Cuentos de la tierra

I found through reading the stories in Cuentos de la tierra and the Zola article that it is very interesting how the mix of realism and naturalism can have a unique effect on literature. I like how people like Zola began to use science to get a description of social reality because it makes the stories more realistic. If this happens to this person, in the real world this will happen. A lot of times, as shown through the Cuentos, this situations are brutal and sad. I do not like however that the naturalists do not take human will, spirit, and desire in account. Often times, bad things happen to people but they do not sit around letting it happen without putting up a fight. Like in Medias Rojas, the young girl was trying to protect her face from being beaten out of her will to struggle against the bad. I also think that the formation of psychology is very important to literature. It allowed the authors, such as Bazan, to allow the reader to connect the the character and see their personal struggle against something bad. In the real world, everyone has different emotions or sees situations from a different perspective, and by not having every situation being the same, one is able to see the true reality of the world and what real people have to face. I think it is important to write about the bad whether the person loses or wins against the bad because it raises awareness to problems in the world. Like in Medias Rojas, young girls should not be beaten. Change can arise because the stories were written and change the lives of people who are living in the same situation. I think that Bazan did a great job mixing the realism and naturalism in her stories and has raised awareness to many unfortunate situations that happened many years ago and some that are still relevant in today's world. She allowed the readers see into the lives of different people and the struggles they have to face with out them being cookie cutter images of scientific study.

Tristeza y Avaricia

I had somewhat of an idea of what to expect when we started reading stories by Emilia Pardo Bazan because I, along with most people, read Las Medias Rojas while taking Spanish 450. However, I was quite surprised that not just that story, but most of her stories are very sad, or bring up the worst qualities in people, such as greediness. I now have a better understanding that writing about these topics was what was popular during the eras of Realism and Naturalism. I think it is very interesting that these writers can write about the phenomena inherent in man, like their psychology, personality, and instincts, and that people actually enjoy reading it! My first thought would be that most readers are used to these sorts of actions because they commit them every day, however, after reading more stories by Emilia Pardo Bazan, I realized that I actually like this kind of writing, because it was real and there was nothing fantasy about it. Although stories like Las Medias Rojas y El Pañuelo are very sad, it shows us that things like this really do happen, probably every day, and we shouldn't avoid writing about it because by writing about it, we bring awareness to it. And when it comes to stories like El Legajo and the greed that is discovered at the end, I think that is important too for the same reason that I like realist and naturalist writing, because it is real, and that is how most people are, deep down inside. I'm glad that we purchased a whole book full of stories by Emilia Pardo Bazan because I enjoy them and hope to find the time to read some more of them.

Week 5 Blog

Queria mencionar brevemente que cuando lei El Legajo y So Tierra por primera vez, asi de momento pense que ambos estaban relacionados, como si uno fuera una continuacion del otro. Mas o menos como lo que hace Stephen King con sus novelas, el siempre las relaciona de alguna manera.

Por otro lado, Medias Rojas es en definitiva un cuento con ambas caracteristicas, es decir realista y naturalista. El simple hecho de proyectar como el rostro de Ildara ha sido destrozado por su padre es muy naturalista, muy cruel, basicamente va mas haya de la sociedad...como la profesora menciono en clase "naturalism likes to highlight the suffering". Este cuento es demasiado...que palabra quiero usar?..demasiado deprimente, penoso, oscuro y sin salida ni solucion.

La pobre se queda "atrapada en su realidad" no puede salir de su realidad.

Tambien, podemos ver lo siguiente
Psychology/Personality: como ambos se comportan y sus formas de pensar y ver la vida, "el padre no queria emigrar, cansado de una vida de labor, indiferente de la espereanza tardia..." El padre es comodo con su vida alli, como gallego, pero eso si, pienso que hay una intertextualidad que significa que el verdaderamente no se quiere quedar solo, es decir que es mejor para el que Ildara se quede para que le sirva.

En cuanto a Ildara, ella triste y cansada de su vida quiere salir y es conciente de su belleza como pasaje de salida: "defendia su belleza, hoy que se acercaba el momento de fundar en ella un sueno porvenir..."

Heredity/Genetics/Social conditions: sus condiciones de vida eran las mismas que sus pasadas generaciones (mujeres) "como le habia sucesido a la Mariola, su prima senalada por su propia madre en la frente con el aro de la briba, qu eele desgarro los tejidos"

:( pobre Ildara

El Legajo

In both "El si de las ninas" and in "El legajo", there are servants or workers that make up part of the story. I find it interesting to analyze their role and depiction in the readings by observing the time period. "El se de las ninas" was written during the neoclassical time period and many works during this time were written with the intention to imitate nature. In other words, the works were verisimilar and appeared probable or likely in real life. The way that the servants were displayed in this work were more as a companion than a tipical servant. Francisca trusted Rita and looked to her for advice. Although Rita did perform some work, she appeared to be more of a companion than a worker. Along the same lines, Don Diego confided in Simon with his secret regarding the marriage with Francisca. In "El legajo" the workers are depicted as lower class people that are not well respected. It is evident that Lucio does not think very much of his workers. In addition, when the workers discover the bones, they are afraid and creeped out. This was common for the lower class to be freaked out by superstisions. In contrast to the relationships developed in "El si de las ninas", Lucio does not seem to have a close relationship with his workers. This short story was written by a realist who wrote about people interacting with their natural environment. I thought it was very interesting this contrast of ideas from two different time periods. One time period trying to make a work "like truth" and the other actually making a work of truth.

