Psychosocial Development & Female Identity in La mujer nueva: An Erikson's Theory Study, Apuntes de Gallego

¡Descarga Psychosocial Development & Female Identity in La mujer nueva: An Erikson's Theory Study y más Apuntes en PDF de Gallego solo en Docsity! Psychosocial Development and Female Identity in Laforet’s La mujer nueva MARK P. DEL MASTRO The Citadel  Abstract Of Carmen Laforet’s fi ve published novels, three — Nada (1945), La isla y los demo- nios (1952) and La insolación (1963) — highlight adolescent identity development as their predominant themes. With La mujer nueva, however, Laforet takes a slightly different turn by portraying an adult’s search for a new identity, specifi cally the quest of the married protagonist, Paulina. While past critical attention has focused almost exclusively on Paulina’s religious conversion to Catholicism, this study exam- ines the protagonist’s formation in La mujer nueva, using primarily Erik Erikson’s stages of psychosocial development and his identity theory, an important appli- cation given the autobiographical elements of this novel. Ultimately and in spite of La mujer nueva’s deceptive conclusion, this analysis also shows the protagonist’s growth as a subtle call for female autonomy despite the suppressive values of the Catholic church and Francisco Franco’s regime. Resumen De las cinco novelas publicadas por Carmen Laforet, tres — Nada (1945), La isla y los demonios (1952) y La insolación (1963) — tienen como tema principal el desarrollo de la identidad adolescente. En la mujer nueva este tema varía un poco al describirse la búsqueda de identidad de una adulta casada, la protagonista Paulina. Aunque pasados estudios se han dedicado casi exclusivamente a la conversión católica de Paulina, este artículo examina la formación de la protagonista usando como refe- rencia principal las fases del desarrollo psicosocial y la teoría de la identidad de Erik Erikson, lo cual es un enfoque destacado al considerar los elementos autobiográ- fi cos de esta novela. Finalmente, y a pesar de la conclusión engañosa de La mujer nueva, este análisis también señala que el progreso de la protagonista es una petición sutil para la autonomía femenina, a pesar de los valores represivos que entrañaban la Iglesia Católica y el régimen franquista. The recurrent theme of identity development in Carmen Laforet’s novels clearly refl ects the author’s exploration and struggles with the multiple, sometimes confl icting roles — both public and private — that she held throughout her LUP_BHS83_6_5_Maestro.indd 509 3/1/07 19:42:46 bhs, 83 (2006)Mark P. del Mastro510 own life as renowned writer, intellectual, wife, mother and Catholic. Of her fi ve novels, three — Nada (1945), La isla y los demonios (1952) and La insolación (1963) — highlight adolescent identity development. With La mujer nueva (1955), however, Laforet takes a slightly different turn by portraying an adult’s identity crisis and subsequent search-for-self.1 Specifi cally, it is the story of Paulina, a 33-year- old mother of one who chooses to leave home in Villa de Robre (summer of 1949) to re-establish her sense of identity in Madrid because of ideological differ- ences with conservative Spain, guilt for an ongoing love affair with Antonio, her husband’s cousin, and emotional distance from her spouse. While on the train to Spain’s capital, Paulina subsequently experiences a sort of spiritual conversion that instead of resolving her issues of identity (her confl icting roles of mother, spouse, working woman, mistress and Catholic), actually fosters her continued journey of refl ection and self-discovery in the city. In a 1989 interview, Laforet herself explains the 1951 event that both provoked a similar search in her own life and inspired the novel: It [La mujer nueva] grew out of something that happened to me while I was passing by a fountain at El Retiro Park in Madrid. All of a sudden, I felt a tremendous surge of happiness and a certainty that humanity was moving toward something wonderful, namely God. I spent three days saying I discovered the world, I discovered life, I discovered religion. I was so happy when I woke up each morning that I would wander in awe in the streets and think that all the horrible, ugly people I saw were actually wonderful because we were all moving toward God. The third day I woke up as I was before, without understanding anything, but knowing that this had happened to me. (Gazarian 1991: 157) After this ‘quasi-mystical experience’ (Johnson 1981: 28), Laforet spent one to two years trying to be ‘dogmatically religious’ (Gazarian 1991: 157), and a total of nearly seven years attempting to reconcile her questions about the Catholic faith. Her husband Manuel Cerezales, whom Laforet married in 1946 but from whom she separated defi nitively in 1970, motivated her to write La mujer nueva to portray this spiritual experience, one that Laforet depicts in her novel as a complex psychological process of a woman — in many ways like the author herself — who, in addition to and beyond