Hispanic Research Journal, Vol. 7, No.

3, September 2006, 195210

Homoeroticism and Gender Role Confusion in Pardo Bazns Memorias de un soltern

Mark Harpring
University of Puget Sound
Emilia Pardo Bazn often vocalized her rejection of natural gender roles for men and women. At the same time, she adhered to the belief in social class distinctions based on inherent value and birth. In her 1896 novel Memorias de un soltern her views are outlined as she focuses on the ambiguously gendered protagonist, the bachelor Mauro Pareja, and his struggle to define himself along heterosexual, bourgeois lines. His success and subsequent marriage to the New Woman Feta Neira underscore the middle classs privileged position and pins the success for national progress squarely on its shoulders. The novel likewise proposes increased equality between the sexes as the partners contribute equally to managing the household. The crossing of gender and class in this work allows Pardo Bazn to examine the future of her nation, which depended on a revision in gender roles as a necessary component of the countrys modernization of social structures at the end of the nineteenth century. After Benito Prez Galds published Tristana in 1892, Emilia Pardo Bazn complained that Galds did not develop, as she had hoped he would, the theme of a young womans awakening and rebellion against a society que la condena a perpetua infamia y no le abre ningn camino honroso para ganarse la vida, salir del poder del decrpito galn, y no ver en el concubinato su nica proteccin, su apoyo nico (1976: 137). Regarding the novels male characters, she had expected that Galds would introduce el terrible conflicto del hombre antiguo y el ideal nuevo, el choque de la coraza y la locomotora (1976: 141). Instead, the reader discovers a stubborn and condescending old man, a girl who falls in love with a run-of-the-mill bourgeois artist, and a story that develops from a chance happening, a physical accident (1976: 141). Pardo Bazns interest in Tristana continued, and she responded to Tristanas pessimism in Memorias de un soltern (1896). The novel narrates the reversal of a confirmed bachelors anti-marriage stance when he marries a model of the late-nineteenth-century New Woman.1
1 Several scholars have commented on the relationship between Galdoss and Pardo Bazns works. Carmen Bravo-Villasante links Tristana and Memorias de un soltern on the basis of similarities between letters that Pardo Bazn wrote to Galds and Tristanas letters to Horacio and on conversations that the writers had on the emancipation of women (1975: 9). Leda Schiavo maintains that Galds intended to portray Pardo Bazn in Tristana given the similarities between the protagonist and the writer (Pardo Bazn 1976: 21). Bravo-Villasante also suggests a connection between Galdss La incgnita and Realidad and Pardo Bazns Insolacin. (Coincidentally, La incgnita and Insolacin appeared in bookstores on the

Address correspondence to Mark Harpring, 1500 N. Warner Street, CMB 1073, Tacoma, WA 98416, USA. Queen Mary, University of London, 2006 DOI: 10.1179/174582006X119664

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Like Galds, Pardo Bazn was concerned with Spains future and the role of the middle class in leading the nation at a time when the very identity of this group was changing. And like her contemporaries in Western Europe and Latin America, she argues in her feminist essays that any lasting progress for the nation is predicated on the advancement of women, notably in the field of education. Regarding the nineteenthcentury modernization effort, Nol Valis explains that modernity is shaped by the way a society adapts to increasing flux and evolution (2002: 23). Thus Pardo Bazn, in a world in which womens roles were constantly evolving, maintained that Spain could only move forward after incorporating women more fully into the countrys social fabric. Scholars have commented on the contradictions that characterized Pardo Bazn, specifically those arising from her strong Catholic convictions, which often conflicted with her avowed feminism. In the social arena, this contradiction is apparent in her vocal rejection of natural gender roles for men and women, which counters her belief in class distinctions based on inherent value and birth (Labanyi 2000: 33839). In Memorias de un soltern, Pardo Bazn focuses on the bachelor protagonist as he struggles to define himself along lines of hegemonic (heterosexual, bourgeois) masculinity; this focus enables her to highlight gender and its accompanying roles as social constructs open to evolution and change rather than natural or innate components to a persons identity.2 The protagonists success in defining his heterosexual identity metaphorically pins the potential for national progress squarely on the shoulders of the middle class. Cross-class alliances are rejected in favour of the marriage that eventually takes place between the narrator and confirmed bachelor Mauro Pareja, a middle-class architect, and Feta Neira, the daughter of his financially ruined friend, Benicio. The marriage redeems the Neira household by restoring Benicios children to their proper social and economic station, thus consolidating the middle classs role in the nineteenth century. In this way, Pardo Bazn adds to the nineteenth-century debate regarding the middle class and national progress. While expressing optimism about the bourgeoisies participation in the nationbuilding project, she presents her criticism against a social apparatus that refuses to expand opportunities for women delineated in Galdss novel. At the same time, her optimism implies hope for the future, perhaps after witnessing the advancements brought about by the middle class in other countries. Memorias de un soltern opens with Mauro Parejas diatribe against marriage. Recalling Peredas El buey suelto, a novel against bachelorhood, Mauro affirms:
Digan lo que digan, y aunque Pereda, de quien soy lector constante, haya declamado contra el buey suelto, nunca poseemos un interior ms pacfico y ms estticamente arreglado para recrear en su serenidad el alma, que cuando podemos hacerlo todo a nuestra imagen, y no segn las exigencias siempre algo prosaicas de la vida de familia. (Pardo Bazn 1999: 785)3
1 Continued same day.) She views the novels as the response of each of the writers to Pardo Bazns infidelity while she and Galds were involved romantically. Finally, the similarities between Tristana and Amparo of La tribuna leads Elisa Ro Conde to the conclusion that the protagonists are hijas quiz de las semejanzas y de la relacin que mantuvieron sus respectivos creadores (1988: 229). 2 Tosh defines hegemonic masculinity as the masculine norms and practices which are most valued by the politically dominant class and which help to maintain its authority (2004: 48). He maintains that subordinate groups in society fashion their own masculine codes. Hegemonic masculinity, therefore, encompasses authority over women and subordinated masculinities (2004: 49-51). 3 All quotations from the text of the novel are taken from this edition, and henceforward will be cited by page number(s) only.

