IntcrtextSt Vol. 2, No. 1,1998 Contemporary Spanish Women Writers and the Feminized Quest-Romance Janet Perez TEXAS TECH UNIVERSITY Theclassicquestcyclecelebratesmasculinity:themaleheroofmascu¬ line monomyths embodies the universal cycle of birth, initiation and death. The cycle of the quest, arite of passage, requires the hero’s journey out¬ wardfromthecommunitytowhichheiseventuallyrestoredoncealloppo¬ sitions are resolved. Male heroism, usually attained through physical strength,equatestheantagonisticprocessofindividuationwithaggressive libidinal drive and victory over all rivals. But like the life cycle, the quest cy¬ cleisperpetuallyrepeated:heroeswintheirlaurelsonlytobedisplacedor replacedbythenewheroesofanothergeneration.Itisinthenatureofthe questthateveryvoyage,“howeversuccessfulorheroic,hassoonerorlater to be made over again” (Frye 322). Northrop Frye considers this arche¬ typal “mythos” to be fundamentally rooted in rituals and dreams, an logue for the development of the psyche, with the quest-romance representing the libido’s coming to terms with external reality. Intraditionalquestromances,women’srolesaresignificantonlyinre¬ lationtotheheroeswithwhomtheyinteract;theymayinspireheroesbut may not aspire to become heroes themselves. For Joseph Campbell in The HerowithaThousandFaces,womaninthepicturelanguageofmythology “representsthetotalityofwhatcanbeknown.Theheroistheonewho know”(116).Frye,likeCampbell,castswomaninasubordinate rolevis-a-visthemasculinelibido;she“achievesnoquestherself,butsheis clearlythekindofbeingwhomakesaquestpossible”(322-23).Cainpbell summarizestheOedipaldivisionofactiveandpassiverolesfoundinthe traditionalquestplot:“thesonagainstthefatherforthemasteryofthe verse,andthedaughteragainstthemothertobethemasteredumverse (136). Rachel Brownstein encapsulates the traditional distinction between hero and heroine thus: “The hero moves toward agoal; the heroine tries to beit.Hemakesanameforhimself;sheisconcernedwithkeepinghergood name” (82-83). WiththeadventofRomanticism,thejourneyofthequestbecomesin¬ ternalized.Poet-heroesofthelateeighteenthandearlynineteenth must win their victories within themselves. The chivalric ambient of joust¬ ingandadventuresindistantlandsistransformedtoreflectnewsocial,eco¬ nomic, and scientific conditions, with the result that power is no longer manifestedthroughphysicalstrength,but“inthestrengthofvariouskinds ofcognitiveandmetaphoricalexchanges”(Ross31).Thesearchisturned a n a c o m e s t o u m c e n t u n e s 8 3 8 4 I N T E R T E X T S away from the external world—which had objective qualities, even if idealized—to face inward, to explore the hero’s own ego. “The internali¬ zation of quest-romance made of the poet-hero aseeker not after but after his own mature powers” (Bloom 15). Harold Bloom the internalized quest, viewing the woman’s role as similar to Frye’s bivalent female archetype,” which exists primarily to affirm the life process embodied in the hero’s actions. Thus, while still entrapped within patriar¬ chal conceptions that reduced women to images in fantasies, thelessstoodtogainbytheinternalizationprocesswhichmadeitnolonger necessary to slay dragons or fight wars. Creation of akind of heroism not determined by physical strength but by intellectual and spiritual endeavors represented the first step toward feminizing the quest Nevertheless,fewfemale“heroes”werecreatedinthepasttwocenturies bywomenwriters;femaleprotagonistsremainedentrappedbysociety’ strictionsandpatriarchallyinscribeddefinitionsoffemale“goodness.”AnPratt ’s andysis ofArchetypal Patterns in Women’s Fiction involving quest patterns in more than 300 novels found “acute tension between what any normal human being might desire and what awoman must become” (6). The female protagonist faced aconflict between her desires for selfrealization and self-sufficiency and society’s demand that she become a (traditional, male-defined) woman. The absence of atradition and of con¬ textsforfemaleheroes,thefactthatsocietyneitherwantednorexpected theyoungwomantotestherpowersorgobeyond“proper”femininebe¬ havior,themasculinetraditionofliteraryformsandthemes—allarepartof acultureprivilegingthemythofthemaleflightwhiledenyingfemalepro¬ tagonists asimilar experience. Consequendy, the first two centuries of women’swritingsawanaccumulationofstorieswhereinthefemalequest ends with illness, suicide, madness or other psychic deterioration, although inthosenineteenth-centuryquest-romancesinformedbymarriageplots, theendreinforced(viamatrimony)theverycustomsempoweringpatriar¬ chy and contributing to confining woman within the institutions she had sought to transcend. Circumscribed by oppressive patriarchal structures from which capecanbeenvisioned,thefemalequesterreshapesheraspirations,rede¬ finingandtherebyresolvingherquestinsociallyacceptableterms(an entrapment often expressed through the familiar pattern of domestic closure). Feminist critics note the absence of aheroic female self-image: women are prevented from identifying with the active subject of quest mancesbecauseofhavinginternalizedanimageofthemselvesaspassive objects. “What female-specific legends, what woman-centered plots, what precursors of the feminized quest-romance have women writers looked to¬ ward while envisioning active, courageous heroes.>” asks one (Heller 22). Yet she concludes it is not the absence of “scarcity or bold, searching women,” so much as “a gender teleology that undervalues acts of female heroism by exalting male examples and male experience as definitive” (22). n a t u r e e x a m i n e s a m w o m e n n o n e r o m a n c e . s r e m s n o e s e n r o - 85 Perez—Contemporary Spanish Women Writers The twentieth century has seen an intensification of the quest for selfdiscovery or search for authentic selfhood, especially in the context of exis¬ tential authenticity and the modern...