gaining religious perspec- tive, seeks a free identity in an oppressive society.2 Despite this profound treat- 1 In Al volver la esquina (May 2004), Laforet’s fi fth and last published novel and the sequel to La insolación, the 47-year-old protagonist, Martín Soto, searches the past for existen- tial meaning with the aid of Dr. Leutari, a female psychotherapist. Although this process of recollection does not resolve for Martín his questions of identity, it does refl ect the author’s profound awareness of psychological development, a predominant theme in La mujer nueva and Laforet’s other novels. Al volver la esquina and La insolación correspond to the trilogy Tres pasos fuera del tiempo, but Laforet never fi nished the series’ last book, Jaque mate. With the exception of corrections that she incorporated later, Laforet completed Al volver la esquina by the end of 1973, but she did not authorize its publication until shortly before her death on February 28, 2004. 2 For more extensive biographical accounts of Laforet’s life, see the books by Inmaculada de la Fuente (2002), Laforet’s youngest son, Agustín Cerezales (1982), and Roberta Johnson (1981). LUP_BHS83_6_5_Maestro.indd 510 3/1/07 19:42:46 bhs, 83 (2006) Psychosocial Development and Female Identity in La mujer nueva 513 ciling society’s hypocrisy with her newly adopted Roman Catholic ideology and her roles as mother, wife and autonomous working woman until she eventually achieves a new identity. The question remains, however, of the relevance of North American identity theory to the analysis of La mujer nueva, and, consequently, of whether identity development is global. The son of Danes who separated before his birth, raised in Germany by his mother and Jewish stepfather, and a resident of the U.S. from 1933 until his death in 1994, Erikson was acutely sensitive to the role of culture in identity formation, and his theories on human development refl ect this understanding. This is especially evident in his book Young Man Luther (1958), where he demonstrates his awareness of the cultural and historical contexts of Martin Luther’s identity development during pubescence and early adult- hood. And although contemporary researchers of human behavior and identity development recognize that numerous factors affect identity formation (e.g., economy, war, famine, sub-cultures, etc.), they, like Erikson, generally agree that identity growth in the industrialized West (U.S., Canada, Western Europe, Australia and New Zealand) is related.8 Many researchers also recognize that some gender differences do exist for identity formation, and that these differ- ences are frequently cross-cultural in the West.9 What differentiate the grown person’s quest-for-self from the adolescent’s are the adult’s ample experiences, relationships and responsibilities, and the lack of a youth’s naiveté, an innocence that promotes optimism, which in turn helps resolve the identity crisis. As is the case with Paulina in La mujer nueva, an adult’s already-established identity bound by these complex relationships and obligations complicates his or her re-discovery of self. In contrast to the role- seeking, teenage protagonists in Nada, La isla y los demonios and La insolación, 33- year-old Paulina is already a wife and mother whose identity crisis poses serious implications for her relationship with her son Miguel and her husband Eulogio Nives. Although there are certainly rigid social expectations for the course of an adolescent’s identity search, in Franco’s ultra-conservative, female role-limiting society, an adult, wedded mother encounters inordinate obstacles if she decides to re-evaluate and re-defi ne her ideological framework and social responsibili- ties. In other words, changing the course of an already established role of wife and mother is almost impossible. In her three novels of adolescent development, Laforet consistently plays with this notion of impossibility by presenting the protagonist with seemingly insur- mountable, socially-imposed hurdles to achieving identity. However, these novels also refl ect her own self-proclaimed optimism while affording her protagonists signifi cant advances in their searches-for-self, a strong and positive statement 8 Studies by Arnett and Moshman, for example, observe that identity formation does not differ greatly among cultures in the West. H. C. Triandis is among those scholars who have consistently found ideological similarities among Western cultures. 