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Unlike Tristanas Don Lope, who acts out his aversion to middle-class social norms through his imitation of the mythic Don Juan, Mauro Pareja avoids contact with women, preferring instead to primp at his dressing table. The bachelors profession situates him within the ranks of the middle class proper, but his unmarried status has allowed him to live comfortably and work little. As the story progresses, Mauro is smitten by Feta Neira, the daughter of the widower Benicio Neira, who has mortgaged his land to support his numerous progeny. Without a steady income, the Neira family possesses little more than lower-middle-class Spaniards, yet Benicio receives loans from the rich industrialist Baltasar Sobrado to hide his financial difficulties. Benicios daughter Rosa is involved sexually with Sobrado, who finances her obsession with buying clothes. When Sobrado cuts off relations with Rosa, his loans to Benicio also end; consequently, Rosas debts bring financial ruin upon the family. The disgrace that the widower feels is compounded when he discovers that his daughter Argos is involved with the provincial governor, Luis Meja. In contrast to her sisters, Feta decides that she will support herself through a career as a private teacher to the town of Marinedas children. Although Mauro initially opposes the new Feta she dresses like a man and has entered the public sphere through her work the bachelor whose gender is equally ambiguous soon feels an attraction to the rebellious young woman. He competes for Fetas love with Ramn Sobrado, the working-class socialist and son of Baltasar Sobrado and Amparo of Pardo Bazns La tribuna (1882). After Benicio Neira dies, Feta and Mauro work together successfully to salvage the family fortunes, and they wed. Most scholarship on Pardo Bazns work focuses on her better-known novels Los pazos de Ulloa and La madre naturaleza. During the late 1980s and through the 1990s, scholars began to address her lesser-known, overtly feminist works. The majority of critics consider the marriage that takes place at the end of the novel a positive step for the redefinition of gender roles, as it suggests a new paradigm that provides fresh opportunities for both women and men and even for the institution of marriage (Ordez 1990: 153). For Beth Wietelmann Bauer, Memorias de un soltern is the novel which most clearly traces a blueprint for the modern woman and the enlightened marriage between equals (1994: 23). Mary Lee Bretz similarly asserts that Memorias investigates new possibilities, suggesting the need for new ideologies, different social structures, and new forms of discourse (1989: 85). In contrast, Maryellen Bieder grants that Feta ultimately appropriates the patriarchal voice within the family, but she also maintains that marriage inhibits the characters from freely acting out their ideal gender roles (1989: 490). Despite the differences in their interpretations, these scholars agree that Feta challenges the dominant patriarchal tradition of the nineteenth century in Spain. From the outset, the bachelor of Memorias de un soltern describes himself with characteristics commonly associated with women. He spends hours at a time at his dressing table and is an expert on both mens and womens fashion. His eccentric clothing stands out in Marineda, and his white boots were once the topic of much conversation among the townsfolk (much like the flashy blue boots of the ambiguously gendered bachelor protagonist of Rosala de Castros El caballero de las botas azules). His exaggerated concern for his appearance likewise shows in his regime of exercise and dieting. He also enjoys the stereotypically female vice of gossip. While he is an avid reader, he avoids books related to the male-centred topics of science, business, and economics, preferring serial fiction and novels that were associated with a female readership. Even his companion, a plump black cat, aligns him with femininity. In nineteenth-century magazine prints, cats

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frequently appeared next to women to represent females animal nature and were often associated with solteras (Charnon-Deutsch 2000: 17). Black cats, commonly associated with witches and powerful women, were more suggestive and were at times depicted alongside sexually mature women in magazine illustrations of the late nineteenth century (Charnon-Deutsch 2000: 47). Mauros effeminacy unquestionably undermines his manhood, and his behaviour in the public sphere does little to bolster his male image. As mentioned earlier, he is a wellto-do middle-class architect, yet he works very little, surveying construction sites in the afternoon before going to the Pecera, Marinedas local gentlemens club. He explains:
Mi profesin de arquitecto, que ejerzo sosegadamente, a sus horas, y mi humilde patrimonio, me bastan para vivir con desahogo y para disfrutar de ciertas gratas superfluidades. No me hace falta intrigar, ni disputar a un compaero, por esos medios que calificara de indignos si la paternidad no los cohonestase, el encargo lucrativo, la apetecida comisin, la ctedra de la Escuela de Bellas Artes o la direccin del edificio pblico. (p. 787)

Masculinity in the nineteenth century was predicated on a mans ability to advance his career goals in the often ruthless public sphere, yet Mauro is unconcerned with moving up in his profession; he is content with earning enough to live comfortably. Although the bachelor works little, he spends a large portion of his day in the public sphere, notably the Pecera and the Casino de la Amistad. His presence in these all-male groups does little to establish his masculinity, for the casino is where he devours serial novels and gossips with his friend Primo Cova who brings him news of the intimate, and at times morally transgressive, behaviour of the towns men and women. In addition to his unconventional lifestyle, Mauros nickname underscores his problematic relationship to bourgeois gender norms. The bachelor opens his memoirs with the following statement: A m me han puesto de mote el Abad. En esta Marineda tienen buena sombra para motes, pero en el mo no cabe duda que estuvieron desacertados (p. 787). He suspects that this name is ironic because of his penchant for goces menos espirituales and the excessive attention he gives to his appearance (p. 782). He does not point out, however, that this name connotes the asexuality required of members of religious orders and also implies celibacy. The absence of sexuality that his nickname insinuates also surfaces in his anti-Don Juan stance. Unlike Tristanas Don Lope, a Don Juan par excellence, Mauro dismisses any connection with the legendary seducer. He relates that the townspeople mistakenly take him for a modern Don Juan, although his only crime is playing with la llama viva, sin peligro (p. 798). He never seduces women and adds that he has never known la felicidad de la pasin ilcita (p. 799). If anything, his relationship to the Don Juan myth is one of reversed gender roles, since Mauro, rather than any woman, becomes a potential conquista in Marineda (p. 806). Nevertheless, Mauros lack of sexual prowess underscores his inability to adhere to social expectations. John Tosh relates that for men in Victorian England there was a strong tradition at all levels of society that, in young men especially, the libido should be released in full relations with the other sex. Conquests were part of the accepted currency of manhood (Tosh 1999: 112). The Spaniard Ciro Bayo, writing at the turn of the century, likewise explains that the unmarried man is tacitly authorized by society to have sexual relations with women de la manera que pueda (1900: 12). Despite the ambiguity that shrouds Mauros clothing, lifestyle, and relations with women, he refuses the label effeminate. After describing his interest in clothing and his unmasculine habits, he states, No crean, seores, que me acicalo por afeminacin