Edgar Allan Poe

Wow! So I loved these stories from Emilio Bazan, yes they are a little grotesque , and obviously depressing but I feel like I can relate to the struggle of the people. After reading the short story, "En Silencio," I instantly thought of the the Edgar Allan Poe short story, "The Cask of Amontillado." In "En Silencio"there is a young couple who have a tavern, and they go trough years of their marriage and eventually it becomes mundane. The husband soon has a "mistress" but suggests that him and his wife move to the Americas (even though she suggested the city). On their final night together he suffocates her, and buries her with a brick wall in the closet, and the next day he is off to America. Similarly Poe depicts a story about a man wanting revenge on a man named Forunato. (Perhaps similar to the revenge of Don Diego on Don Felix en "El estudiante de Salamanca"...) To revenge him he leads him to his own wine cellar, to taste am expensive and rare wine. Low and behold the narrator poisons him and decides to bury him in his own cellar by building a wall around him.

This is an excerpt from the short story...
"As I said these words I busied myself among the pile of bones of which I have before spoken. Throwing them aside, I soon uncovered a quantity of building stone and mortar. With these materials and with the aid of my trowel, I began vigorously to wall up the entrance of the niche." (Edgar Allan Poe The Cask of Amontillado)

I think this plays into the idea of realism becuase it shows the human experience from struggles, like vengence and desire, and more importantly the results that come from these feelings. Also, I think that understanding the psychology behind the husband and the narrator and their motives to kill, is representative of the elements of realism. I cant imagine looking at these stories without including the will and spirit of the people. I think because we are all human, the emotional Bazan has on us by including the soulfulness of the characters is what sets her apart for her time period.

A Literary Scientific Method

Because Friday evenings usually pass me by, and then I'm left Saturday morning with a 7 AM realization, I wanted to post early this week (also, to avoid drawing parallels with tonight's episode of LOST).

As a biology and Spanish double-major, I often find myself unable to reconcile the two. I fell out of love with biology a while back, and my passion for Spanish is still growing. Biology has been a long road, and Spanish seems like its ending much too quickly... such is the life of a last-year college student.

The fact that the realists used the scientific method to approach literature is so bizarre to me. Of course, we can view our lives as experiments with multiple variables; you have parents A, hometown B... job Y, retirement plan Z, etc., but reducing the human experience to something like that (albeit in self-constructed circumstances) sort of takes out the "self" in the equation. What we discussed in class seems to suggest that two people, if placed within the same circumstances, would result in the exact same experience, story, and life. We, of course, know this to be false.

A better approach to the model of "realism" (rather than an "equation" example) might be to look at it in terms of expectations. Nothing about realism is fantastical or incredibly out-of-reach. After reading a realist work, I get the feeling of shrugging my shoulders and muttering, "yeah, that's about right." The circumstances of person X and person Y can be exactly the same, but the details of their lives would be different. Neither of them, however, would learn to fly or become a millionaire overnight.

I wonder how people reacted to realist works when they were written, especially those within the social classes that the works were written about. Were they depressing or eye-opening? Perhaps I should read a realist novel about a college student that doesn't know what to do with their life to find out.

Although I'm pretty sure I'd find it depressing.

Zola and the scientific method

I was really interested in what we began talking about in class yesterday, with the scientific method being applied to literature by Zola. I was kind of wary “believing” this could be done, for a few reasons. I relate it to the relationship between science and medicine. I will be going to medical school next year and I’ve spent time in labs and with patients. There is a huge difference between results you can get in a lab versus what actually happens when you apply this to patients, for many reasons. As everybody is different, this means that no patient, and thus no disease/ailment/treatment, is the same. People will react differently to drugs, their specific disease may have a different course of progression, etc. In additional to this, you then have to take into account that every patient’s experience is different- for example, a certain doctor might prescribe something a little different, patients might not take their medicine, they might be exposed to an additional infection due to their environment, etc. Medicine is an imperfect science, and every situation is different, even if in a lab, or theoretically, a patient with X symptoms should have Y disease which we should treat with Z drugs to get X result. This does not happen all the time in reality.

My point is that when relating this back to Zola’s application of the scientific method to literature, I am wary that Zola says that we can learn what a person will do in a certain situation, because I believe that everybody reacts differently to situations. It’s all about your perspective and how you view the situation and how you choose to react. I do agree that by observing situations you can learn a huge amount about human characters, personalities, and values- however, I don’t think you could ever say that in X situation everyone will do Y with the result being Z. Humans are just too complicated for that!