LEVELLING IN GALD6S’ LA DESHEREDADA: A BLUEPRINT

FOR SOCIAL CHANGE?

From the time of its publication in 1881 to the present day, critics have
acknowledged that La desheredada occupies a landmark position in
Galdbs’ literary development. I The novel initiates the series of Novelas con-
temporcineas, in which Galdos seeks to transform the modern Spanish
novel into an instrument ofmoral and social reform, a didactic project that
identifies him ethically and ideologically with the utopian objectives of
Krausist educators.2
Appropriately, in the Dedicatoria to La desheredada the author
addresses the novel to the potential healers of social ills, “a 10s que son o
deben ser sus verdaderos medicos: a 10smaestros de escuela.“3 By articulat-
ing the Dedication in this way, Galdos inadvertently assigns the past, pres-
ent, and future specific critical parameters that subsequently emerge in the
context of the novel. The narrative, which roughly encompasses the years
1872-76, captures the eager, collective anticipation of the realization of
egalitarian ideals with the abdication of Amadeo I and the declaration of
the First Republic, ensuing disillusionment at the ineptitude and corrupt-
ion that undermine the Republic, and total condemnation of the horrifying
spectacle of vanity and greed that follows in the wake of the Bourbon Res-
toration. In the present, the purview of the Dedicatoria, Moraleja, and of
the novel’s intrusive, moralistic narrative voice, implied author and narra-
tor effect a process of dissociation, in which the Republic and republican
ideals as embodied in recent Spanish history are severed from the superior
ethics with which they are theoretically imbued. In this fashion, Galdos
rationalizes the debacle of Spanish Republicanism, attacking human cor-
ruption without faulting or dismissing democratic ideals out of hand. The
present thus becomes a timein which to assesspast andcurrent moral weak-
ness and lay the foundation for the ethical reforms which must precede suc-
cessful sociopolitical reform. Implicit in the author’s criticism of past and
present is the vague outline of a future utopian society in which men of the
highest character will protect and maintain the welfare of the community
through institutions genuinely representative of the collective interests of
the public.4 As the historical continuum of La desheredada unfolds, the
reader witnesses the formation of a blueprint for social change and the
appearance of an incipient political consciousness.
Galdos’ novel chronicles the process of social levelling that had begun to
reshape the class hierarchy in Spain as early as the mid-1850’s5 In his pre-
sentation of the Marquesa de Aransis and her mausoleum-like palace, the
author provides a requiem for the waning dominance of the landed aristoc-
racy and their archaic code of conduct. The Marquesa continues to follow
the leisure-class patterns of the nobles of the past, spending the “season”
abroad, and only a few days in her tasteless dwelling in Madrid with its

Neophilologus 75 (1991) 390-398

Marsha S. Collins - La desheredada 391

“olor de soledad y presentimiento de ruina” before journeying South to

winter at her estate in Cordoba (1043). But the brief visit in the capital is
more of a haunting homage to the memory of her daughter than a routine
annual inspection of private property. In the course of the narrative, the
reader learns that the Marquesa’s daughter died of despair when her
mother shut her in her room and denied her human contact and affection
after discovering she was expecting a child out of wedlock. The house has
become a bleak, morbid monument to the past, an antivitalistic space in
which the Marquesa clings to her child by preserving her disintegrating
possessions, when ironically she herself destroyed the young woman by
rigidly adhering to an inhumane code of ethics. There is more than a hint in
the text that the Marquesa’s fatal mistake is emblematic of the self-destruc-
tive errors of her entire social class. Contextual irony implies that the
nobility confused form with substance, substituting cold, inflexible devo-
tion to social convention for duty based on nobility of character and infu-
sed with human sentiment and dignity. The values of the aristocracy are no
longer viable in the present time of change (and in relation to the liberal
cause so dear to Galdos), and the Aransis family and their social class are
doomed to extinction.
Despite the unflattering portrait of the Marquesa and her world (and
metonymically, of her class), a pervasive tone of poignancy robs the
implicit social criticism of harshness and comes close to endowing the lig-
ure of the grande dame with an aura of tragedy.6 On her arrival at the pal-
ace, the Marquesa wanders sadly from room to room meditating on the
past. In the background her grandson plays the passionate music of
Beethoven as if in accompaniment to her mood and movement, evoking in
musical form the old woman’s pain and memories of her daughter’s life of
heightened sensibility and acute suffering in love:
levantke de la caja del piano prbximo un munnullo vivo, que pronto fuC un lamento, expres-
i6n de iracundas pasiones... Luego las expresiones festivas se trocaban en 10sacentos m6s
patkticos que pudiera echar de si la voz misma de la desesperackm. (1045)