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(p. 782). Nevertheless, by addressing this issue, Mauro confirms what the reader has already understood: he is a womanly man. His clothing, which should serve as a clear indication of his middle-class status, is so eccentric that he is a misfit among the townspeople. His movement between the public and private spheres and his asexuality create the image of a less-than-masculine man, thus adding to his characterization as a figurative outsider in Marineda. Maryellen Bieder also considers Mauro to be characterized by a lack of sexuality. She proposes that his androgyny blurs normative male and female gender identification and suggests an overt rejection of sexuality (1989: 48485). Although the bachelor shies away from any display of sexuality, the novel is replete with sexual undertones. William Cohen, in his analysis of sex scandals in Victorian England, argues that the novelistic genre
encrypts sexuality not in its plot or in its announced intentions, but in its margins, at the seemingly incidental moments of its figurative language, where, paradoxically, it is so starkly obvious as to be invisible. (1996: 32)

He concludes that this is most often true where homosexuality is concerned. Scott Derrick similarly observes that the
prehistory of homosexuality in the nineteenth century consists of half-buried, halfemergent associations, whether memories, characters, or events, that do not get carried out and enacted at the level of plot. (1997: 27)

In Memorias, same-sex associations surface in the margins, only to be displaced through the bachelors initiation into heterosexual bourgeois manhood. Historically, homosexuality has been identified with femininity. In Male Subjectivity at the Margins, Kaja Silverman addresses this relationship and observes that in the second half of the nineteenth century, theorists thought the male homosexual had a female soul inside a mans body (1992: 340). Foucault similarly argues that, during this period, homosexuality appeared as one of the forms of sexuality when it was transposed from the practice of sodomy onto a kind of interior androgyny, a hermaphrodism of the soul (1990: 43). The connection in the West between femininity and homosexuality dates back at least to Plato and, historically, has operated within, and perhaps has defined, homosexual subcultures. Male transvestite cultures appeared in Europe as early as the fourteenth century, and cross-dressing balls became popular in Lisbon in the seventeenth century. During the following two hundred years, visitors to Londons molly houses frequently adopted stereotypically feminine gestures, and even womens names, in their interaction with each other (Silverman 1992: 342). Although sodomy was practised by all social classes, most information on the subject documents the behaviour of the nobility. Same-sex relationships were popular among noblemen during the Renaissance. They usually chose adolescent boys as their sex objects because of their quasi-feminine characteristics: their high voices, smooth skins and beardless faces. In this way, the young men engaging in homosexual relations are identified with femininity (Saslow 1990: 90). Historians of homosexuality distinguish between behaviour or homosexual acts and identity, a modern construction. The term homosexual was not coined until 1869, when urban subcultures became increasingly visible and medical psychiatry became a profession (Saslow 1990: 96). Robert Padgug explains that there has always existed in the modern world a dialectical interplay between those social categories and activities which ascribe to certain people a homosexual identity and the activities of those who are so categorized (Padgug 1990: 60). He suggests that this dialectical interplay stems from

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socially prescribed roles that require different behaviour for men and for women pitted against sexual acts that defy these very norms. It is therefore not surprising that the recognition of a distinct homosexual identity, while problematic, corresponded to the increasing hegemony of the bourgeoisie in modern societies. Middle-class ideology depended on strict masculine and feminine categories, and the threat that the homosexual posed to gender structures necessitated classifying him as different and relegating him to the margins of bourgeois existence. Yet so pervasive were the roles for middleclass men and women that the homosexual a problematic figure due to his subversive gender display could only be imagined in terms of male and female sex roles. While studies on Memorias de un soltern often focus on the narrators gender role crossing, none suggests the possibility of a homoerotic component to his identity, perhaps because Mauro and Fetas marriage seems to relegate same-sex desire to the texts margins. This strategy of erotic displacement was not new in Pardo Bazns work. In her 1891 short story Cobarda?, for example, the relationship between the anonymous narrator and his ambiguously gendered friend Rodrigo Osorio insinuates a mutual, same-sex desire that the narrator later denies when he implies that the interaction between other men, and not between him and Rodrigo, is unnatural (Tolliver 1998: 101). In similar fashion, Mauro Pareja alternates between suggesting and rejecting his homoerotic tendencies as he works through what Eve Kofosky Sedgwick has termed homosexual panic, or homophobia. According to Sedgwick, homophobia, which both gay and straight men can experience, heightened during the nineteenth century because of the increasing presence of all-male spaces:
Because the paths of male entitlement, especially in the nineteenth century, required certain intense male bonds that were not readily distinguishable from the most reprobated bonds, an endemic and ineradicable state of [...] male homosexual panic became the normal condition of the male heterosexual entitlement. (1986: 151)

She likewise argues that the goal of homosexual panic during this period was to solidify the hegemony of bourgeois masculinity that compelled men to marry and have children. The bourgeois bachelor, often marked by homosexual inclinations,
was required to navigate his way through his homosexual panic [...] toward the more repressive, self-ignorant, and apparently consolidated status of the mature bourgeois paterfamilias. (1986: 16061)

Echoing Sedgwicks notion of the process in which a man engages to establish himself as heterosexual, Tosh remarks that during the nineteenth century attaining manhood could not therefore be blandly described as a natural process, or a matter of filling ones allotted niche. It made more sense to represent it as a period of conflict, challenge, and exertion (1999: 11011). The nineteenth-century reader would not have failed to notice Mauros feminine traits. While effeminate protagonists, such as Julin in Los pazos de Ulloa or Silvio Lago in La quimera, were not uncommon in Pardo Bazns works, Mauro Parejas female qualities are perhaps the most delineated and exaggerated. Given the correlation of effeminacy with homosexuality, the bachelors enumeration of his stereotypically feminine characteristics in the novels first chapters suggests his questionable sexuality. However, any concrete identification between Mauro and homosexuality is clouded by references that bolster his manhood. He displays the homosexual panic described by Sedgwick, and the conflict, challenge and exertion that Tosh mentions, when he attempts to soften his association with the feminine by highlighting his participation in activities appropriate to men. Sedgwick explains that

