Document Type

Article

Publication Date

5-1999

Keywords

Pardo Bazán (Emilia), Spanish literature, short story, women's writing, marriage, feminine (domestic) ideal, angel in the house, subversion

Abstract

In three of her tales—"El encaje roto"( 1897), "Champagne("1898), and "La boda"( 1909), Pardo Bazán presents her readers with a bride on her wedding day; in each case, and each in her own way, the bride breaks with convention and time-honored tradition on this most anticipated day of her life, only to see her life irrevocably altered—not by the marriage—but by her own actions and decisions. The juxtaposition of these three tales with a fourth later one, "La punta del cigarro" (1914), the story of a man in search of a wife wherein a male narrator delineates nineteenth-century society's requirements for the ideal wife, illustrates Doña Emilia's astute subversion of the traditional feminine ideal and her empowerment of female protagonists.

Publication Title

Hispania

Volume

82

Issue

2

First Page

238

Last Page

245

Required Publisher's Statement

Copyright 1999 Johns Hopkins University Press.

Subjects - Topical (LCSH)

Short stories, Spanish; Spanish fiction--19th century; Women--Spain--Fiction

Subjects - Names (LCNAF)

Pardo Bazán, Emilia, condesa de, 1852-1921--Criticism and interpretation

Geographic Coverage

Spain

Genre/Form

articles

Type

Text

Language

English

Format

application/pdf

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