The Marquesa is a woman consumed by sorrow and loss, emotions that the
house, an “inagotable arca de tristezas,” exudes (1047). Yet the Marquesa
displays some actively positive traits as well. Although she thwarts Isidora
Rufete’s attempt to claim the Aransis title and inheritance, she undeceives
her only after listening patiently to the young woman’s story and prefaces
her rejection by remarking approvingly: “‘me ha parecido desde un prin-
cipio digna de inter&s y consideration” (1074). When Isidoragoes to jail for
forging documents to substantiate her hold on the Aransis legacy (a crimi-
nal deed actually committed by her father and uncle El Can&go), the Mar-
quesa arranges to drop the charges against her if Isidora agrees to relin-
quish her bid for the family fortune. The Marquesa may not count human
warmth and a spirit of charity among her attributes, but she is all of a piece;
392 Marsha S. Collins - La desheredada

her character and conduct are a sincere, outward manifestation of firm

convictions and beliefs. Her authenticity warrants a certain grudging sym-
pathy and respect that Galdos categorically denies the hypocritical
parvenus.
Something less than unequivocal condemnation and total ambiguity,
the implied author’s attitude towards the landed aristocracy might best be
summarized as nostalgia for a lost historical moment, a time in which
nobility of station implied lofty character and the social commitment of
noblesse oblige that precluded rivalry between classes.’ But the era of the
old hierarchy has passed, and the Marquesa and her peers must accept the
inevitability of change and step aside to permit the new order of society to
be ushered in.
Galdos’ awareness of the petrification of the aristocracy leads him to cel-
ebrate the vitality of thepueblo and to envision the common man as the best
potential source for viable liberal reform. His portrayal of thepueblo in La
desheredada is rich and varied, ranging from Isidora’s conservative aunt
Encamacion (alias La Sanguijuelera), whose experience and common
sense form the basis of her belief in empirical reality and the status quo, to
the benevolent anarchist Juan Bou, whose genuine kindness and acts of
beneficence belie his inflammatory talk of violent revolution. Emilia
Relimpio and August0 Miquis fall between these two extremes. Emilia’s
early dreams of upward mobility in Part I, fostered primarily by her
mother’s delusions of grandeur, give way in Part II to the more practical
and attainable goal of being a good wife and mother. Her marriage to her
cousin the orthopedist is a great success, “muy natural, proporcionado y
acertadisimo” according to the narrator, and Emilia establishes a house-
hold in which harmony and ready affection reign supreme (1131). In short,
the plain, reticent Emilia of Part I blossoms into a strong, morally-upright
figure in Part II, and as a stalwart friend of Isidora she takes Riquin into her
own family when the protagonist sinks into prostitution. August0 Miquis
comes from the provinces to study medicine in Madrid and the reader
watches his evolution from the witty, ironic student of Part I into the suc-
cessful, independent physician of Part II. Like Emilia, he is an ethical indi-
vidual who maintains a loyal friendship with Isidora until her moral suicide
at the end of the novel. Miquis and Emilia even contrive together to rescue
Isidora from self-destruction by reforming her ways, all to no avail.
Returning to the extremes of the spectrum, one can identify La Sangui-
juelera and Juan Bou with two different concepts of Spain. Encarnacion’s
business enterprise, a store of crockery and assorted odds and ends bearing
pithy, epigramatic labels, links her to the social sphere of the humble peas-
ant, the agricultural society and telluric culture of traditional Spain. Bou’s
lithography workshop, on the other hand, is a place in which radical poli-
tics and the printed word and image are united. The sentiments shared by
the owner and his workers point to the future preeminence of a new indus-
trial Spain, an urban culture born of a changing economy.
Marsha S. Collins - LQdesheredada 393