HARPRING: BAZNS MEMORIAS DE UN SOLTERN in the increasingly stressed nineteenth-century bourgeois dichotomy between domestic female space and extrafamilial, political and economic male space, the bachelor is at least partly feminized by his attention to and interest in domestic concerns. (1986: 156)

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Therefore, his participation in the male-dominated public sphere potentially allows him to counterbalance this very effeminacy (1986: 156). In Spain, however, the bachelor lacked the association with domesticity that was attributed to English bachelors. The Spanish bachelor was linked to the good life: drinking, gambling and women. Nevertheless, he is still compelled to counterbalance any ties to femininity. In Memorias de un soltern, the tenuous divide between public and private exemplifies the tension between homosexuality and heterosexuality. When Mauro gossips with Primo Cova, he neutralizes this typically feminine behaviour by smoking a Henry Clay cigar. Cigars were enjoyed almost exclusively by men in the nineteenth century, and their obvious phallic significance underscores their relationship to masculinity. As mentioned earlier, Mauros femininity is also evident at the all-male casino where he enjoys the serialized magazine novels whose readership was primarily female, instead of books on science, business, and economics that men typically read. Mauros attraction to Feta allows him to define his masculinity in relation to his perception of her. While the manly Feta is initially greeted with strong, manly disapproval, the bachelors growing attraction to the masculine girl later introduces figurative homoerotic desire. When Feta first resolves to enter the male, public space as a teacher, literally walking Marinedas streets between lessons, she visits Mauro to ask permission to use his library. He first notes her exaggerated physical similarity to a man, evident in her clothing and short hair, and then concludes that the young woman is lo ms opuesto a la coquetera y el arte de agradar, lo que ms desilusiona en una mujer! (p. 850). His disapproval grows when she reveals that she will work like a man, and he exclaims: qu empresa ni qu alcachofas! [...] Ay, Feta! Usted est muy mala (p. 851). Later, when Primo Cova defends her actions, Mauro disagrees, arguing that Fetas behaviour is improper for a woman (p. 858). The new teachers frequent visits to the library bother the bachelor. On one occasion, while he sits at his dressing table, he imagines Fetas voyeuristic gaze penetrating the wall that separates them, and her preference for books (the very books that he avoids) over him shakes his amor propio masculino (pp. 86364). Mauros desire to be the object of Fetas stare is coupled with nervous excitement. The bachelor discloses:
sin duda mis nervios se atirantaron gradualmente, y lejos de disminuir mi irracional agitacin, creci hasta levantarme calentura. De suerte que el edificio de mi dicha, laboriosamente erigido sobre la piedra de mi celibato y mi soledad [...] lo echaban por tierra aquella antojadiza criatura. (p. 864)

Mauro then tries to dispel his sexual attraction to Feta when he exclaims with irony: Si al menos perdiese mi bienestar por culpa del que todo lo aasca, del ciego flechador que apunta a nuestros corazones! (p. 864). Mauros discomfort with Fetas presence the result of his wish to be gazed upon by her and the excitement he feels when she is on the other side of the wall is indeed due to a romantic interest in her. His irracional agitacin is understandable when he reveals the Feta that he imagines and desires: un marimacho, una chica que gasta calzado de hombre y lleva el pelo hecho un bardal (pp. 86465). Just as the bachelor tries to negate his feminine nature through public, all-male spaces, he counters his same-sex attraction when he describes Fetas transformation into a

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mujer en su doncellez tierna, en sus floridos abriles (p. 867). He describes an inexplicable modificacin de lneas and relates how
sus facciones se armonizaban con ms dulzura, sus sienes y cuello ofrecan curvas delicadas, sus ojos tenan una placidez, una luz velada, atractiva y graciosa que antes le faltaba por completo. (p. 867)

If Mauros attraction to a manly Feta challenges his own masculinity, his discovery of her feminine features offers a degree of relief if only temporary from the threat these desires pose. Nevertheless, Mauros obsession with the young womans manly features heightens, as does the corresponding irritation he feels with her visits. Her manly physical appearance first bothers and then attracts him, but now it is her masculine attitude and behaviour that he finds both alluring and troublesome:
Lo que ms me irritaba era descubrir en m extraa indulgencia para las rarezas de la independiente, y propensin a que su carcter y modo de proceder en vez de indignarme o serme antipticos, se me antojasen defendibles, atractivos, y hasta (Dios me ilumine) grandes y hermosos. (p. 877)

The bachelor later confirms his attraction to Fetas masculine physical appearance and intellect. He juxtaposes her mental attributes to her physical characteristics and discloses that sus condiciones fsicas y su modo de ser moral, su rostro y su genio, sus lecturas y sus botas, todo me pareca lo contrario de lo que a m me puede atraer, yet he confesses that he is, in fact, enamoured of the rebellious young woman (p. 886). While same-sex desire is apparent in Mauros attraction to un no s qu varonil (p. 887) that defines Feta, a nightmare also suggests homoeroticism. He dreams that a snake has entered his room in the middle of the night:
La vi rastrear por el suelo, erguir y deprimir las curvas bonitas de su largo cuerpo flexuoso, de reflejos metlicos, y avanzar as, silenciosamente, vibrando la cabeza, aunque aplastada, no exenta de cierta gracia y hasta de cierto inexplicable candor. (p. 848)

The snake coils up and stares at the bachelor with eyes that give off lumbres fosfricas and with a chest that beats como si encerrara un apasionado corazn (p. 848). Mauro then recounts that the reptile slowly climbs his bed, extends its long body into a straight position, and rests its chata frente on his pillow. The bachelor wakes up on the verge of screaming when he sees that dos pupilas metlicas, verdes y embrujadas, se clavaban en [l] (p. 848). The eyes, of course, belong to the black cat that stares at him from the foot of his bed. Mauro offers no interpretation of his dream, and the reader can only surmise who or what the snake represents. Because, as both Cohen and Derrick suggest, homosexuality is coded in figurative language beneath the level of plot, the narrators encounter with the phallic snake functions as a key marker of subconscious transgressive desire. Mauros description of the snake insinuates male sexual arousal. The flexible snake is at first coiled, he then raises his head and, finally, stretches himself into an erect position alongside Mauro in his bed. The erotic tone of this dream is reinforced through the watching black cats association with sexuality and its green eyes that signalled eroticism.4

4 For more information on the erotic symbolism of the colour green in Latin cultures throughout history, see Chamberlin 1968.

