The Justice of Forgiveness in La fuerza de la sangre

Abstract

The question of justice in its many ramifications runs throughout Cervantes's fiction and most emphatically in the Novelas ejemplares. In some cases, the issues seem relatively straightforward, but in many of the Novelas the problem of justice is explored in unexpected ways. The most extreme case of an unconventional and disturbing resolution of a problem of injustice is found in La fuerza de la sangre; here the recuperation of a balance and the fortunate outcome of what began as an egregious crime replaces the rigors of conventional justice with an improbable and almost miraculous forgiveness. The reunion and new beginning for Leocadia and Rodolfo, along with the redemption of the latter, offers a model in which an implicit spirit of forgiveness transcends or replaces the expectations of the kind of justice seen in revenge or in civilly sanctioned acts of punishment. While the particulars of La fuerza de la sangre are unique, the deeper concept of “forgiveness” as an agency of resolution underlies some of the other Novelas ejemplares. In this light, La fuerza de la sangre offers a critical perspective that helps make sense of those other novelas in which the issues of love, honor, transgression, and resolution also seem to depart from the norms of Spanish Golden Age literature.