Female passivity and the attempt to fight traditionalism in Los Pazos de Ulloa by Emilia Pardo Bazán

Abstract

The article discusses feminist,progressive, democratic, and even revolutionary thinking of Emilia Pardo Bazán, a key figure of Spanish naturalism. In one of her speeches on Spanish history and the modern Spanish novel (The end of the legend: the anesthetized nation), Pardo Bazán says that Spaniards are believed to be the most courageous, religious, gallant, chivalrous, and patriotic of all of European nations, although women in Spain do not have any other solution in public life but to marry, dedicate themselves to domestic work, beg, or prostitute themselves. The subordination of woman to man is present in the Spanish novels of the second half of the nineteenth century and it appears in this dominant form: the woman symbolizes and shares socially acceptable values or is transformed into a negative image, source of weakness, evil and destruction. Furthermore, in her novels, especially in Los Pazos de Ulloa (The Manors of Ulloa), Pardo Bazán deals with the status of women, trying to present both conventional and extraordinary female models, situations that go beyond the socially prescribed framework, such as the problem of domestic violence or the position of women in rural, provincial Spain. In accordance with the thematic framework, the authors of the article will attempt to offer a feminist perspective and a critical and sociological point of view on the literary corpus.