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The anxiety Mauro experiences due to his nightmare is heightened by the appearance of the handsome socialist el compaero Sobrado, the illegitimate son of a working-class woman and the wealthy industrialist Baltasar Sobrado. The young activist shows a romantic interest in Feta and, as a consequence, Mauro notices him. The bachelor describes his possible rival as mozo, robusto, guapo, moreno, con rizosa cabellera, que casi le caa sobre los ojos and admits that he would be an ideal companion for Feta (p. 883). The narrator then ends the chapter exclaiming Mis presagios, mis presagios! La serpiente!, and equates the snake with jealousy sparked by el compaeros interest in Feta. The association between the working-class socialist and the dream is apparent when the bachelor explains the rationale for a meeting he has with el compaero. On the pretext of discussing the rumours that el compaero is going to bomb his fathers property, Mauro meets his rival in a working-class caf the young man frequents. However, he has already divulged to the reader the real reason for the meeting:
Si yo pudiese esperar convalecencia, perdera la esperanza al ver que pensaba a todas horas en el compaero, y notar el singular afn que tena de verle, de fijarme bien en su cara, de detallarla con la ardiente y sagaz ojeada del enemigo. (p. 893)

The challenging tone that permeates this confession and the face-to-face encounter Mauro hopes for recalls his stand-off with the invading serpent. Like the snake that creeps into Mauros bed at night, el compaero se compona y tiraba de noche (p. 895). The reptiles pretty curves and vibrating head are analogous to the buenas proporciones of the young mans body, described as nervioso y robusto, and to la voz del compaero [que] vibraba (p. 902). The snakes flat forehead (about which the narrator comically asks: podr decirse frente?, hinting at its association with a person) has its counterpart in la lisa frente of Mauros rival (pp. 848, 897). The candor that characterizes the snakes movements matches the frankness with which the socialist speaks to Mauro. Also, like the coiled serpent that straightens its neck and stares at Mauro with eyes of glowing brightness, as if it were preparing to attack him, el compaero irgui la cabeza and [le] mir un rato with pupilas luminosas before issuing his threat to kill his biological father (p. 900). When the young man leaves the caf, the confusion and worry the bachelor felt on waking from his nightmare return to haunt him. He openly establishes a link between el compaero and his dream when he exclaims that he has been bitten by la vbora de los celos (p. 904). The intense rivalry that exists between Mauro and el compaero is elaborated first through the bachelors nightmare and then through his meeting with the worker. While Mauro never openly desires the socialist, the latters implication in the bachelors dream indeed establishes a subconscious homoerotic element to Mauros identity. However, the repulsion that Mauro feels for the young man diminishes the homoerotic tone that permeates the dream. Mauros fear of the snake and what it suggests ends in repugnance that stems from the difference in social class between the men and from his own feelings of homoerotic desire. However, positing the rivalry within a class discourse dilutes any suggestion that Mauros dislike is based on the threat of sexuality. In this way, the meeting serves doubly to identify the rebel with the snake while simultaneously dispelling the threat of same-sex desire. Richard Dellamora has proposed that same-sex desire is often posited within a heterosexual framework that attempts to neutralize, or erase, homosexuality (1988: 28). As I have shown, Memorias de un soltern illustrates a process in which the bachelors

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attributes and behaviour suggest a homoerotic connection that is then neutralized. Mauros slippage between homoerotic and heterosexual associations as he moves toward marriage and his eventual acceptance of hegemonic bourgeois masculinity is marked textually by a change in his mode of narration. In his study on nineteenth-century United States literature, Derrick, like Sedgwick, observes that the male subject passes through a conflict-ridden stage of female identification and homoerotic tendencies as he moves toward heterosexual adulthood. He adds that the tension between conflicting desires that potentially threatens the subjects identity is usually evident in narrative structures (1997: 191). Pardo Bazn likewise experimented with different techniques to underscore sexual developments, ruptures, and changes on or below the level of plot. In his analysis of sexual ambiguity in the late-nineteenth-century Spanish novel, Anton Pujol (1999: 215) explores the way in which Pardo Bazns narrative shifts to emphasize the questionable sexuality of Silvio Lago in her 1905 work La quimera. In like manner, Memorias de un soltern reinscribes the bachelor into his traditional gender role when Mauro suspends his narration to address a change in his technique. Chapters 1 to 21 are narrated in the first person, followed by four chapters in the third person, and a return to the first person in the final chapter. In Chapter 22, when the text shifts to omniscient narration, Mauro explains that only a person of fine moral fibre would appreciate a story in which hasta este momento nada ocurre de eso que la gente llama sucesos dramticos (p. 927). After Feta rejected him, he adds, many events quickly transpired for all of the characters in his memoirs. If he were to continue haciendo partir la narracin de mi persona, he would certainly spend countless hours taking his readers down long and frustrating paths. Instead, he opts to imitar a los novelistas, que no explican cmo se las compusieron para averiguar los ntimos pensamientos y el secreto resorte de las acciones de sus hroes (p. 927). He accepts that these writers belong to la escuela llamada del documento humano but complains that they never provide evidence for or justify their subtle and profound observations (p. 927). After Mauro adopts the persona of the realist writer, he ties up the loose ends of the various subplots in his memoirs. El compaero Sobrado forces his biological father to marry his mother. As a result, the reputation of Rosa, who is sexually involved with the father and hoped to marry him, is ruined. Now that Baltasar Sobrado is no longer a potential husband for Rosa, Benicio Neira worries that the wealthy man will demand repayment of the loans that paid his daughters debts. Then, when he learns that his daughter Argos has been having an affair with the governor, Luis Meja, he confronts the politician and accidentally kills him. His guilt over the governors death and his desperation in the light of Sobrados marriage hasten his own death. Mary Lee Bretz holds that this narrative shifting in Memorias undermines malecultivated, patriarchal realism. She notes that Mauro addresses the reader directly to confess that his life is nonnovelistic, and that he explicitly states that he will begin to narrate omnisciently in traditional realist fashion (1989: 91). Bretz contends that
by focusing on the narrative techniques being employed and by underscoring the arbitrary shift from one type of narration to another, simply to fit the convenience of the narrator and the level of interest of the reader, Memorias destroys the myth of the disinterested observer and, consequently, breaks with the central tenet of realism/ naturalism. (1989: 91)

