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On the Threshold of the Realist Novel: Gender and Genre in La gaviota

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 October 2020

Susan Kirkpatrick
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Abstract

Cecilia Böhl, who wrote under the pseudonym Fernán Caballero, manipulated the fictional forms available to her in an attempt to compensate for or conceal her transgression of the taboo against women writers. In the protagonist of La gaviota she combined types drawn from three genres–the tale of morals, the Romantic novel of the ambitious provincial youth, and Spanish costumbrismo– in an elaborate strategy designed to disavow her identification with her character. In so doing, she constructed a composite fictional discourse that opened the way for the realist novel in Spain. Her anxiety about male-female boundaries, however, extended to generic definitions as well: her static treatment of the fictional modes she brought together prevented her from achieving the fluid, dynamic narrative form that is characteristic of realism.

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 98 , Issue 3 , May 1983 , pp. 323 - 340
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1983

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