CRIME AND PUNISHMENT: ANA OZORES AND BERTA DE RONDALIEGO AS PARADIGMS OF THE FEMININE IMAGINARY OF LEOPOLDO ALAS CLARÍN

Abstract

The nineteenth century is a very interesting period regarding the situation of women in the whole of Europe, because various movements of female emancipation and political and social debate on women were initiated everywhere. This issue has been
reflected in the Spanish literature of the time, especially in the realistic and naturalistic novel wheren women were main protagonists. The novel La Regenta and the novella Doña Berta by Leopoldo Alas Clarín are good examples of feminine imagery of the famous Spanish writer. Taking into account the female social vision of that time, and the theories of Michel Foucault, which are presented in his studies Discipline and Punish (1975) and The History of Sexuality (Volume 1): The Will to Knowledge (1976), the present article analyses in the selected corpus the literary discourse of social oppression of Spanish women during the nineteenth century, men's monitoring, the concept of the Panopticon, the social discipline and the (im)possibility of females both to fulfil their own sexuality, and to satisfy their urges, personal desires, and gain the desired freedom.