What unites these disparate characters into a group, a nascent

collectivity that as yet lacks definition and power? All of them suscribe to a
belief in a moral universe and possess an innate goodness and devotion to
hard work that raises them above widespread complacency and expedi-
ency.* Encarnacibn runs an honest and orderly shop, and has great vigor
and energy despite her age. It is true that La Sanguijuelera throws her great-
niece out of the house when she discovers that Isidora has inherited Tomas
Rufete’s mad schemes. Yet she loans the protagonist money and visits her
in jail, takes care of Riquin, and tries to raise Mariano Rufete properly.
Regardless of her moral objections to her family’s conduct, La Sangui-
juelera remains just as loyal, affectionate, and protective of them as she is of
her business. Bou is fanatical about work and scrupulously honest in his
dealings with others. When he discovers irregularities in the lottery system,
he cuts his ties to the project. His coarse manners and outspoken politicism
mask a tender heart. Although Isidora rejects his amorous advances and
ridicules his rough demeanor, Bou helps support her and Riquin during
diflicult times, and sends letters and flowers to her in jail. The enthusiasm
and vitality of these representatives of the pueblo, their faith in love, com-
passion, and hard work, and their unwavering loyalty to family and
friends, forge the bonds for a new, ideal community in which equality and
justice will rule.
In the consciousness of the implied author, both the idealism of the
young Galdos and the disillusionment of the experienced man chastened by
the failure ofthe First Republiccome to light. Onecan seehimin the Miquis
of Part I who calls Isidora “‘aristocrata, sanguijuela de pueblo”’ (1011) [Bou
echoes his words in Part II] and reminds her of their mutual humble, but
honorable origins, and one can also recognize him in the wise narrator’s
comments on Bou’s deification of the pueblo:
Deliraba por 10sderechos del Pueblo, las preeminencias del Pueblo y el pan del Pueblo, fim-
dandosobreestapalabra, iPueblo!,unaseriede teoriasacuAmLsextravagantes... Unagener-
aci6n se habia embobado con ellas, rmrandolas coma pan bendito. (1098)

It is almost as if a mature Galdos were holding his former sociopolitical

naivete up to ridicule.g
A revealing scene that takes place in the Aransis palace in Part I provides
a partial explanation for the defeat of Spanish Republicanism. Misquis and
Jose Relimpio accompany Isidora on a tour of her “future home.” Relim-
pio protests the uneven distribution of wealth, predicting that only a revo-
lution can eliminate a society divided into rich and poor, and establish the
equality of all men. Miquis concurs, and immediately after the conversa-
tion, inspired by an errant muse, he sits down at the piano to perform the
same Beethoven compositions deftly played days beforehand by the Mar-
quesa’s grandson. His performance is a grotesque parody of fine artistry:
iquk sonidos roncos, quC acordes sesquipedales, qut frases truncadas, qd lentitud, quk tan-
394 Marsha S. Collins - La desheredada

teos! Resultaba lastimosa caricatura, cual si la poesia sublime fuera rebajada a pueril aleluya.
w49)

