Emilia Pardo Bazán Cuentos Revision Notes PDF

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Summary

Revision notes covering the themes, motifs, context and critical readings of Pardo Bazán's short stories....

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El Encaje Roto 

– CUENTOS –

Las Medias Rojas

Context: Emilia Pardo Bazán

Stories based on feminism:   

Challenges prescriptions of gender Challenges marital customs Uses short story as a genre

EPB’s background       

1851 -1921 countess of Pardo Bazán, high social class Introduced naturalism into Spanish literature Feminist figure : women’s rights to education Split from her husband in 1884 as he was scandalised/didn’t want to put up w/ her rep/controversy First woman to receive a chair at a Spanish university (Universidad Central in Madrid in 1916) Thrice barred from becoming the first female member of the Real Academia Española

EPB’s goals Subverting the “ángel del hogar” paradigm : she rewrites the manual, don’t have to marry etc.  

Advocate that women equal not diff. from men Examines problems women faced in Sp.

   

From bourgeois background – reflects her own PoV Blind spots – yes progressive but conveys distain for middle class women as a group Laziness due to deficit of education, their ways to imitate aristocracy Later underlined their struggles (lack of preparation for workplace)

EPB’s naturalism  

emphasizes observation and the scientific method in the fictional portrayal of reality. suggests family (DNA/inheritance), social conditions, and environment shape human character.

Other characteristics of literary naturalism include:  detachment (author maintains an impersonal tone and disinterested point of view)  determinism (the opposite of free will, character's fate decided by impersonal forces beyond control  A sense that the universe itself is indifferent to human life. Notes from Bryan’s supo contradict…  Champions free will of the individual  Wants women to have agency/power to make own decisions, not prescribed life  Abundance of description (Encaje roto, wedding scene) Carlist wars (19th century)     

Isabella II, infant queen, mother as Queen Regent Cristinos supported Regent + Isabella, party of the Liberals Carlists supported Infante Carlos -> Carlos V, pretender to throne, brother of deceased king He denied the validity of the abolition of the Salic Law (excluded females from dynastic succession) Isabella ejected form throne in 1868 during Glorious Revolution = parallels of EPB’s stories where women ejected unceremoniously from what is perceived as a male dominated public world = i.e. Ildara who tries to build herself a life with a job, ends up beaten up = pessimistic message? or so that women in this position feel less alone?

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Women’s rights in Spain

Feminism    

First wave 1910-50s (suffrage, right to vote) (Sp. Law X Franco) Second Wave 1960-80s (reproductive rights) Third Wave 1990s – 2008 (not just white middle class) Fourth Wave 2008 – present (equality of all, diff. backgrounds)

= Bazán: proto-feminist, before the concept was known

Important dates 1857 = Elementary education compulsory for both girls and boys 1868 = Isabel II ousted from power as woman 1882 = María Elena Maseras, first woman to graduate university 1910 = Universities fully opened to women 1931 = Right to vote, revoked until end of Franco’s dictatorship * Guillermina Rojas General role of women in 19th century      

Excluded from vote/classroom Relegated to private/domestic sphere (as mothers/protectors of family) Few, financially insecure jobs: seamstresses, midwives, cleaners, nuns, sex workers Home schooling: textbooks sons used, reinforced catholic virtues, exaggerated difference sexes Gender based on perceived differences Largely denied the ability to study/work outside home/fulfil any role but ángel del hogar (note dates: struggling to get right to uni)

Female identity in literature Killing the angel in the house, Virginia Woolf - writing liberates them from this role El ángel del hogar, María del Pilar Sinués de Marco “La suave y dulce condición de la mujer … [es] haber nacido para ser el ángel del hogar doméstico.” “La instrucción de la mujer debe estar reducida únicamente a sentir, amar a su esposo y a sus hijos y a saber educar a sus hijas para que sean lo que ellas deben ser: buenas esposa y buenas madres.” = role to fulfil = culturally and physiologically different = different education as different behaviour and aptitudes La perfecta casada (1583) - Fray Luis de Leon  

How to be ideal wife (*) Had a resurgence in 19th/20th century, i.e. in 1930s was advertised as a wedding gift

Stats on struggle for education etc. Struggle for education, only just allowing 1 to go to university: lit rates, Historical sources/stats on lit levels  

1887 = 18.8% of women literate, 38.5% of men 1900 = 28.2% of women literate, 44.2% of men

