La pasión esclava: Alianzas masoquistas en La Regenta by Nuria Godón (review)

Abstract

Reviewed by: La pasión esclava: Alianzas masoquistas en La Regenta by Nuria Godón Julia H. Chang Nuria Godón. La pasión esclava: Alianzas masoquistas en La Regenta. Purdue UP, 2017. 224p. In their analyses of gender in Leopoldo Alas’s La Regenta (1884–1885), scholars remain divided in their views on Ana Ozores, particularly in relation to her sexual and spiritual deviations. Many insist on Ana’s passivity and ultimately, domination, while certain strands of feminist criticism have recuperated aspects of the protagonist’s willfulness or find a critical feminist potential in Ana’s subjection. La passion esclava: Alianzas masoquistas, devoted entirely to La Regenta, falls into the latter camp without rehashing familiar debates over the novel’s misogynist versus feminist undertones and ends. From the outset, the book arouses the reader’s attention, announcing the central problematic: masochism in La Regenta. The front cover features a caricature of an expressionless Alas calmly holding a cat o’ nine tails—a multi-tailed flogger historically used for corporal punishment but also, rather crucially, associated with the sexual practices of BDSM (bondage, discipline, domination, submission, and masochism). The bemusing image appears to be a play on Alas’s reputation as a caustic, merciless literary critic. Far from being a niche subject of inquiry, masochism has been the focal point of critical inquiry in diverse schools of thought including psychoanalysis, poststructuralism, and postcolonial theory. Most recently, masochism and by extension, submission, domination, and abjection, have been the focal point of significant interventions in Queer Studies. Godón’s debut book on the topic in the field of modern Iberian literary studies is both welcomed and long overdue. The introduction opens with an epigraph from Concepción Arenal: “[E]l dolor cuando no se convierte en verdugo, es un gran maestro” (1). The pages that follow enfold a reflection on Arenal’s theory of pain (dolor-verdugo versus dolor-maestro), the gendered contours suffering, and the pedagogical function pain that can have both spiritual and liberatory ends. Godón’s analysis of this concept becomes a point [End Page 114] of departure for examining the so-called “utility” of pain through the framework of female masochism and in turn, prompting us to rethink the power relations that structure gender in fin-de-siglo Spain. Ambitiously taking on historical formulations of masochism and its afterlife in poststructuralist thought, the introduction provides a robust overview of its cultural significance and theoretical import, while tending to the specificities of Spain and the unique Catholic valorization of pain and abnegation. From there, Godón moves into a multidimensional engagement with masochism, moving from theory to history to literature with great agility. Chapter One, “Reconsiderando el masoquismo,” conceptually anchors the book, deftly weaving historical and theoretical conceptualizations of masochism including Deleuze, Sartre, Weber, Beauvoir and of course Krafft-Ebbing’s Venus in Furs (Venus de las pieles). Godón never loses sight of the text in question and is careful to guide the reader back to the La Regenta and the context of Catholic Spain where notions of self-punishment and abnegation prove central to her reading of how masochism’s theatricality—public displays of pain and suffering—places it squarely in the realm of performance. It is ultimately masochisim’s performative function, Godón suggests, that opens up new avenues for subversive plays of power, crucial to our understanding of gendered subjection. Chapter two, “Yo tu esclavo y tu mi amo,” reconsiders Ana’s willful subjection to Fermín de Pas in the letters she composes to him signed “su esclava.” Godón recasts these letters as a kind of masochistic contract that subverts the roles of gender and brilliantly parodies the Rousseauian social contract. Chapter three, “La pasión extraviada,” further extends the analysis of the masochistic contract and, crucially, Fermín’s abandonment of its terms. Anchoring the analysis in the oft-commented Holy Week procession, Godón reconsiders Ana’s performance of humiliation, and ultimately makes a case for how the misuse of the contract exposes the failures of “compañerismo” and the ideal gender roles it subtends. The chapter’s close returns to the pedagogic function of pain (Arenal), emphasizing how...