I argue, however, that Mauros adoption of realist narrative techniques signals his crossover from the dangerous world of femininity, with its suggestion of homosexuality, to

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the stable world of hegemonic bourgeois masculinity. This change in narration also symbolically reinscribes the bachelor into middle-class normative discourse. It is no coincidence that Mauro disappears from his text (to the extent that he no longer narrates his life but the lives of those around him) when he resorts to omniscient narration. Up until this point, the text has focused on the problematic development of Mauros and Fetas gender identities, and the narrators memoirs provide him with a privileged position from which he can narrate the process of masculinization he experiences. Nevertheless, when he crosses over into traditional realism by turning to omniscient narration, the readers attention is directed away from him and towards the other characters reflected in his realist text; the bachelor is lost in the stream of characters that pass before the readers eyes. Mauros disappearance as a first-person narrator from the plot of his memoirs positions him within the masculine discourse that his change in narration introduces. His new writing technique relegates him to the plots sidelines, as though he needs to be contained. He becomes a narrated object, along with the other characters, rather than a speaking subject. Because the characters whose stories are now the focus of the narration have all transgressed middle-class standards of morality, they will be brought back into the fold within the male-dominated and middle-class realist tradition. Baltasar Sobrado marries el compaeros mother, thus restoring her honour, and governor Luis Meja is killed, albeit accidentally. Feta orders that Rosa, whose obsession with trapos helped to bring about her fathers death, work as a seamstress to help ease the family budget. Argos is sent to live with Doa Milagros, a family friend, who will presumably keep a watchful eye over the girl as she studies music and voice. El compaero, a legitimate bourgeois, even uses his given name, Ramn, when he dons his new clothing. The bachelor, now an active participant in this bourgeois world through the narrative shift, is equally in need of reform. In the novels last chapter, a new and improved Mauro returns as the narrator of the memoirs, and he announces that a curious change has taken place in him since he has taken over the rescue of the Neira family:
Conviene advertir que yo ya saboreaba sin reparo los frutos del rbol engaador, y haba desertado tan resueltamente de mis banderas, que llegu a dudar si el Mauro Pareja cauto, precavido y cuerdo de las primeras pginas de estas Memorias, sera el mismo que slo viva para tomar como cosa propia aquellos cuidados ajenos que, segn el proverbio, matan al ... No escribir el poco halageo sustantivo! (p. 958)

He later discloses that his estril existencia era, por fin, til y provechosa para alguno (p. 961). He abandons his private dressing room for Marinedas public streets to cabildear, visitar redacciones de diarios, aprontar dinero (p. 957). Nevertheless, the bachelors full participation as a man in society can only be guaranteed through marriage the final step in the transition to manhood (Tosh 1999: 108). Thus, when Feta accepts his marriage proposal, he relates that he kissed her con arrebato, largamente, sobre los prpados de fina seda que cubren las pupilas verdes (p. 963). Although, as I noted, the colour green insinuates eroticism and a future sexual tie between the couple, Mauro reveals to the curious reader: Fue la nica libertad que me tom (te lo juro) hasta que pude llamarme esposo de Feta Neira (p. 963). Mauros revealing comment about his sex life is a final declaration of his position of privilege in the heterosexual social hierarchy. He has converted his life of celibacy into a proper marriage that only allows for heterosexual desire. In light of Bieders observation that marriage in Pardo Bazns novels always ends in a permanent imbalance with

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regard to gender roles, this ending would seem to be the exception (1989: 48990). Mauro and Feta together resolve the familys financial crisis, and they enter marriage as equals. Yet Memorias de un soltern, in response to the ambiguous ending of Tristana, ends on a playful note of indeterminacy as well. When Mauro describes how he kissed Fetas prpados de fina seda, he recasts himself, if only momentarily, in the role of the effeminate bachelor who views the world through sartorial eyes, suggesting that, maybe, the private dressing room is where he belongs. Throughout her career, Pardo Bazn frequently denounced the notion that women were inherently and naturally inferior to men. Medical discourse, in part, helped to substantiate this inequality and resultant separation of spheres. Nineteenth-century physicians argued that nature determined a persons social role and thus helped to justify the ideology of gender that the middle class espoused. According to Labanyi, Pardo Bazn wrestles with theories of the natural role of women in Los pazos de Ulloa and its sequel, La madre naturaleza. In both novels, the city-versus-country dichotomy is the backdrop against which she elaborates her objection to contemporary discourses conflating nature and women. In the first novel, the marriage of rural Pedro and city-raised Nucha (an inversion of the male/civilization and female/nature opposition) equates the former with a savage that Nucha must tame (2000: 339). Not surprisingly, she fails. CharnonDeutsch observes that, in this novel, the male characters are located in and comfortable with nature while Nucha is overwhelmed by it (1994: 8283). In the second novel, Pardo Bazn returns to the traditional paradigm of the male civilizer, Gabriel, and the female who must be civilized, Manuela. Here, however, the marriage between uncle and niece never occurs, because Manuela refuses to accept the role her uncle designs for her (Labanyi 2000: 339). In Memorias de un soltern, Pardo Bazn takes on the double task of showing that gender is socially constructed and regulated for both women and men in order to support her argument for more equality between the sexes. Although she does not position her argument within the city-versus-country model, the tensions between the heterosexuality suggested in Feta and Mauros marriage and homoeroticism underpin the process of acclimatization to bourgeois gender standards. Underlying Sedgwicks theory of homosexual panic is the idea that while heterosexual masculinity is the norm, it is not a given, and that males must necessarily pass through a stage of conflicting desire as they fashion their gender identities. Thus when Mauro struggles with opposing sexual urges he engages in a process through which he constructs his own identity, one that culminates in his acceptance of middle-class standards of masculinity. Memorias de un soltern, then, offers not so much a radical solution to the problems surrounding gender as a recognition of socially constructed roles for men and women. In other words, Mauros initiation into middle-class manhood reveals that, although social roles can be revised because they are not natural, gender cannot be separated from bourgeois ideology and, by extension, social class. The contradictions in Pardo Bazns thinking are apparent when gender and class cross in the novel. While she rejected gender categories based on nature, she did not object to natural class distinctions based on birth. Labanyi observes that in Los pazos and La madre naturaleza Pedro and Gabriel opt for endogamy (marriage to a first cousin and niece respectively) as a civilizing measure designed to combat the invasion of the lower classes (Sabel and Perucho). She adds that the attempt to keep it in the family fails, for social mobility, which Pardo Bazn clearly deplores, has to be recognized as the price for modernity (2000: 340). The fall of the house of Ulloa, Labanyi continues, reflects

