LUIS MARTIN-SANTOS: PH~OSOPHER, PSYCHIATRIST AND NOVEUST. Catherine J aniaud A thesis submitted in partial completion of the requirements for the Award of the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the School of Spanish and Latin American Studies in the University of New South Wales Sydney 1989. Except where otherwise acknowledged in the text, this thesis represents my original research. No part of this work has been submitted for a higher degree to any other university or institution. e~~~~ Catherine J aniaud ABSTRACT This work investigates the multi-dimensional role of Luis Martfn­ Santos (1924-1964), best known as the author ofTiempo de silencio. It attempts to reconcile his professional outlook as a psychiatrist with his fictional account of the alienated society of post-war Spain. Our first task is to interlink the Socialist ethos of Martfn-Santos with the Existentialist model of thought adopted by him after Sartre. This methodology, as a rule, dominates the writings of the philosopher/psychiatrist/novelist. We examine the dialectical insight of the philosopher who has attempted to broaden the views of medical psychology by adding new dimensions to the meaning of madness. Following this, we relate his novelistic portrayal of neurosis and psychosis to his overall view of the mental problems encountered in a socially diseased world. By establishing a correspondence between madness in the individuals treated by Martfn-Santos in his medical practice and social alienation among the inhabitants of his war-tom country as depicted in his two novels, we arrive at a synthesis of the existential and Socialist vision of the author's world. If the society described in the two novels studied - Tiempo de silencio and Tiempo de destrucci6n - is a sick and decadent society living in the most profound ignorance of its ailment, it is nonetheless a human group endowed with a potential for growth and development. Through Martin-Santos' philosophical and psychological ethics of regeneration, we perceive, in this group, the eventual possibility of a cure from its alienation. The essay concludes on a note of reconciliation between an estranged humanity and its world, thereby highlighting the dialectical vision of the author of the two novels. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The main argument of this thesis originated in my reading of Martin-Santos' treatise on existential phenomenology, Libertad. temporalidad y transferencia en el psicoamilisis existencial. After a detailed study of Tiempo de silencio as a philosophical novel, my interest grew in the social concerns of its author. During a stay at the Universidad Complutense in Madrid, I became acquainted with Martin-Santos' initial thesis, Dilthey. Jaspers y la comprensi6n del enfermo mental. It was then that I decided to embark on drawing a substantial analogy between his psychiatric outlook on the methods of understanding mental patients, and his novelistic description of a sick society whose psychological problems called for a better comprehension of the cultural background of its people. My interest in the topic was further stimulated by a study of the Existentialist movement of the 1950s, and in particular, of the Sartrean model which could be related to the philosophy of Martin-Santos in its totality. I am indebted to the School of Spanish and Latin American Studies, especially to Dr Jane Morrison and Dr John Brotherton for their invaluable support in my research, and for their constant guidance in my progressive writing of this essay. I also appreciate the assistance I have received from the staff at the library of the University of New South Wales, who facilitated the arrival of many documents and manuscripts from overseas universities. I obtained a certain amount of help from tutors in Spanish literature at the University of Madrid, most particularly from Professor Santos Sanz Villanueva, who directed me to the more recent sources of criticism regarding the works of Martin-Santos. Jose Maria Guelbenzu, chief editor of the Taurus publications, supplied me with more information on the subject. Finally, I express my gratitude to the staff of the library of "Filosofia y Letras" and the Archives Department of the Complutense, for their steady help over the few weeks I spent with them. TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION. PP. 1-15. PART ONE - MARTIN-SANI'OS AS PHILOSOPHER - Chapter 1: Social Alienation. 16-52. - Chapter 2: Existential Alienation; The Ethics of Existentialism in Martin-Santos. 53-94. PART TWO- MARTIN-SANTOS AS PSXCHIATRIST. - Chapter 1: Individual Madness. 95-141. - Chapter 2: Social Madness. 142-188. - Chapter 3: The Role of the Doctor/Surgeon. Basic Imagery of Social Cancer and its Cure. 189-209. PART THBEE • MABTIN-SANTQS AS NOVELIST­ CREATIVE ARTIST. -Chapter 1: Metaphorical Imagery of the Social Disease. 212-244. - Chapter 2: Dramatic Metamorphosis; The Kafkaesque in Tiempo de silencio and Tiempo de destrucci6n. 245-272. PART FOUR- TIEMPODE DESTBUCCION: AN END AND A NEW BEGINNING. 