Benito Pérez Galdós: Realism in 19th Century Spain

Benito Pérez Galdós and Spanish Realism

Realism was an artistic current that proposed to represent reality faithfully and with verisimilitude. It began in France with authors such as Balzac, Stendhal, and Flaubert. Later, it triumphed in England with Dickens, and in Russia with Tolstoy and Dostoevsky. In Spain, it started in the 1870s and developed from 1880 onwards, in the historical context of the First Republic and the Restoration, amidst a certain economic development. This improvement in material conditions enhanced the growth of cities and the development of the urban bourgeoisie, in their usual contrast of wealth with the uneducated masses, first championed by socialist and anarchist workers' movements. The most relevant schools of thought of the time were Krausismo and Positivism, and their defense of the new pedagogy and tolerance, along with the ethics of scientific rigor, influenced the creation of the Free Institution of Education, key to the formation of a new intellectual minority. The development of the press contributed to the diffusion of serialized novels and the publication of articles by the most important writers of the time.

Characteristics of the Realistic Novel

The characteristics of the realistic novel include detailed descriptions of places, objects, and beings, and the use of observation and documentation. The lexicon used includes social and geographical varieties to better characterize the characters. The omniscient narrative is chronological, respects temporality, uses the third person, and intervenes and prosecutes the people and events with the intention of moralizing. It uses irony, dialogue, and interior monologue, and other narrative techniques. In terms of topics, there appears conflict between the individual and society, or the contrast between characters' life situations that transmit different values and worldviews, representing the different social classes or of individual belief and political ideology.

Principal Authors of Realism

The principal authors of realism were Clarín (La Regenta), Valera (Pepita Jiménez), Pereda (Peñas arriba), Pardo Bazán (Los Pazos de Ulloa), and Galdós, who was an author of an extensive work in which he outlines the creation of characters in the middle of the historical, ideological, and political circumstances of the country. He wrote National Episodes, which chronicle the most important historical events of nineteenth-century Spain. His novels about the first period of the thesis, or ideological conflict, try between religion and anticlerical attitudes; among these are La Fontana de Oro, Doña Perfecta, and Marianela. Contemporary novels have a unique Madrid as space. They reflect the social realities and politics of the era through characters of different social classes and highlight La Desheredada, Fortunata y Jacinta, Miau, and Jacinta y Tormento; in them, he reaches the mastery of narrative technique. The last group of novels, the spiritual way, represent the dominance of Christian values of love, which show Galdós' ideological disillusionment at the failure of a political class unable to transform society.

Fortunata and Jacinta: A Summary

I have read bits of Fortunata and Jacinta. This novel tells the story of two women: Fortunata is a poor village girl in love with Juanito Santa Cruz, a couple of idle and wealthy bourgeoisie who abandons her to marry Jacinta, a submissive creature, delicate and faithful as befits the bourgeois conventions. Fortunata, representing the rebellion against the standards and passion, has a son of Juan and his love never gives up despite giving bumps go through life before dying at the end gave his son to Jacinta that is sterile for adoption for them. The novel is represented with its customs socidad madrileá their neighborhoods and within the gloriesa the first republic and the Bourbon restoration.