Carmen Martín Gaite: Postwar Literature, The Back Room, and Legacy

Carmen Martín Gaite: Biography and Legacy

Born in Salamanca in 1925, Carmen Martín Gaite studied Philosophy and Letters. In 1958, she won the Nadal Prize for her novel Between Curtains. She is notable for being the first woman to receive the National Prize for Literature for The Back Room (1978). She died in 2000 from cancer.

The Back Room: Synopsis and Metaphor

The title refers to the "room" as a physical space—the game room associated with the protagonist's childhood. This room had been a chaotic place for Carmen's children, but after the Civil War, it was transformed into a useful and orderly space. This room eventually becomes a space that exists only in the protagonist's memory and is finally revealed as a metaphor for her own childhood.

Major Works by Carmen Martín Gaite

Martín Gaite's extensive bibliography includes novels, short stories, children's literature, and essays:

• Novels:
  • The Strange Thing Is to Live (1996)
  • The Relationships (2001, posthumous and incomplete)
• Short Stories:
  • The Spa (1954)
• Children's Stories:
  • Little Red Riding Hood in Manhattan (1990)
• Essay:
  • Uses of Eighteen in Spain: Postwar Spanish Customs of Love (1987)

Literary Work as Communication Process

The fragmentation highlights the role of the narrator (the 'I'). Instead of being unique and transparent, the 'I' is multiple and deeply personal:

• The one who remembers.
• The one who narrates.
• The one seen by others.
• The one mistaken for a character in a novel read in childhood.
• The one who acts on this mimetic fantasy.

The Man in Black: A Perfect Partner?

The Man in Black is considered the perfect partner because he responds exactly how the protagonist wants, providing precisely what she needs for self-definition.

The Back Room vs. Francoist Ideology

In the propaganda of the Franco regime, women were portrayed as the domestic, pious mainstay of a great and free Spain. This ideology appears in The Back Room. It is no wonder that the main character cultivated her spirit against this totalitarian ideology.

Intertextuality in The Back Room

Intertextuality involves texts and forms that determine the reading of other texts and, ultimately, determine the protagonist's world. Key literary influences include Lewis Carroll, Robert Louis Stevenson, and Edgar Allan Poe.

Postwar Spanish Narrative Context

The novel of the 1930s had tended toward humanization. This line includes the literature of Ramón J. Sender (Requiem for a Spanish Peasant), Max Aub, Francisco Ayala, and Rosa Chacel, who dealt with issues like the persistence of the past, the Spanish Civil War, and the immediate postwar reality of exiles.

The postwar novel could not link directly to the social novel development of the 1930s, as it was banned by the Franco regime. In this scene, three types of narratives abound: ideological, realistic, and humorous. Signs of renewal did not truly begin until the 1950s.

Exceptional cases in the 1940s include Camilo José Cela (The Family of Pascual Duarte) and Carmen Laforet (Nada). These two novels share a bleak, existential tone, contrasting sharply with the triumphalism of the immediate postwar period. They were later joined by authors like Miguel Delibes and Ana María Matute. These novels reflect the bleak postwar world from a pessimistic and existential perspective.