273-300. GENERAL CONCLusiON. 301-305. APPENDIX. 306-308. BWUOGRA.PHY. 309-328. ABBREVIATIONS. 1S Tiempo de silencio. 1D Tiempo de destrucci6n. LTr Libertad, temporalidad y transferencia en el psicoanalisis existencial. RCDJ Reivindicaci6n del conde don Julian. 1 Introduction. The framework of this thesis is the integrated role of Martin-Santos as philosopher, psychiatrist and novelist. The key concept is the analysis of alienation at two levels: at the individual level by the psychiatrist; and as an extension, at the social level by the novelist preoccupied with the decadence of post-war society. It is as a philosopher-psychiatrist concerned with alienation that Martin­ Santos examines the degradation of socio-cultural values in a fictional society which represents that of post-war Spain. The sick society he depicts in Tiempo de silencio, and more particularly in Tiempo de destrucci6n, is prone to a great spiritual emptiness, thus reflecting a world of negative values. Our analysis focuses on the diagnosis/identification of the social problems, their development across the two novels, and finally the hope for a possible regeneration of Spanish culture. In the same way as Sartrean existentialism has influenced the psychological thinking of Martin-Santos as the author of Libertad. temporalidad y transferencia en el psicoanalisis existencial 1, the ideas of the German phenomenologists of the 1950s have guided his writing of various medical articles on the socially determined diseases of the psyche. Throughout the thesis we relate Martin­ Santos' philosophical and psychological theories to a literature which he views as engagee and which answers to the need for a radical social transformation. The novelist expounds his considerations on literature in these terms: La literatura tiene dos funciones bien definidas frente a la sociedad. Una primera funci6n relativamente pasiva: la descripci6n de la realidad 2 social. Otra funci6n especialmente activa: la creaci6n de una Mitologia para uso de la sociedad. En ambas funciones la literatura ejerce su capacidad para llegar a ser una tecnica de transformaci6n social. En cuanto que descripci6n pone el dedo en las llagas sociales y suscita tomas de conciencia de las mismas. En cuanto Mitologia, puede actuar de dos modos opuestos: si se trata de una Mitologia enajenada, como encubrimiento de lo injusto; si se trata de una Mitologia progresiva, como pauta ejemplar de realizaci6n2. Aiming for a transformation of the social reality in line with his social commitment, Martin-Santos strives to eradicate the stale myths of the past before proceeding to create the values of the future. As he views it, it is only once the past has been totally desacralized and emptied of its alienated contents that a new freedom to create will emerge; the Spanish reality will then be transformed in a positive sense. Once asked about his favourite themes in literature, he replied: Aquellos temas en que se muestran las leyes modificadoras de la existencia humana. Donde se advierte el condicionamiento social, las contradicciones fecundas y el brillo de la libertad 3 As a reformist of social laws and ethics, Martin-Santos refutes absolute notions such as those elaborated by the long-standing myths of the past. His whole way of life and thinking is revealed through an ever-recurrent dialectic of transcendence of imposed ideas and beliefs. If Tiempo de silencio exposes a framework of total alienation, in which the society at large is estranged from authentic existence, Tiempo de destrucci6n illustrates the dramatic consequences of this fundamental problem. 3 The authoritarian society depicted in Tiempo de silencio lives in the grip of silence. Resigned to their fate, the characters deny all possibility of changing their world. It is by attuning to an imposed set of values that they feel safe, and most of all, acceptable to a society which condemns those who do not conform. The deterministic attitude adopted by those characters who have relinquished their power to act means a total denial of freedom; not only in the individual, but also in the social body of the nation. Denying freedom means denying one's initiative to act, be it as a person or as a group; it means, in the case of Martin-Santos' characters, surrendering all creative potentialities to the irrational power of established myths and authority. In the light of the Sartrean existential ethics adopted by the novelist, loss of freedom in Tiempo de silencio gives way to a neurosis of adaptation of individuals to their environment; a neurosis assuming the dimensions of a psychosis in Tiempo de destrucci6n, where the decadent social body is placed in a situation of collective madness. Although an incomplete novel, Tiempo de destrucci6n will be referred to as Martin-Santos' second novel throughout this thesis. It has not yet been the object of a detailed analysis and interpretation by literary criticism so far; a summary will be provided in the Appendix at the end of this work, in order to guide the reader through its main complexities.