Introduction

This chapter will examine the issue of cultural memory and the impact of the Spanish Civil War as depicted in Aldecoa's trilogy, Historia de una maestra, Mujeres de negro and La fuerza del destino. These novels tell the story of Gabriela López Pardo, her mother and her daughter Juana, who together bear witness to one of the most turbulent periods in Spain's history. In order to pass them on to her daughter, Gabriela records her memories of the coming of the Second Republic, her dreams of educational reform, and the death of her husband at the outbreak of the Civil War. As Juana matures, she takes up her mother's story, which has now become her own. She recalls her childhood experience of war, exile in Mexico, and her traumatic return to Spain in search of her identity. In La fuerza del destino, the final instalment of the trilogy, Gabriela, having returned home in the wake of Franco's death, reflects on her life's journey, a life that has been inextricably tied to that of Spain and is now drawing to a close as the nation embarks on a new course with the Socialist government.

Clearly, memory and history play a fundamental role in Aldecoa's trilogy. In telling the story of three generations of women in one family, Aldecoa intertwines historical fact with personal and collective memory to provide a multidimensional female perspective on life in mid- to late twentieth-century Spain.