Justified: Ecocriticism and Moral Development in Espido Freire’s Irlanda (1998)

Abstract

Within the last decade or so, several specialists of Spanish Peninsular studies have adopted an ecocritical approach to prose and focused their attention on explicit environmental concerns in novels such as Instrucciones para salvar el mundo (2008) by Rosa Montero or Alberto Vazquez-Figueroa’s El mar en llamas (2011). This approach has yielded important scholarship, signaling the participation of Spanish novelists in this thematic current. The present essay, however, suggests that ecocriticism may also be fruitfully pursued in narratives whose topics may not seem overtly germane. This is the case, I argue, with Irlanda (1998) by Espido Freire, a novel that has been characterized as the bildungsroman of a young witch. Despite her shocking behavior, it is the contention of this essay that the protagonist’s moral development is predicated on notions of fairness, care, and other prosocial stances that ensue from her sensitivity to the natural environment. The kind of close reading practiced in this article provides a broader lens to evaluate narratives that might otherwise be left at the margins of ecocritical literature.