Identifier

etd-05142012-124555

Degree

Master of Arts (MA)

Department

Foreign Languages and Literatures

Document Type

Thesis

Abstract

This thesis explores the transgressive representations of gender in the works of Emilia Pardo Bazán. In her short story “Cuento primitivo” (1893) and her novels Memorias de un solterón (1896), La quimera (1905), and Dulce dueño (1911), the myths and images that surround the figures of New Woman, femme fatales, and dandies expose the fear fin de siècle Spanish society felt toward these models that did not conform to the gender stereotypes expected of them. Their straying from the established norm was seen as the symptom of decadence and the herald of the destruction of the race. Each of the characters are marginalized in some way because of their gender or because they do not conform to the established gender order. Therefore, much of the theory used in this thesis is drawn from feminist sources including Elaine Showalter, Gilbert and Gubar, Laura Mulvey, and Hélène Cixous. I also incorporate psychoanalytic theory and its relationship to the preoccupation concerning masculinity and degeneration from the work of Freud, Neil Hertz, and Max Nordau. My analysis of the representation of these transgressive figures extends to art as well as many of the cultural myths or images that surrounded these men and women can be found in the paintings of the time, such as those from Santiago Rusiñol, Franz von Stuck, and Hermen Anglada-Camarasa. As a response to this problem of fin de siècle Spanish decadence, Pardo Bazán offers Spanish society a fairly unusual solution. She proposes a combination of the traditional in the form of the Catholic faith and the modern in the form of equality of the sexes. It is through this unique combination that she is able to integrate these foreign, subversive images of gender into Catholic Spanish society. She particularly celebrates the New Woman who demands to be seen as equal to man. Yet, the New Woman is foreign concept that she does not merely import to Spain; instead, she adapts her to fit within her culture. At the same time, she can promote a modern Spanish society without strict gender hierarchy yet still retain the essential Spanish-ness of Catholicism.

Date

2012

Document Availability at the Time of Submission

Release the entire work immediately for access worldwide.

Committee Chair

Heneghan, Dorota

DOI

10.31390/gradschool_theses.1654

Download

Share

COinS