Narcís Oller: Key Novels, Realism & Catalan Literature

Narcís Oller: Catalan Realist Novelist and His Works

Major Works of Narcís Oller

Narcís Oller's literary output, while not extensive, includes six significant novels:

• The Butterfly (La Papallona, 1882): A novel where romantic elements predominate, earning it prestigious national and foreign acclaim. It is set within a master carpenter's milieu.
• L'Escanyapobres: Study of a Passion (1884): This work presents the moral degradation of a miserly man in a rural society undergoing transformation. Its characters personify the fierce resistance to the social and economic changes of the era.
• Villains (Vilaniu, 1885): A romantic novel describing the devastating consequences of libel for a family living in a provincial town.
• The Gold Rush (La Febre d'Or, 1890-1892): This novel depicts the societal transformation of Barcelona during the "gold rush" period.
• Madness (La Bogeria, 1898): Oller's only novel that can be definitively considered naturalistic. It describes a character's descent into madness from three different viewpoints.
• Pilar Prim (1906): His final novel, Pilar Prim is a more complex work. It tells the story of a widow struggling to assert her feelings against societal pressures and conventions, representing an evolution in his writing.

Oller's Literary Techniques and Style

Oller employed several distinct literary procedures in his work:

• The recurrence or re-establishment of characters across different novels.
• The consistent setting of his works within two primary spatial frames: an urban environment (often Barcelona) and a rural setting.
• The repetition of certain sub-themes.
• A foundational background theme in all his works: social realities and transformations.

Oller's literary work often oscillates between the tenets of Realism and Naturalism. This characteristic makes a straightforward classification of his novels challenging. It could be said that they are primarily realistic novels that retain certain romantic elements. While novels like L'Escanyapobres exhibit typical naturalistic elements, La Bogeria (Madness) is generally considered his only truly naturalistic work.

Certain aspects, such as literary anachronisms, a perceived lack of appropriate literary realism in language, and the author's personal inclinations, are sometimes cited as limitations in Oller's literary oeuvre.

Modernist Narrative: Emphasis on Emotion

The emerging Modernist narrative, in contrast to some aspects of Naturalism, highlighted an often-neglected element: emotion. This perspective posited that the artist should intensely seek the essence of emotion in the creative process, aiming to reach the inner life that lies behind mere appearances. A central theme in this context is the struggle between the individual self and nature, or humanity and the wider world.