The Use and Function of Dreaming in Four Novels by Emilia Pardo Bazan

Abstract

that it scarcely need attract our attention. The dream with its use of symbol and metaphor seems to be a valid literary device and indeed has been so used during the last four thousand years. In his study of the dream in Gald6s' novels, Joseph Schraibman gives a brief history of the dream in world literature and regrets that as yet there has been no study of this phenomenon as it affects various periods of Hispanic writing.' This lack is particularly unfortunate, I believe, in the study of naturalistic novels of the nineteenth century. The naturalists have always been considered highly science-oriented, and indeed they make this claim for themselves. But nineteenth-century scientific views held that dreams were insignificant from a psychological point of view and merely reflected physiological conditions of the dreamer.2 This theory held-to give a very simplified example-that a dream of intense heat or cold would actually reflect the body temperature of the dreamer rather than (as is now generally conceded) his ambitions, worries, and experiences. It was not until the publication of Freud's The Interpretation of Dreams in 1900 that the physiological theory of dreaming came under close scrutiny, and whereas Freud's ideas ultimately prevailed, it should be noted that this was only after much opposition from the holders of the somatic dispositions theory. In this light, then, the presence of dreams in the naturalistic narrative seems an interesting paradox. Although the inclusion of dreams in her novels does not distinguish Pardo Bazin from Zola, the initiator of naturalism, an examination of both authors' literary treatises on the naturalistic movement fails to account for their presence. Zola does not examine dreaming in Le Roman experimental, Les Romanciers naturalistes, and Le Naturalisme au theatre; and Pardo Bazain likewise disregards this subject in La cuestidn palpitante, where she recommends adopting Zola's scientific approach to literature -although accommodating this under the broader banner of realism. Does her fictional use of dreams coupled with her failure to mention them in this treatise