In the metonymic system of signification set up by the contiguity of events

in the “Beethoven” episodes, it becomes apparent that the eager embracing
of republican ideals is insufficient in and of itself to transform beautiful
dreams of reform into substantive political reality. Such widespread
reform requires concrete plans and practical experience. Otherwise the
“sublime poetry” of idealism will be actualized as a “puerile alleluia.”
Galdos’ pueblo, the foundation for the new middle class, is an as yet incho-
ate collectivity, untrained and unprepared for leadership. Furthermore,
the middle class lacks an authentic voice and identity with which to dis-
tinguish itself from other social groups. Instead of appropriating the ges-
tures and phrases of the moribund aristocracy, the new collectivity must
forge a language as unique as its identity and suitable for its own ideology.
The fate of the Republic, unfortunately, lies not in the hands of an emer-
gent middle class, but rather in those of theparvenus. Isidora’s involvement
with Joaquin Pez, the Marques de Saldeoro, and his family in Part I, reveals
much about the character of this dominant group. In Chapter 12, “Los
Peces (sermon),” Galdos provides a satirical anatomy of the upstarts. The
sarcastic narrator emphasizes the symbolic function of the portrait,
describing Don Manuel Pez, the patriarch of the clan, as “masque persona
es una era, y mas que personaje es una casta, una tribu, un medio Madrid,
cifra y compendia de una media Espaiia” (1053). Pez, a second-rung gov-
ernment official, has amassed personal wealth and power by accepting
bribes, exercising sychophantic flattery, and utilizing family influence. He
survives government turnovers through underhanded tactics in which
principles play no role. His position has enabled the family to imitate the
outward appearance of the nobility while schemes of self-aggrandizement
occupy their minds. Pez’s wife tries to extend family importance through
the children. She plans brilliant careers for the sons and marriage to rich
noblemen for the daughters. Meanwhile the young women lead useless,
ostentatious lives of endless parties, teas, and trips to the theater. Don
Manuel’s sons are vacuous senbritos, happy to ride the coattails of their
father’s success. Galdos portrays the advenedizo ruling class as a group that
is “ruled” by hypocrisy, vanity, self-interest, and acquisitive madness.
Their moral and political corruption forms the basis for the destruction of
republican ideals and the giddy and turbulent epoch of the Restoration.
Throughout La desheredada, the author intertwines personal and pub-
lic, moral and political spheres of interest. It is no coincidence that Isidora
agrees to become Joaquin Pez’s mistress at the same moment in which the
Ring and Queen abdicate and people rush through the streets announcing
the beginning of the Republic with the rallying cry, “Todos somos iguales.”
When Isidora begins her downward slide into prostitution at the end of
Part I, Galdos implies that the ideals of the young democracy are compro-
Marsha S. Collins - LA desheredada 395

mised (prostituted) from its very inception. As if to underscore this point,

Isidora co-opts the collective rallying cry to justify her desire to avenge her
rejection by the Marquesa: “ella echaria a su abuela de1 Trono. Venian dias
aproposito para esto. &No Cramos ya todos iguales?’ (1079). Herein lies the
danger of Pez and his ilk as models of conduct-their potential to corrupt
others. Part II of La desheredadu illustrates the tragic consequences of per-
verting republicanism by using it to justify personal advancement at all
costs. Mariano Rufete’s mad scramble for money and prestige ends with his
public execution as a would-be assassin of King Alfonso XII, Isidora gives
herself over to the bad influence of Joaquin and eventually ruins herself
instead of the Marquesa. Furthermore, the influence of the parvenu model
filters down to the lowest levels of society, allowing monstrous beings like
Frasquito Surupa (Gaitica) to victimize the weak and gain a foothold in
places of power. Thief, gambler, pimp, and apparent lord of Madrid’s
underworld, he is the last man to exploit and discard Isidora before she
turns to the street, but not before permanently disfiguring her and crushing
the remaining vestiges of her nobility of spirit. In a way, the protagonist has
come full circle since the son of a white-collar criminal boss (Don Manuel
Pez) sets the process of corruption in motion by stealing her innocence,
while his demonic mirror image completes Isidora’s degradation by strip-
ping away her human dignity.
Galdos’ parodic engagement with idealizing genres and discourse in La
desheredadu parallels and emphasizes the dramatic representation of social
levelling. As thepueblo searches for a new voice and position in an indeter-
minate social hierarchy, the author searches for a new literary voice, a
unique form of novelistic discourse to fictionalize and communicate the
historical phenomenon. Following the model of Cervantes, he establishes
an ironic dialogue with such genres as the serial romance (the basis for the
central plot), the sermon (Part I, Chapter 12), melodrama (Part II, Chapters
6, 12) and classical myth (Icarus, Cytherea). A brief analysis of Part II,
Chapter 7, “Flamenca Cytherea” will serve to illustrate how the subversive
treatment of idealizing discourse removes such language from an elevated
plane, makes it accessible to and interact with a lower level of discourse,
and in the process liberates words from the confines of linguistic
conventions.10
At the beginning of the chapter, the narrator pauses to comment on the
ludic quality of the title: “La union nefanda de estos dos vocables, barbaro
el uno, helenico el otro, merece la execracibn universal; pero no importa.
Adelante” (1112). The narrator playfully draws attention to the willful vio-
lation of linguistic decorum that pervades this episode and establishes the
nature of the dialogic interaction that generates comic paradox, tone, and
style in the text. Two worlds collide in the description of the break-up of
Isidora and her lover Botin and the circumstances that lead up to that
moment. “Cytherea,“a hyperbolic, mythological name that epitomizes Isi-
dora’s self-deceiving vanity, evokes a classical image of the goddess of love,
396 Marsha S. Collins - La desheredada