= Female writers exceptional = can read, write to deconstruct stereotypes = Defied gender roles

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The form – cuentos

History  Burst forward in 1870, roots in oral tradition of myth and popular custom  Cuento popular vs cuento literario  CL = EPB  Original/individual pieces of work  Not taking a folk tale and putting on paper, own short stories Omission  Often have cliffhangers  Ask where/why/how she leaves us hanging?  What does she include/leave out?  Toys with omission – asks readers to fill in the blanks  What came before/transpires after?  Left to resolve it yourself  Flat, underdeveloped characters  We have to project ourselves onto the pages Brevity  Most demanding to do well, like a sonnet, has to be just right given the constraints  Published in newspapers etc. – has to grab readers attention, impart lesson/critique in few pages  “the finest field for the exercise of the loftiest talent”  “allows for the expression of truth”  Restraint, precision, defined by its limitations, limited setting/plot/description, lack of subplots, launch straight into action (in medias res)  Where most can’t read in Sp. Short story valuable tool for communicating message  in medias res  quickly rising action  climax  falling action  end situation (in medias res = halfway through)  In serial form (Great Expectations, Balzac)  Much more adventurous than novels (“intensas” EPB) Symbolism  Constraints represent the repression of women  Their brevity makes one imagine she is writing in secret, fleeting moments of freedom to write  Relying on realism to get readers to think from new perspective

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Summary: El encaje roto

     

Micaelita says no to marrying Bernardo de Meneses at the altar. She ripped the lace of her dress, belonging to his family Saw his repressed anger as she walked down the aisle She had been sure he hid his true mean nature from her The truth fell from her lips without a conscious decision Didn’t say so at the time as such an ordinary/unspectacular reason would never be believed in society (such an extraordinary action to take, the cause must be equally so)

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Narrative structure

  

‘frame narrative’ = story within story, i.e. Micaelita tells her own version of what the narrator is imagining Both narrators are female Micaelita is narrating but is directing her speech at the narrator (more authentic, more at ease) 2. Micaelita is a narrator using the private/personal voice = i.e. she’s talking to the narrator rather than to the reader = makes the reader more receptive to female fiction as her authority is limited to the world of the fiction, doesn’t assert herself over the public sphere (world of the reader)

BUT, the other narrator is a woman who does assert herself over us 1. Creates a sphere for the reader and herself “no son inauditos tales casos, y solemos leerlos en los periódicos” = is she just expecting female readership? “Convidada a la boda de Micaelita…” = from first word she acknowledges her gender = no fear/attempt to hide behind a masculine voice like George Sand 2. Almost exactly first half is her imagination “vestidas de seda y terciopelo” “una inundación de rosas blancas, desde el suelo hasta la cupulilla, donde convergen radios de rosas y de lilas como nieve” = as if it were fact, asserts her vision in such detail = as if she were there looking = “se adivina el misterio del oratorio” “convergen”, first verbal tense used in the description is present = move from “figurábame el salon” to the present, interspersed with so much description that one loses themselves in it all, forget the narrator isn’t there 3. Draws in and entices = certain ambiguity, it’s her imagination, sense of crescendo until find out the truth 4. She appropriates the story at the end (Cigar Smoke and Violet Water, Joyce Tolliver) “me reveló su secreto…me permite divulgarlo” = gains the authority to tell the story, even though it’s not her own = she is granted permission just as we finish reading it = focus on her and her privilege

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Perverts gender roles of submissive wife/authoritative, dominant husband

Fashions herself a position of authority: would be broken by marriage BUT NOT Women = agent not passive recipient

“Intenté someter a varias pruebas a Bernardo” = she is the subject, she is asserting herself over him. = rem. of ‘sometimiento’, wants to reverse roles, give men taste of suffering/submission “responde un «no» seco como un disparo, rotundo como una bala… el novio, que se revuelve herido” = projects military lexis onto Micaelita, voice as weaponry to destroy social order, he’s the recipient/’herido’ = later described as “el momento fatal” = she has devastating power = BUT, this is the narrator’s imagination = imagery of weapons to destroy social order is reminiscent of how: =imagery of “el encaje roto” is used to reflect the “destruction of conventional femininity”/emancipation (Joyce Tolliver, Cigar Smoke and Violet Water) We never hear Bernardo’s voice – or that of any man = sidelines him The tantalising ambiguity of her refusal shines the spotlight on Micaelita = liberation from the constraints of marriage (“pertenecerle en alma y cuerpo”) = a violent/brutal refusal to be subjected to his authority, to become a commodity/belonging (↑) BUT, doesn’t allow this “la verdad me saltó a los labios” “Aquel «no» brotaba sin proponérmelo” = indifference, not guilty/regretful, uncontrollable/inevitable = still free = part of discourse of naturalism: life’s events are outside human control Air of confidence about refusal “soltó un “no” claro y enérgico” “seco como un disparo, rotundo como una bala” = self belief, not fear/hesitance/regret = use her voice as weaponry to destroy the established social order

