Abstract
Emilia Pardo Bazan's Las medias rojas deals with many issues of its time: emigration and nation; desire and resistance; rebellion and repression; service and exchange. Although the importance of gender relations is manifest within the narrative, Ildara's motives have been frequently misidentified and the multiple, disturbing mechanisms of those relations overlooked. This is not a story about a girl who sets out to prostitute herself, but because she seeks out her freedom so ingenuously, she ironically falls victim to the same system from which she yearns to escape. Ildara is guilty of nothing but her own naivete and therefore, what needs to be more closely examined is not her desire for freedom but rather the attitudes, actions, reactions, and intentions of the men with whom she deals: her father, the priest, and the middleman. This study reveals the socio-historic phenomenon of commoditization of women in early twentieth-century Galicia and suggests considerations for teaching this frequently anthologized story.
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