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the change from an economic system based on inherent value (represented by the aristocratic equation of worth with birth) to one based on nominal values (where status derives from money and what it can buy) (2000: 346). In Memorias de un soltern, Pardo Bazn still harbours her belief in natural class distinctions as the novel articulates same-sex and heterosexual desire along class lines. Mauros marriage to Feta, even if initially founded on an attraction to her masculine qualities, is sanctioned because it occurs within class boundaries. Likewise, accepting the homoerotic association with el compaero is unacceptable because it implies a cross-class alliance. From the start, class tensions characterize and frame the meeting between Mauro and the socialist. When Mauro enters the working-class caf, he conveys that he feels una repugnancia profunda and he experiences uno de los momentos en que mejor he sentido la diferencia entre las clases sociales (p. 895). As the two men meet, Mauro notes that when he extends a handshake to his rival, the latter steps back. He then surmises: Acaso estrechaba por primera vez la diestra de un burgus; acaso recelaba que yo me burlase de l tratndole con demasiada cortesa (p. 898). When their meeting ends, el compaero stands up and shows his hands, exclaiming: Estas me valdrn [...]. Amigos no podemos ser, porque esto y sacudi su blusa lo impide (p. 940). This mutual rejection suggests the impossibility of any alliance between middle-class Mauro and his working-class rival. Same-sex desire and desire among members of different social classes is viewed with suspicion in this novel. Pardo Bazn, however, is unable to deny the changing fabric of the Spanish class system and acknowledges a measure of social mobility. Labanyi argues that she accepts limited class mobility with a hint of nostalgia for a world in which birth or intrinsic value, and not imitation, determine a persons social status (2000: 354). While social mobility is suspect in Memorias de un soltern, it is not prohibited, as the middle class assumes the leading position in the class hierarchy. Although el compaero is ultimately admitted into the world of the bourgeoisie, he is out of place among middle-class trappings. Mauro recounts that, after Baltasar Sobrado marries the socialists mother, el compaero abandons his radical beliefs. He purchases a bourgeois mans wardrobe, but the poor-fitting suit that still shows its folds marks him as an outsider and imitator. El compaero exemplifies the nineteenth-century phenomenon of lo cursi, which Valis equates with the effort of the lower middle class to appear of a higher social rank through pretentious and ostentatious imitations and displays (2002: 11). His choice of the name Ramn rather than el compaero seems to imply his entry into the world of bourgeois individualism in preference to one of collectivism. Mauro observes that the former socialist
fue la demostracin ms clara de que [...] slo la accin individual conduce a resultados prcticos. Sin meetings, sin conjuras ni auxilio de nadie, el compaero se haba valido a s propio. (p. 938)

The individualism he exhibits, however, is useless after he crosses class lines. He stands alone outside, facing the casino, rather than entering the all-male bourgeois space, when the narrator imagines him saying Me veis? Ayer no era de los vuestros ... Ya lo soy, porque he querido serlo ... Desdeadme ahora (p. 938). While he has ascended the social ladder, his marginalized position in relation to the casino, and his use of vuestros rather than nuestros implies that he will never be able to shed his past identity. Indeed, el compaero is now unable to define himself as he stands on the class divide, which was the lot of the social climber in Spain in the nineteenth century (Valis 2002: 22).

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The novel also pits opposing models of masculinity against each other. Both Mauro Pareja and Ramn Sobrado are on a mission to rescue a family from misery; Mauro hopes to save the Neira family while el compaero strives to guarantee his and his mothers future. Although Ramn is initially the quintessential man virile, assertive, hard working he is corrupted by money and loses many of the defining markers of working-class manliness. When he dons bourgeois clothing, the novel implicitly suggests, the workers model of masculinity is out of line with bourgeois values. Among the middle classes, virility in males is sacrificed to a more effeminate character, while femininity in women is coupled with masculine qualities, thus creating more equality between men and women. In this way, Pardo Bazn proposes a new gender model for the bourgeoisie that evens out many of the inequalities based on gender. Mauro Pareja, and not Ramn Sobrado, fits the mould for the new bourgeois man that Pardo Bazn presents in this novel. As indicated earlier, Memorias de un soltern ends on a note of indeterminacy, even as it seems to point to the middle class as the leader of a modernization project that calls for revised gender roles. Valis notes that this sense of indeterminacy was the result of blurred social distinctions and the fear Spaniards felt that they could fall to a lower social rank (from aristocracy to middle class, from middle class to lower middle class) (2002: 11, 22). Memorias de un soltern appears to reaffirm clear social divisions by isolating the working-class representative (along with the model of masculinity associated with the lower classes) and uniting members of the middle class. Nonetheless, Mauros final reference to Fetas silk eyelids suggests that he will always see the world through sartorial eyes; he will forever maintain his ties to his sexually ambiguous past. At the same time, el compaero challenges the middle class to despise him now that he has joined their ranks. He will never be inside the bourgeois casino, but his presence on the sidelines will remain a threat. Pardo Bazn supported the role of the middle class in moving the nation forward, as the marriage between Feta and Mauro indicates. She countered the pessimism with which Galds viewed marriage in Tristana. Whereas Tristana eventually accepts middleclass standards for women when she marries, Memorias de un soltern proposes a revision of gender roles for women and men as a precondition for further national progress. Nevertheless, the indeterminacy of the novels ending suggests that Pardo Bazn viewed the possibility for change with caution, a realistic reaction given the social acceptance of gender and class roles in the late nineteenth century in Spain.