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Presentation of consent

- Something that women can appropriate and control (conscious) “responde un «no» seco como un disparo, rotundo como una bala… el novio, que se revuelve herido” = a woman’s fatal power/free will = voice as weaponry to destroy social order = and she gives her reasoning as well - Using one’s power of consent is something natural, instinctive (unconscious) (NATURALISM) “la verdad me saltó a los labios” “Aquel «no» brotaba sin proponérmelo” “esta convicción se apoderó de mi” = presents consent as an unconscious, natural act: our minds/fate chooses the morally correct option for us = She was always going to end up saying no as it was the morally correct answer and probs due to natural survival instinct = to avoid danger = “brotar” the fact it sprouts/arises from deep within her (DNA?) means it was still fate/the inevitable outcome.

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Micaelita is led by natural instinct (doesn’t adjust behav. so fits class/conventions)

Instinctive refusal “esta convicción se apoderó de mi” “la verdad me saltó a los labios” “Aquel «no» brotaba sin proponérmelo” = instinctive/spontaneous not a conscious choice = shifts any blame from herself to fate/the ‘no’ itself, as if it were a naughty child/entity, no guilt = “brotar” evokes the image of this no sprouting and arising from deep within her, as if it was fate/inevitable = maybe she was always going to end up saying no as it was the morally correct answer/due to natural survival instinct, to avoid danger Defies behaviour becoming of her social class Natural instinct by not adjusting behaviour but acting as she pleases The conventionality of marriage is evident:

1. “No son inauditos casos tales…pero ocurren entre gente de clase humilde” “un terrible drama” = EPB lays out the convention of marriage: the narrator to divulge info about this social convention = “drama”, image of chaos but also connotations of spectacle = stirring of public opinion and gossip 2. indeed, unconventional nature indicated by marriage in literature: El ángel del hogar, María del Pilar Sinués de Marco “La instrucción de la mujer debe estar reducida únicamente a sentir, amar a su esposo y a sus hijos y a saber educar a sus hijas para que sean lo que ellas deben ser: buenas esposa y buenas madres.” La perfecta casada (1583) - Fray Luis de Leon  

How to be ideal wife (*) Had a resurgence in 19th/20th century, i.e. in 1930s was advertised as a wedding gift

= both are manuals for engaged women (and one resurged in 1930s) = important role played by institution of marriage: was when a women began her duty: housewife and mother = Micaelita is an instance of EPB trying to rewrite these ‘manuals’: engaged women don’t have to… 3. unconventional nature of her refusal in “No se hubiesen convencido jamás” “la gente siempre atribuye los sucesos a causas profundas” = tells story to narrator as realised people only believe extraordinary reasons = can be inferred that her actions were also perceived as extraordinary/unconventional AND YET, Micaelita is able to rise above the way society looks shamefully upon her actions = by blaming the ‘no’/fate she shows no regret/guilt (although repeated use of …) = X hand herself over “ni entonces, ni jamas” = actually not just spont. decision but her general principle, thinking to her future life = indicates anger/strength, no guilt but steadfast in her decision = she becomes an example to other women, a symbol of encouragement that they too can assert themselves and break free of their predestined role of marriage etc.

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Problems within aristocratic sphere (for M and EPB) (Cigar Smoke and Violet Water, Joyce Tolliver) Micaelita’s sudden rejection of the marriage plot is noteworthy because it occurred in a social context that traditionally does not allow the “manifestacion franca y espontanea del sentimiento y de la voluntad” = In one way, dismissal of common people, BUT also underlines emotionally repressive nature of aristocratic convention. Also built up through the fact her marriage is occurring in society: in parents’ mansion, with important guests (so much that private and public spheres are merging for the occasion) = Underlying fear of “el que diran” = summarised when narrator imagines cacophony of voice following no: “¿Qué pasa? ¿Qué hay? ¿La novia se ha puesto mala? ¿Que dice «no»? = prevalence of opinion of others/gossip = importance of appearance/eyes are on you when you’re a member of high society = General cacophony of sound and protest, the fact the voices aren’t named – everyone saying the same