and the proportion and rational harmony of the Hellenic concept of ideal
beauty. It suggests an elegant, superior style and perspective, aloof and
untainted by contact with the massess. “Flamenca” conjures powerful
images of the earthy vitality of the gypsies, and a joyous style and view in
which passion, energy, and spontaneity affirm burgeoning collective life.
The title is fitting since Isidora, “prisionera de1 satire” (1112) comes down
from the false pedestal of Venus to immerse herself in the crowd at the San
Isidro festival. She is reborn as “un esfuerzo de la Naturaleza” (1113) who
recovers the genuine beauty of a “mujer de pueblo” (1112) and “mariposa
acabada de nacer” (1113). Riotous human contact liberates her and she is
transformed, “embriagada de luz, de ruido, de placer, de sorpresa” (1113)
but the outing also precipitates a domestic quarrel that ironically both pro-
duces her freedom and increased destitution. In this scene of conflict, the
luminous, festive atmosphere disappears and the mythical images are
debased, underscoring the sordidness of Isidora’s liaison and the falseness
of Botin’s superficial respectability. Freed from their classical moorings,
the figures acquire new social and moral significance. Isidora becomes a
caricature, a “Cytherea . . . en enaguas” (1115), while her exploiter meta-
morphoses into his true, bestial self, a “Minotauro vagando por las
obscuras galerias de1 laberinto de Creta” (1115). The once idealizing ele-
ments of myth resurface as a satirist’s weapons. At the end of Chapter 7,
Galdos cannot resist one final ironic, mythical reference. Botin begins to
pace around the apartment agitatedly, and the reader believes he is about to
relent and ask Isidora to return. The narrator stops the action to suggest
this notion by alluding to the ourobouros, the legendary snake symbolic of
Nature’s infinite, cyclical renewal: “Mitologicamente hablando, se mordia
su propia cola” (1116). In this context, however, the emblem serves not to
emphasize revitalization and rebirth, but rather to signify the lovers’
entrapment in an endless cycle of dehumanized, immoral behavior.
Galdos does not resolve the social and linguistic tensions that emerge
from the levelling of classes and idealizing genres in the novel. He appears
content to represent the instability of the historical moment, reserving for
the future the sorting out of present sociopolitical confusion. In essence,
the reader of Ladesheredudu intuits a submerged utopian agenda mitigated
by elaborate delaying tactics (i.e. the casting of the failure of the Republic in
moral rather than political terms), strategies of deferral employed in antic-
ipation of a future society in which ideals and reality are one. And yet there
is a suggestion that the novel functions as a synthetic medium, a fictional
mediating world, in which rich and poor rub elbows (like at the San Isidro
festival), and laughter neutralizes hierarchical divisions between classes
and levels of discourse. The novel is a carnival, an aesthetic universe that
does not renounce a mimetic objective, but yet surpasses that end to permit
the free interplay of characters, classes, and discourse across traditional
boundaries and conventions .I1 The representation of social levelling and
the subversion of existing values and models set in motion a linguistic uto-
Marsha S. Collins - La desheredada 397

