Cuentos - secondary literature

Subversion of Victorian Values and Ideal Types: Emilia Pardo Bazán and the Ángel del Hogar - Janet Pérez

·       Naturalism is a reductive red herring to view Bazán’s work through, giving other compelling feminist, Carlist, Catholic and aristocratic tendencies

·       Bazán lived in a time where the debate between the angel of the household (Coventry Patmore) and the New Woman was in its prime

·       Addressed in her representation of unhappy marriages, domestic violence and marriages arranged for financial gain

An Essay in Feminist Rhetoric: Emilio Pardo Bazán’s El Indulto - Mario Santana

·       Not just concerned with individual cases of domestic violence but a wider critique of patriarchal culture and structures

·       States that the open ending of the cuento leaves questions unanswered and forces the reader to take an active role e.g. confront the text’s key issues and social critique

·       Aimed to instigate the reader to choose feminist rhetoric

The Economy of the Feminine in “Las Medias Rojas” - Bonnie L Gasior

·       Challenges the widespread pedagogical assumption that Ildara is a prostitute and instead argues that the stockings represent freedom for Ildara and transgression/deceit for Clodio

·       Demonstrates Ildara’s naiveté as she enters into a masculine public sphere where she is inexperienced and taken advantage of

·       Women as “monsters” especially theorised around the fin de secle, became a dangerous phenomenon which threatened existing social order

Cigar Smoke and Violet Water: Gendered Discourse in the Stories of Pardo Bazán - Joyce Tolliver

·       As in Emily Dickinson’s thesis, there is a slant quality to Bazán’s work as the layered narrative voice unearths questions of credibility

·       Naturalism only a part of Bazán’s intellect – criticised Emilio Zola for being overly determinist and for using literature to portray the world as ugly, while it should make life beautiful

·       Wrote her first short story in 1860 but wrote most dedicatedly in the 1880s-90s, coinciding with the beginnings of feminist movements in America and Britain

Women’s rights timeline - Lecture by Dr Bryan Cameron

·       1779: Guild restrictions preventing women from working are abolished.

·       1784: A royal decree allows women to accept professions compatible with their "sex, dignity and strength.”

·       1825: Education Act (Plan y Reglamento general de Escuelas)

Victorian-era Spain

·       1857: Elementary education compulsory for both girls and boys.

·       1870: The Asociación para la Enseñanza de la Mujer is founded

·       1888 Women are allowed to receive private university degrees by dispensation

Early 20^th century Spain

·       1910: Universities fully open to women

The Use of Narrative Frames in Four Tales by Emilia Pardo Bazán - Susan Walter 

·       Stories usually have a frame narrator and a central narrator; both are usually male, simultaneously silencing the voice of women and lending more credibility to Bazán’s works in the eyes of the Victorian public

·       Narrative framing used to manipulate the reader’s perspective

·       In el encaje roto, two women are given the power to determine their own narrative. Revelation and narrative solution comes in the spa, a space existing outside of the masculine-dominated public sphere

Toward a Feminist Narratology – p.343-4 – Susan Lanser

Reading of feminist literature often focusses on mimesis of real-life circumstances rather than focussing on the important role of narratology and pragmatics in unveiling power structures.

“She loves with a love that cannot tire”: The Image of the Angel in the House across Cultures and across Time - Joan M. Hoffman

·       Describes the origin of the term in the Coventry Patmore poem in which he praises his wife for the qualities of beauty, purity and self-sacrifice. Co-opted into Spanish in 1874 in “El ángel del hogar” by María del Pilar Sinués de Marco

·       The eternal feminine virtues: chastity, affability, politeness etc

·       Describes how Bazán’s short stories allow women to exist outside the convent, marriage or death: her characters determine their own destinies

·       Mentions the braveness of allowing a prostitute a voice in the work Champagne, [high level of distortion of the angel of the household]