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Private and public spheres Marriage is a social occasion but in her house w/ guests… Personal decision but “¿Qué pasa? ¿Qué hay? ¿La novia se ha puesto mala? ¿Que dice «no»? = subjected to copious gossip = accentuated by the nameless voices + repetition = suggests its everyone/”el que diran” = chaos, adds to EPB’s disdain for the convention of marriage

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Micaelita’s success without marriage = not nec.

narrator meets her in “un balneario de moda donde su madre tomaba las aguas” = successful, contented and comfortable life anyway = no eco problems either (Torn Lace and Other Transformations: Rewriting the Bride's Script in Selected Stories by EPB, Hoffman)

“a woman can survive, even thrive, both inside and outside of marriage-as long as she is afforded some autonomy over the process” Parallels with EPB: split w/ husband in 1884 and continued her literary career to publish EER in 1897 NO = a blinkered view = encourages women, but M is from a rich family, same w/ EPB = not considering those who can’t = depends on money already in the family. Whole reason she was being married to him, for her money?? 

The spiralling of trivialities (Cigar Smoke and Violet Water, Joyce Tolliver)

Thesis: minor incidents have major consquences Micaelita couldn’t bear to live with someone who reacted so violently to such trivial matters (Is she reacting violently to a trivial matter by refusing? No, not so trivial…) Is the importance of trivialities a sort of feminine sensibility?

 Mental/figurative disorder: pertains to the subversion of stereotypes 1. The destruction/subversion of social conventions i.e. marriage, care for children etc. [Sinues, Fray de Leon (re-emerged in 1930s)] i.e. not yet accepted in universities or vote, just had primary education - the title: en encaje roto = an image of feminine delicacy/style, then conventional femininity is destroyed and M can assert herself - her agency: someter, weaponry imagery so show the power of her voice - 2 female narrators

2. Society’s surprise instantly projects the disorder/foolishness onto Micaelita (education etc. scarce for women) She divulges that it’s actually her fiancé who was in disorder What society thought of Micaelita: “La novia se ha puesto mala?”

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Las Medias Rojas - Summary

- Ildara returns from wood collecting to do chores, badly - Father who is smoking, notices her red tights when she leans to light fire - Outraged, disregards her explanation, shouts - Covers her face: we learn her cousin had been struck like this - Ildara had become of age, free, planning to move to LatAm (ease of earning money/general prosperity) - Father asks her if her mother ever wore tights/styled her hair this way - Hits her on the eye and nose, and mouth. - Ildara is silent, washes her face: tooth falls out and can’t see from one eye - Doctor, summoned late, said she’d be blind in one eye - Couldn’t go to LatAm: must be healthy, shining eyes and all teeth

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“La mujer es un péndulo continuo que oscila entre el instinto natural y la aprendida vergüenza”

Acts instinctively: fights against female oppression 1. Begins ready to challenge conventions: wants to take her life into her hands by emigrating to prosperity, not be stuck as a servant/housemaid to her father. Not: “La suave y dulce condición de la mujer … [es] haber nacido para ser el ángel del hogar doméstico.”, Pilar The narrator speaks as if they wer Ildara: “Pues que se quedase el…” = she’s taking matters into her own hands, going so far as to infiltrate the narration = goes against the presumption that as a daughter she ought to remain and care for her aging father. = ellipsis and conjunction ‘pues’ create atmosphere of indifference = unbothered by father’s fate/his response to her plans = antithesis of an ‘angel de hogar’ = a quintessential caring daughter = her desire to move across the world allows her to denounce the repression that forced women to centre their lives around domestic chores and families, rather than taking their destinies into their own hands = wants to put enormous physical distance between herself and the repressive life she has led in Spain as a carer to her father. 2. Unwillingness to carry out chores confirms this:

Her instinct to fight is ultimately dampened and shamed by her father’s rebuke. 1. Silence following beating “aturdida de espanto, ya no chillaba siquiera” “silenciosa” = a contrast w/ speaking back “sin amilanarse” = lost her sense of defiance and her will to fight back (Ojea Fernandez) “la anulación total de la autoestima femenina” = also could read into her silence: doesn’t condemn her father, feels ashamed and th...