9 Erikson, Gilligan (1982), Giovacchini (1979), Marcia and Waterman (1992), among others, have all observed gender differences in identity formation. LUP_BHS83_6_5_Maestro.indd 513 3/1/07 19:42:47 bhs, 83 (2006)Mark P. del Mastro514 for the potential future of young women in Franco’s Spain.10 By switching the portrayal from an adolescent’s to an adult woman’s identity-search, Laforet also increases social challenges for her protagonist, thereby reinforcing her message of female empowerment. Paulina’s defi nitive adoption of Catholicism at the conclusion of La mujer nueva fi rst seems a surrendering to social pressures and a resignation to the Sección Femenina’s ideal of the new woman, a view of some critics such as Francisca López (1995: 49).11 However, in terms of psychosocial development to be discussed below, the protagonist’s acceptance of Catholicism and her re-commitment to her husband and son actually result from ‘sus propias convicciones’ and ‘su propia elección’ where Paulina has actively resolved for herself many ideological contradictions inherent in her country during this period (Laforet 2003: 13). Even the book’s title reinforces an ideological obstacle for ambitious women: the Sección Femenina’s ‘mujer tradicional antigua y siempre nueva’ (Martín Gaite 1998: 27), the image of the submissive, Catholic female destined to serve her family, country and church while she resists any personal ambitions other than the career of happy homemaker. Paulina, however, is the opposite of this repressed fi gure: she represents the liberal woman who the Spanish Civil War victors, the dictatorship, openly condemn as a sinful vestige of the ‘rojos’, the defeated Republicans. Conversely, the protagonist’s parents are politically conservative with a strong allegiance to the Church; therefore, yet before the protagonist’s mystical experience and Catholic conversion, Paulina already represents a ‘mujer nueva’, a progressive feminist version that counters the image that both the Sección Femenina and Francisco Franco advocate. One example of Paulina’s feminism is her smoking, which she shows to her future husband Eulogio in 1936 on the train to Villa de Robre, their town in León. In a gesture of what for conservative Spain is an undesirable social initiative for a female, the protagonist offers a cigarette to Eulogio who responds: ‘No, yo fumo muy poco. Un amigo mío, tú lo conoces, Pepe Vados, dice que eso es una debi- lidad de mujeres’ (Laforet 1969: 1086). This traditional view of Pepe, parish priest and older brother of Rita, wife of Antonio (the man with whom Paulina later has an affair), foreshadows the strict expectations for social conduct, particularly for a woman, which the Franco regime and the Church will later reinforce together. In Mujeres, María Pilar Morales explains this conservative view toward a smoking female: En lugares públicos, la mujer que fuma se hace acreedora a las impertinentes galanterías de los hombres indiscretos. Parece ser que el cigarrillo es el distintivo utilizado por las mujeres a quienes gusta llamar la atención, y aparentemente 10 In her interview with Marie-Lise Gazarian, Laforet labels herself an optimist (Gazarian 1991: 163). 11 Founded by the right-wing Falange española in 1934, and complementing the philosophy of both Franco’s dictatorship and the Roman Catholic Church during the following four decades, the Sección Femenina served to reinforce and direct Spain’s female population with the image of the ‘ideal woman’ as submissive wife and devoted mother. See studies by Gallego Méndez (1983) and Suárez Fernández (1993) for more on the Sección Femenina. LUP_BHS83_6_5_Maestro.indd 514 3/1/07 19:42:47 bhs, 83 (2006) Psychosocial Development and Female Identity in La mujer nueva 515 ofrecen mayores facilidades para una conquista masculina. Todos los hombres, sin excepción, dejan traslucir en sus miradas una curiosidad maliciosa cuando han tropezado sus ojos con una mujer fumadora. E inevitablemente la juzgan mal. (83) Eulogio’s citing of Pepe Vados certainly refl ects this right-wing attitude, but Paulina reacts indifferently. Further contradicting Spain’s conservative ideology is the protagonist’s unat- tractive physical appearance — ‘feúcha’ according to her father (1075), ‘nada guapa’ in her grandmother’s eyes (1055), and ‘fea’ to Eulogio (1085) — that Paulina herself conscientiously maintains by rejecting makeup, a decision she makes at age 15 to protest the hypocritical, traditional ideals of her father. Not only does her appearance contrast with the image of the prospective ‘bonita esposa’ (Martín Gaite 1998: 119), but Paulina’s lack of a signifi cant dowry fails Mariana, Eulogio’s mother, who expects her son to marry a beautiful woman ‘que doble el capital’ of the family (1093). As Martín Gaite observes with regard to courtship and love in conservative Spain, of critical importance is the young man’s selection of a spouse whom his mother will approve (1998: 114). Despite knowing his own mother will reject the protagonist for reasons just explained, Eulogio marries Paulina during the civil war and further underscores the protag- onist’s pre-conversion role as the feminist version of ‘la mujer nueva’. Paulina’s fl irtatious behavior also defi es norms of the ‘antiguo régimen’ (Miguel 1998: 17), the traditional views that still linger in Spanish society despite progressive social changes for women in the years prior to Franco’s dictatorship, especially during the Second Republic (1931–1936).12 During adolescence, for example, the protagonist’s attraction of men like ‘moscones’ is what her grand- mother Bel sees as improper; moreover, the teenaged Paulina remains happy and self-assured as if her conduct were acceptable (1055). Bel’s question to Paulina ‘¿No vas a tener nunca una buena amiga?’ (1055) epitomizes conservative views of the period that women should avoid befriending men in order to sustain the myth of inaccessibility (Martín Gaite 1998: 66), but the protagonist’s unorthodox personality is what eventually lures Eulogio to his commitment, albeit civil, to marriage. As an additional feminist stance that refl ects ideals of the Second Republic, Paulina is educated, earning her university degree in ‘Ciencias Exactas’ in May of 1936, which enables her to work as a math teacher in Madrid to support herself and her son during the nine years (1939–1948) of her husband’s absence; Eulogio is away in Central America for political and personal reasons: he is Republican, and he has an affair with a ‘millonaria histérica’ in Mexico (1038). Of course, 12 Social changes in early 1900s Spain became evident in such testimony as Cristóbal de Castro’s Las mujeres (1916) that remarks on the new, socially acceptable phenomenon of women in the work place. Along with this progress, the efforts of such Spanish feminism pioneers as Victoria Kent, Clara Campoamor and Carmen de Burgos, among others, greatly assisted the eventual legalization of female suffrage (1931) and divorce (1932), which were both banned in 1939 with Franco’s regime. LUP_BHS83_6_5_Maestro.indd 515 3/1/07 19:42:47 bhs, 83 (2006)Mark P. del Mastro518 Along with this and other troubling aspects of her life, motherhood leads Paulina to a ‘spiritual conversion’ that is not a mystical event but rather the protagonist’s choice to re-defi ne her identity and relationships. This conver- sion — the fi ctionalized depiction of Laforet’s own experience in 1951 — espe- cially represents a choice within the context of Laforet’s life and her fi rst four novels where the identity search is the prevalent theme. Perhaps if La mujer nueva were the fi nal novel the author published, and she remained a devout wife and Catholic, both the author’s and protagonist’s conversions could be consid- ered more seriously as seemingly mystical events. However, with the author’s continued portrayal of the quest-for-self in both La insolación and Al volver la esquina, the conversion in La mujer nueva is just another hopeful attempt at Erik- sonian identity achievement, a struggle that the author herself confronted as she tried to balance her roles as writer, mother and wife during the 50s and 60s, as she endured the eventual demise of her marriage, and then gradually abandoned her public role as writer. Also important is that Paulina’s conversion on the train does not resolve her identity crisis, but rather it reinforces the fi rm direction that Blanca, Antonio’s mother, had already given to the protagonist’s search through her religious consultations in Villa de Robre. The mystical event better represents Paulina’s own active decision to relieve her abulia by committing to Catholicism, a choice that she complements through her further efforts to reconcile the Church’s doctrine with the errant actions of herself and those around her. In Madrid, the protagonist’s distance from family gives her the time to resolve these confl icts that both complicate and assist the cultivation of a newly emerging identity. One of these confl icts is her relationship with Antonio that, despite her conver- sion, continues to tempt her. She recognizes that Antonio overshadows God’s presence in her life, and she is verbally effective in combating his advances — she even tells him that because she is not a hypocrite, she must shun their relation- ship — but physically she falters, surrendering to a weekend excursion with him to the beach. Besides the obvious hypocrisy that Paulina reinforces with this trip, it becomes clearer that the protagonist’s religious conversion was neither a defi nitive, clean ideological epiphany, nor an identity resolution, but rather a simple step in the direction of settling her identity crisis. Paulina’s frequent spiritual consultations with both Fr. González and Blanca as well as her wavering desire to become a Carmelite nun are evidence that her apparent commitment to Catholicism is just a preliminary move she must continue to test in order to verify its appropriateness to her personal circumstances (e.g., marriage, moth- erhood, extra-marital affair, etc.). Joining Antonio to the coast is part of this deliberation process as it also refl ects the protagonist’s re-visiting of prior devel- opmental confl icts in young adulthood and adolescence: the combined struggle of intimacy vs. isolation and identity vs. identity confusion. Initially her commit- ment to God fulfi ls her need for intimacy, but a lack of physical, human close- ness still perpetuates her feelings of isolation and magnifi es the need to associate with Antonio. While sunbathing with her lover on the beach, Paulina confi rms LUP_BHS83_6_5_Maestro.indd 518 3/1/07 19:42:48 bhs, 83 (2006) Psychosocial