Emilia Pardo Bazán, a Feminist Writer in Nineteen-Century Spain Professor Morales and Hannah Ratkowski

Department of Modern Languages, Carthage College Celebration of Scholars 2015: Exposition of Student & Faculty Research, Scholarship &Creativity

The four stories show the feminist perspective that Emilia Pardo Bazán took on in her writing. They all show how women went against the social norms and went against men. Women were very oppressed during this time and for them to do either of those things was to be looked at as a scandal. For women to change their mind at the last second like the women did in “Encaje Roto”, “Champagne”, and “La Boda” was not usually things women did. Women were property of their husbands and they knew that. For these women to act out against their husbands or men in general was a big step during this time. Women show the power that the gain and the liberation that they feel after they speak up for themselves.

Abstract Emilia Pardo Bazán, one of the most remarkable Spanish intellectuals of the nineteenth century, was born in 1851 in the Atlantic seaport of La Coruña, Spain. She was the only child of wealthy aristocratic parents, who provided their precocious offspring with a splendid education. In her almost 600 short stories and 18 novels she experimented with different narrative strategies and approaches to literature. The purpose of this research project is to analyze a selection of Pardo Bazán’s short stories with a feminist lens. Pardo Bazán considered herself a “radical feminist” at a time in Spain when women were limited to their roles as mothers and wives. The lack of education for women deepened this limitation. Pardo Bazán used her novels and short stories to incite a feminist conscience in the Spanish public. She believed that “all the rights that men possess, women should possess them as well”. Her representations of the situation of Spanish women in the nineteenth century in stories such as “El encaje roto,” “Champagne,” “Feminista,” and “La boda” provoked scandal and criticism among the literary circles, and it also affected her personal life. Her husband separated from her because her literary reputation scandalized him. Emilia Pardo Bazán was a woman ahead of her time, and her feminist ideas highlight the struggles and gender limitations of Spanish women in the nineteenth century.

Literary Analysis “El Encaje Roto” is a story about a women who rejected her husband-to-be at the altar on the day of their wedding. The story is told from the perspective of a guest unable to attend. He says still three years after the wedding no one is aware why the wife said no. When the guest encounters the wife at a spa he feels inclined to ask her what happened. She tells the story about the day of the wedding think that at first she thought everything was fine. She soon later realized that she was marrying someone she hardly knew. She thought he was too easily to give away money also. She could not see a future with this man anymore. While walking into the church the lace ripped on her dress, which he bought for her, she took that as a sign from God and decided to not get married. She never told anyone the truth because she wanted people to think it was a more serious situation. “Champagne” is a story about a woman who told her husband in route to their honeymoon that she loved someone else. She had a stepmother who she did not get along with so her stepmother and father thought it would be best to get her out of the house. The only way to do that was to marry her off, so they found someone for her to marry and set it all up. After they got married, she drank too much champagne on the way to the honeymoon and blurted out she loved someone else. Her husband immediately left her and she was forced to fend for herself. Her husband was her only source of money so she then had to become a prostitute because she had no other way to earn money as a woman. “Feminista” is about a women who gets married and a few days after her husband tells her how the rest of their life will be. After the wedding her husband told her to put on his pants, confused she just decided to listen and do so. After this her husband told her to take them off because that would be the only time she would be the one wearing the pants in the relationship. She was then more of his servant than his wife. When he got older he got very sick and could not do much. She then told him that since she had to take care of him, he would have to wear her skirt for the remainder of the time she was his nurse. It was a complete power switch in the household that took place. “La Boda” is a story about a beautiful girl, Regina, who was in love with her French teacher in school. He never snowed her attention, though when someone named Elías proposed marriage to her she still turned him down. Damián, the teacher, proposed marriage to a different girl, one with a very rich father, in Regina’s class and she was devastated. It took her three years to realize she should move on and she accepted Damián’s proposal. On the day of their wedding Damián showed up to the wedding. He told her he always knew that Regina liked him because it was so obvious. She was heartbroken to know a man she loved knew how she felt and still did not pay her attention. She walked away and went Elías, trying to embarrass Damián, she told him to it next to her husband-to-be during lunch before the wedding.

Acknowledgements & References This research was made possible by the work of 1. Carmen Bravo-Villasante, Vida y obra de Emilia Pardo Bazán: Correspondencia amorosa con Pérez Galdós [Madrid: Magisterio Español, 1973] 292 2. “La mujer española,” Blanco y negro, 5 Enero 1907: 2 3. Rosalía de Castro. Obras completas. Madrid: Aguilar. 1966. 663-64 4. Adna Rosa Rodríguez. “La Cuestion Feminista en los Ensayos de Emilia Pardo Bazán”. 1991. Capitulo 1. 23-56.