Maternity and mother-daughter relationships in the contemporary Spanish novel.

摘要

This study analyzes the literary representations of maternity and the relations between mother and daughter in four contemporary Spanish novels. Its purpose is to examine the manner in which these relationships become the driving forces behind the transformation or reconstruction of identity that the protagonists undergo in their role as either mother or daughter.During the first post-war period the mother hardly appears as a central figure in works of fiction. There have been several studies that underscore this absence, attributing it to the inferior position women occupied in Spain under Franco: being relegated to the sole function of raising children for the nation. As a result, a web of lies, manipulations and impositions has been woven around female characters in their roles as mothers and daughters due to a failure to understand their true feelings. And young women are frequently presented as orphans since writers tended to view the mother as a limiting force.Then, with the political, social and cultural changes that came with the end of the dictatorship, we observe that the narratives of the 1970s and 1980s which present a mother and daughter seem to be more interested in highlighting the feminist postulates of equality and difference. But at the end of the 1980s and in the 1990s one can observe a desire for reconciliation with the mother in two novels of Carmen Martin Gaite: Nubosidad variable and Lo raro es vivir, among others.More recently novelists lose interest in representing the struggle between denying and affirming maternity and in the reelaboration of the feminist theories previously mentioned. Consequently, the new works of fiction present protagonists who, because of being both author and subject of their discourse rather than its object, reflect and illuminate dimensions that had been trivialized or hidden along with their most intimate aspects.Significantly, in contemporary literature, the themes of maternity and the relationships between mother and daughter offer new reconceptualizations which underscore their cultural character. That is, they reveal the ideals and behaviors elaborated by the dominant order whose objective has been to create specific models that suppress the true subjectivity of the woman. When these constructs are revealed and discussed, the protagonists reconsider their identity and gain the possibility of knowing, individualizing and affirming themselves by taking into consideration their own contexts and circumstances.Accordingly, the protagonist of Un milagro en equilibrio (2004), by Lucia Etxebarria, challenges the idea that the mother is a sacrificial and altruistic being who should only live through others. In this novel, the central character seeks to be a mother for her own benefit or, as she herself says, to hold onto the child and not succumb to societal pressures. Maternity, then, is her opportunity to develop as a human being and to affirm her true self for the first time in her life.In Mariposas en el estomago (2008), by Leticia Sigarrostegui, we examine the cultural construction that affirms that maternity, especially in a biological sense, is the basic and defining construct of the body and of the identity of women. The protagonist in this novel has internalized that idea, and given her inability to conceive, questions her sexual identity. After submitting to in vitro fertilization with the dehumanizing procedures that it entails, she manages to find her uniqueness in her own imperfect body.In Una palabra tuya (2005) by Elvira Lindo, we examine how the asymmetrical organization of our families in which the mother is a continual presence while the father tends to be absent both physically and emotionally, damages the identity of the central character. Since the mother is the one present, it is she who suffer constant scrutiny, while the father is idealized. And this is a key factor that tends to weaken the link between the mother and daughter and to undermine the daughter's self esteem.Finally, in Madre mia, que estas en los infiernos (2008), the first novel of the journalist Carmen Jimenez, we analyze how the transition from a conjugal maternity to a single one alters the identity of Adela, the central character. Since in our society the idea of an archetypical maternity based on the binomial "parenthood=marriage" still exists, Adela must redefine herself as a woman and a mother to show her capacity and worth in the symbolic order.In conclusion, when these social constructs are exposed, new realities emerge which are partly or wholly unrelated to the dominant norms established by the culture. And, moreover, when the protagonists reveal what was imposed and false, their identities are redefined and affirmed. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)