pia, a fictional facsimile of an idealized world in fermentation that has not

yet escaped the corrupting influence of the parvenu mentality.
In a speech made before the Real Academia Espafiola sixteen years after
the publication of Ladesheredadu, it becomes apparent that neither Galdbs
nor the public can foresee the final resolution of this ongoing levelling pro-
cess.The author reaffirms his commitment to transform the broad sweep of
society, human emotions and motivation, into novels, at the same time
advocating for the genre as the perfect literary instrument for the task, and
admitting his identity as the designated social novelist for his country at this
historical juncture. Galdos stresses the mimetic nature of the novel to the
point that he equates aesthetic variability and indecisiveness with the
uncertainty and “confusion evolutiva” of society.‘* While one might expect
the author to put forth something akin to a new set of norms for the social
novel in “La sociedad presente coma materia novelable,” his speech
abounds with terms that emphasize rather the unravelling of social hier-
archies and literary conventions without providing any clues as to what
shape they might take in the future. The prominence of words like “disolu-
cion,” “ descomposicion, ” “desmembracion,” and “nivelacion,” indicates
that disintegration dominates the world in which Galdos lives (“Sociedad”
177-79). The protean middle class the reader of La desheredudaglimpses has
still not coalesced as an effective political entity: “es tan solo informe
aglomeracion de individuos procedentes de las categorias superior e
inferior” (“Sociedad” 178). In the face of such overwhelming dubiety,
Galdos will only state that future forms of society and the novel are inex-
tricably tied to the process of social and aesthetic dissolution unfolding
before him. He once again resorts to evasive rhetorical tactics to avoid the
definition of literary/sociopolitical prophecy, taking refuge in effusive dis-
course that evokes an indistinct, conceptual utopia:
se ha de verificar en el seno de esa muchedumbre caotica una fermentation de la que saldran
formas sociales que no podemos adivinar, unidades vigorosas que no acertamos a detinir en la
confusion y aturdimiento en que vivimos. (“Sociedad” 178)

This utopian ideal has, of course, an equally hazy, novelistic counterpart:

Quizas aparezcan formas nuevas, quizas obras de extraordinario poder y belleza, que sirvan
de anuncio a 10sideales futuros o de despedida a 10spasados, coma el Quijote es el adios de1
mundo caballeresco. (“Sociedad” 182)

The utopian vision that surfaces from the murky depths of La

desheredada on rare occasions and that defies the description of Galdos,
presenter and explicator of his aesthetics, seems wholly inadequate as a
blueprint from which to construct a Galdosian model for social change.
But the notion of levelling itself in Galdos’ discourse implies harmonious
resolution through synthesis, and moral and social progress, a concept that
links him once again with Krausist ideology. In order to achieve this goal,
398 Marsha S. Collins La desheredada

the emergent middle class (the embodiment of the harmonious synthesis of

aristocracy and pueblo) must distance itself from the parvenus, whose divi-
sive egotism undermines the cohesiveness, the sense of collectivity, that is
the very foundation of a genuine society.13 The timid Gald6s who addresses
the Real Academia may be reluctant to assume the mantle of sociopolitical
clairvoyant, but his creation Isidora Rufete has no such compunctions:
"ella daba vida en su mente a una gallarda utopia, es decir, a la existencia
posible de un populacho fino o de una plebe elegante y bien vestida. Pero
esto, i,no era una atrevida excursi6n al porvenir?" (1154).

