Female Revalorization in Twenty-First Century Spanish Novels

Abstract

Abstract Many Spanish narratives by women published after Carmen Laforet’s Nada (1945) focused on young women protagonists, eliminating or criticizing the mother figure. But twenty-first century novels of identity often feature older protagonists searching to discover more about their mothers and the motives of their actions. These novels form a new prototype and exhibit many traits in common: 1) Many remember the mother as way to understand the daughter. 2) The recollected mother differs from the stereotypical mother: she is "subject" not "object." 3) The protagonists communicate maternal legacy to others--daughters, sons, readers, etc. 4) Writing stimulates change and many protagonists are writers. 5) The novels focus on female autonomy. 6) They emphasize the non-rational and intuitive in identity formation. 7) Some feature immigrants who strengthen and enrich Spanish culture. 8) They focus on transformation of the self and of society. These common novelistic attributes intimate a more egalitarian society where women are not second-class citizens. Some of the works considered are: Contra el viento by Ángeles Caso; De oca a oca, Por el camino de las grullas, and Música blanca by Cristina Cerezales; La voz dormida by Dulce Chacón; Inma Chacon’s Tiempo de arena; María Dueñas’s El tiempo entre costuras; Lucía Extebarria’s Un milagro en equilibrio; El testamento de Regina by Adelaida García Morales; María de la Pau Janer’s Las mujeres que hay en mí; El corazón del Tártaro and Historia del Rey Transparente by Rosa Montero; Soledad Puértolas’s Con mi madre and Historia de un abrigo; La meitat de l’anima by Carme Riera; Maruja Torres’s Mientras vivimos; and Esther Tusquets’s Correspondencia privada. Carmen Martín Gaite, Jessica Benjamin, and Carl Jung are among the theoretical sources. These twenty-first century narratives remember and re-vindicate the mother, revalue and reintegrate women into society, and reform cultural identity.