DOMESTIC DISTURBANCES: BREAKING THE MOLD OF FEMALE COMPORTMENT IN CATERINA ALBERT I PARADÍS’ “PAS DE COMÈDIA”

Abstract

While the public persona of Caterina Albert i Paradis (1869–1966) maintained the propriety expected of the “senyoreta del poble,” her authorial voice, symbolically named “Victor Catala,” wrote against late nineteenth-century Catalan nation-building rhetoric by addressing such polemical topics as infanticide and domestic strife. Her short story “Pas de comedia” (1948) is representative of the themes that drove her to write under a masculine pen name. In this story, she vividly narrates the travails a prototypical, rural Catalan woman faced while living with a condescending and abusive husband whose animalistic treatment leaves her bruised, but not defeated. Maria, the protagonist, finds encouragement through her supportive neighbors and discovers her own strength to resist and revolt. Through Maria, Albert addresses the grave social problem of domestic violence and works to subvert patriarchal authority and domination. She also points to a solution, which resides both in community involvement and in the fo...