The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill MARSHA S. COLLINS

Notes

1. In a letter to Galdbs, Francisco Giner de los Ri os states that La desher edada represents a
new phase in the novelist's literary development: "estoy encantado con la obra, llena de ver-
dad, de vigor y de vida. Creo sefiala una nueva etapa en la historia de sus obras" (William Shoe-
maker, "Sol y sombra de Giner en Gald6s," Homenaje a Rodr[guez-Moffino, 2 vols. [Madrid:
Castalia, 1966] 2: 224. More recently, Stephen Gilman has called La desheredada "prodigiou-
s"and "the crucial novel for anyone concerned with Gald6s' creative evolution": Galdds and
the Art of the European Novel: 1867-1887 (Princeton: Princeton UP, 1981) 84.
2. Juan Lbpez-Morillas, The Kraus&t Movement and Ideological Change in Spain,
1854-1874 (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1981) 81-83. See also H. Chonon Berkowitz, P~rez
Gald6s: Spanish Liberal Crusader (Madison: U of Wisconsin P, 1948) 86-89; 163-65.
3. Benito P6rez Galdbs, Obras completas: Novelas, ed. Federico C. Sainz de Robles, 3 vols.
(Madrid: Aguilar, 1970) 1: 985. Subsequent quotations from La desheredada refer to this edi-
tion and will be cited parenthetically in the text by page number.
4. In The Political Unconscious: Narrative as a Socially Symbolic Act (Ithaca: Cornell UP,
1981) 291-93, Fredric Jameson asserts that all cultural artifacts express and affirm the utopian
ideal of a collective unity. Earlier in the book he describes narrative "as an ideological act...,
with the function of inventing imaginary or formal 'solutions' to unresolvable social contra-
dictions" (79).
5. Raymond Carr, Spain: 1808-1975, 2nd ed. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1982) 277-90.
6. For alternative readings that emphasize the parodic and ironic elements in the
"Beethoven" and "Sigue Beethoven" episodes, see Martha G. Krow-Lucal, "The Marquesa
de Aransis: A Galdosian Reprise," Essays in Honor of Jorge Guilldn on the Occasion of his 85 th
Year (Cambridge, MA: Abedul, 1977) 20-31; and Ignacio-Javier Ldpez, "Representaci6n y
escritura diferente en La desheredada de Gald6s," HR 56 (1988): 466-67.
7. Jameson 156-63, notes similar inconsistency, tension, irresolution, and lack of a priv-
ileged center in the utopian impulse in the novels of Balzac.
8. In Krausist thought, work, discipline, moral improvement, and progress are syn-
onymous, and part of a universal utopian agenda. For more on the Krausist utopia, see L6pez-
Morillas, chapter 4 "Toward a Better World," 36-48.
9. Gilman 87-89, paints a portrait ofan anguished, disillusioned Gald6s obsessed with the
failure of the Republic and repulsed by the madness of Restoration society.
I0. On the dialogization of discourse in the novel see Mikhail Bakhtin, The Dialogic Imag-
ination: Four Essays, ed. Michael Holquist (Austin: U of Texas P, 1981) 301-31. Bakhtin's the-
ory provides the basis for Alicia Andreu's analysis of parody, dialogism, and the liberating
potential of linguistic carnivalization in Gald6s, in M odelos dialdgicos en la narrativa de Beni to
P&ez Galdds, Purdue University Monographs in Romance Languages 27 (Amsterdam: John
Benjamins, 1989). Chapter 2 "Tormento" 21-29, presents an analytical model of Gald6s' par-
odic engagement with serial romances that sheds light on a similar subversive process in La
desheredada. See also L6pez 458-65, on the negation of Romanticism by the Spanish realists.
11. On the liberating influence of the carnivalesque in literary discourse, see chapter 3
"Popular-Festive Forms and Images in Rabelais," in Mikhail Bakhtin, Rabelais and His
World, trans. H~l~ne Iswotsky (Cambridge, MA: The M.I.T. Press, 1968) 196-277.
12. Benito P6rez Gald6s, "La sociedad presente como materia no velable," Ensayos de crlt-
ica literaria, ed. Laureano Bonet (Barcelona: Peninsula, 1972), 173-82; 180. Subsequent quota-
tions from this speech will be indicated parenthetically in the text by "Sociedad" and page
number.
13. L6pez-Morillas 44-47.