Development and Female Identity in La mujer nueva 519 the fl eeting, yet desired satisfaction that being with Antonio provides: ‘Quisiera detener el tiempo’ (1245). Another association that contributes to Paulina’s post-conversion identity- formation is Julián, the delinquent son of the protagonist’s former landlady. Julián’s botched burglary attempt and murder of Paulina’s neighbor — during the protagonist’s beach excursion with Antonio — along with Blanca’s continued spiritual consultations exacerbate Paulina’s identity crisis and force her to re- evaluate her actions in relation to her supposed religious transformation: ¿Qué más daba robar, fornicar, que matar…? Todo obedecía al mismo impulso de egoísmo propio. Aparentemente, algunas cosas resultaban más dañinas a la sociedad que otras […] Y siempre en un espacio de tiempo limitado. A la larga, todas eran igualmente dañinas, aun a la sociedad […] Y delante de Dios, quizás era ella, Paulina, más culpable que aquel imbécil muchacho asesino. (1260) This view motivates Paulina to reject Antonio, and even with the death of his spouse Rita shortly thereafter — which according to Antonio would allow him and the protagonist to legitimize their bond — Paulina resists her lover, though the temptation to marry him leads her to church to invoke God’s guidance. Witnessing an elderly couple receive the Catholic sacrament of marriage fi nally convinces Paulina that her identity should be Eulogio’s wife as consecrated by the Church and that she should defi nitively distance herself from Antonio. To satisfy the protagonist’s Eriksonian, young-adulthood need of intimacy, however, Eulogio must reciprocate, which he does, by responding affi rmatively to Pauli- na’s letter proposing that they marry in the Church. With this letter, the protag- onist assumes an assertive role that she has maintained through almost every step of her identity quest; such initiative indeed comments, even if subtly, on female independence in a male-dominated society. The novel’s conclusion not only re-establishes Paulina’s identity as a mother and wife, but it also reconciles these roles within the protagonist’s newly adopted Catholic faith without the need to become a nun. With Eulogio’s affi rmative response to Paulina’s request to legitimize their marriage in the Church, the protagonist regains her family and essentially resolves three crises of Erikson’s psychosocial stages of development: she secures identity from the stage of adolescence, intimacy from young adulthood, and a sense of generativity from adulthood. Paulina’s satisfying feelings of ‘gran confi anza’ and ‘paz’ after this defi nitive transformation refl ect the basic strengths of fi delity, love and care that Erikson identifi es as core characteristics of adolescence, young adulthood and adulthood respectively (Laforet 1969: 1347). Although the question of Paulina’s identity seems resolved at the novel’s conclusion, the reader cannot overlook the obvious re-affi rmation of conserva- tive Spain’s values that the protagonist’s fi nal circumstances represent, thereby disputing this article’s interpretation that Laforet conveys a subtle message of female independence in an ideologically-oppressive society. However, as the critic Rolón Barada has also observed, following her religious conversion Paulina has actually controlled the course of her own life: ‘Ahora comienza a manejarlo LUP_BHS83_6_5_Maestro.indd 519 3/1/07 19:42:48 bhs, 83 (2006)Mark P. del Mastro520 todo a su manera, por su propia elección, liberada de las expectativas y, en gran medida, de los compromisos sociales’ (Laforet 2003: 13). The reader must recall, for example, that Paulina’s letter to Eulogio dictates the protagonist’s own terms for reuniting, and her husband accepts these conditions, which is an act that verifi es her independence and power. Of course, this instance is one of many throughout the novel where Paulina has made her own decisions uninfl uenced by society, but determined by her own independent thinking. While past studies have focused almost exclusively on the spiritual conversion in La mujer nueva, this novel also presents an important and accurate portrayal of the special challenges of psychosocial development facing a woman in ultra- conservative Spain, especially during Franco’s dictatorship. However, and as just explained, La mujer nueva is not the story of a woman selling out to the oppressive expectations of a conservative, Catholic society, but rather it is the account of an identity pursuit that, in the context of similar searches represented in Nada, La isla y los demonios, La insolación and Al volver la esquina, refl ects the author’s frequently overlooked feminist messages as well as the psychosocial crises that Laforet herself experienced and clearly attempted to resolve with hope in her narrative. Works Cited Arnett, Jeffrey Jensen, 2001. Adolescence and Emerging Adulthood: A Cultural Approach (Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall). 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