Structuring Empire in the Opening Chapter of La Regenta

Abstract

IMPERIALISM entails thinking about, settling on, and controlling land that one does not possess: terrain that is distant, occupied, and owned by others. The endeavor enriches some and engenders untold misery for others. But imperialism is not merely an act of accumulation and acquisition. It is sustained and even driven by impressive ideologies that include notions that certain territories and people require and beseech domination, as well as attitudes affiliated with domination reflected in words and concepts such as inferior or subject races, peoples, dependency, expansion, and authority (Said 9). In imperial culture, there is a commitment--an ideologeme as Frederic Jameson characterizes it--in constant circulation wherein men and women accept notion that distant territories and their native peoples should be subjugated, perceiving an almost metaphysical obligation to rule and subordinate 'inferior' or less advanced peoples. Although era of classical high imperialism has ended, experience and aftermath of imperial past has entered into reality of millions of people, where its existence as a shared memory and a very problematical confluence of ideology, culture, and policy still exercises tremendous force. Its imprint remains in a general cultural sphere with recognizable manifestations in education, religion, literature, and visual and musical arts, as well as in specific political, ideological, economic, and social practices. The task of literary critic is to scrutinize these manifestations, while taking stock of the anger and resentment experience and memory provokes in those who were governed (Fanon 101), as well as nostalgia for empire persisting in those who ruled. The culture that nurtured sentiment, rationale, and imagination of empire is examined, together with discrepant voices and experiences of subjugated, in order to grasp hegemony of imperial ideology and discern how literature makes constant references to itself as colluding in imperial expansion by creating what Raymond Williams terms structures of feeling that support, elaborate, and consolidate practice of empire (Fekete 1; Simpson 13). Taking Williams' notion as a point of departure, Edward Said, in his pivotal treatise, Culture and Imperialism (1994), examines how dominant cultures use language (literature, specifically) to mold a nation's feelings by generating structures of attitude and reference favorable to objectives of empires (50). His study examines imperial presence in a variety of well known literary texts from nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, such as Heart of Darkness, Mansfield Park, Kim, and even Verdi's Aida, among many others. We can utilize aspects of Said's analyses in examination of Spanish literature produced during roughly same period, including masterpiece of Leopoldo Alas, La Regenta (1885-86). Reviewing this novel from a similar perspective reveals covert and overt references to Golden Age Empire and uncovers how text reflects Spanish attitudes toward imperial designs at time. Alas's novel is highly contextualized, containing specific and oblique textual references to Spain of Restoration period and its social problems while reflecting paradoxes and quandaries of last half of nineteenth century. Several studies detail striking textual referentiality to this time period. The essays of Jean Becarud and Robert M. Jackson as well as collections edited by Frank Durand and Maria Jose Tintore offer insights into strict connection between text and historical context. Emblematic of its historical content, novel reveals numerous references to Spanish Empire both in retrospective and contemporary terms. Nevertheless, subtext of empire has scarcely been addressed critically. A fortunate exception is work of Rosario Ramos Gonzalez, who examines colonial presence and imperial mindset in La Regenta through metaphor of fluidity, concentrating particularly on figures of Paula Raices and Fermin de Pas. …