Characterization in "La Regenta": Point of View and Theme

Abstract

It is important to keep in mind in studying point of view in La Regenta that Alas believed the author (as opposed to a character within the novel) to be best qualified to interpret a character's thoughts, actions and motivations. Because Alas knows all, the reader not only sees characters through the author's eyes but, entering their consciousness, sees reality through the eyes of the characters themselves. Thus the author's omniscient point of view carries within itself, so to speak, narrower individual points of view. The resultant multiple perspectives serve to delineate the different characters as well as to develop the major themes and the main action of the novel. To indicate some of the relationships between point of view, theme, characterization, and the ironic presentation of diametrically opposed perspectives is the purpose of this paper.