistence luring ships to the sharp reefs near the shore. The vessels approach the shore and founder upon the hidden reefs, and natives plunder the wreckage.