WORKS CITED
Bauer, Beth Wietelmann, 1994. Narrative Cross-Dressing: Emilia Pardo Bazn in Memorias de un soltern, Hispania, 77: 2330. Bayo y Segurola, Ciro, 1900. Higiene sexual del soltero (Madrid: Rodrguez Serra). Bieder, Maryellen, 1989. Engendering Strategies of Authority: Emilia Pardo Bazn and the Novel, in Cultural and Historical Grounding for Hispanic and Luso-Brazilian Feminist Literary Criticism, ed. Hernn Vidal, Literature and Human Rights, 4 (Minneapolis: Institute for the Study of Ideologies and Literature), pp. 47395. Bravo-Villasante, Carmen, ed., 1975. Cartas a Benito Prez Galds (Madrid: Turner). Bretz, Mary Lee, 1989. Text and Intertext in Emilia Pardo Bazns Memorias de un soltern, Symposium: A Quarterly Journal in Modern Literatures, 43: 8394. Chamberlin, Vernon, 1968. Symbolic Green: A Time-Honored Characterizing Device in Spanish Literature, Hispania, 51: 2937.

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Charnon-Deutsch, Lou, 1994. Bearing Motherhood: Issues of Maternity in Los pazos de Ulloa, in New Hispanisms: Literature, Culture, Theory, ed. Mark I. Millington & Paul Julian Smith (Ottawa: Dovehouse), pp. 6995. , 2000. Fictions of the Feminine in the Nineteenth-Century Spanish Press (University Park, PA: The Pennsylvania State UP). Cohen, William A., 1996. Sex Scandal: The Private Parts of Victorian Fiction (Durham, NC: Duke UP). Dellamora, Richard, 1988. Representation and Homophobia in The Picture of Dorian Gray, The Victorian Newsletter, 73: 2831. Derrick, Scott S., 1997. Monumental Anxieties: Homoerotic Desire and Feminine Influence in 19th-Century US Literature (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers UP). Duberman, Martin, Martha Vicinus, & George Chauncey, Jr, ed., 1990. Hidden from History: Reclaiming the Gay and Lesbian Past (New York: Penguin). Foucault, Michel, 1990. The History of Sexuality, trans. Robert Hurley (New York: Random House; French original, 1976). Labanyi, Jo, 2000. Problematizing the Natural: Pardo Bazns Los pazos de Ulloa (1886) and La madre naturaleza (1887), in her Gender and Modernization in the Spanish Realist Novel (Oxford: OUP), pp. 33784. Ordez, Elizabeth, 1990. Revising Realism: Pardo Bazns Memorias de un soltern in Light of Galdss Tristana and John Stuart Mill, in In the Feminine Mode: Essays on Hispanic Women Writers, ed. Nol Valis & Carol Maier (Lewisburg, PA: Bucknell UP), pp. 14663. Padgug, Robert, 1990. Sexual Matters: Rethinking Sexuality in History, in Duberman,Vicinus, & Chauncey 1990, pp. 5464. Pardo Bazn, Emilia, 1976. La mujer espaola y otros artculos feministas, ed. Leda Schiavo (Madrid: Editora Nacional). , 1999. Memorias de un soltern, in her Obras Completas, 3 vols, ed. Daro Villanueva & Jos Manuel Gonzlez Herrn (Madrid: Fundacin Jos Antonio de Castro), iii, pp. 777963. Pujol, Salvador Anton, 1999. Sexual Ambiguity in the Late Nineteenth-Century Spanish Novel (unpublished doctoral thesis, University of Kansas). Ro Conde, Elisa, 1988. Breve estudio comparativo: Amparo y Tristana, mujeres del siglo xix, Letras de Deusto, 18: 21929. Saslow, James M., 1990. Homosexuality in the Renaissance: Behavior, Identity, and Artistic Expression, in Duberman, Vicinus, & Chauncey 1990: 90105. Sedgwick, Eve Kofosky, 1986. The Beast in the Closet: James and the Writing of Homosexual Panic, in Sex, Politics, and Science in the Nineteenth-Century Novel, ed. Ruth Bernard Yeazell (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP), pp. 14886. Silverman, Kaja, 1992. Male Subjectivity at the Margins (New York: Routledge). Tolliver, Joyce, 1998. Cigar Smoke and Violet Water: Gendered Discourse in the Stories of Emilia Pardo Bazn (Lewisburg, PA: Bucknell UP). Tosh, John, 1999. A Mans Place: Masculinity and the Middle-Class Home in Victorian England (New Haven: Yale UP). , 2004. Hegemonic Masculinity and the History of Gender, in Masculinities in Politics and War, ed. Stefan Dudink, Karen Hagemann, & John Tosh (Manchester: Manchester UP), pp. 4160. Valis, Nol, 2002. The Culture of Cursilera: Bad Taste, Kitsch, and Class in Modern Spain (Durham, NC: Duke UP).

En ms de una ocasin Emilia Pardo Bazn articul su rechazo de los papeles de gnero que se consideraban inherentes para los hombres y mujeres de finales del siglo XIX. A la vez, crea en una estructura social basada en el nacimiento y el valor intrnseco de una persona. En su novela Memorias de un soltern, escrita en 1896, revela sus ideas a travs de su enfoque en el protagonista de gnero ambiguo, el soltero Mauro Pareja, y sus esfuerzos por definirse segn las normas heterosexuales y burguesas de su poca. Su xito y su casamiento con Feta Neira, un

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ejemplo de la nueva mujer, subrayan la postura privilegiada de la clase media mientras que sitan la responsabilidad por el progreso nacional en manos de esta clase. La novela tambin aboga por ms igualdad entre los sexos, puesto que los recin casados asumen juntos el manejo de la casa. La interseccin de clase y gnero sexual en esta novela permite que Pardo Bazn examine el futuro de su nacin, que dependa de una revisin de los papeles de gnero como elementos necesarios en la modernizacin de las estructuras sociales en la Espaa de finales del siglo diecinueve.