Graduation Year

Spring 2013

Document Type

Campus Only Senior Thesis

Degree Name

Bachelor of Arts

Department

Hispanic Studies

Reader 1

Jennifer Wood

Reader 2

Cesar Lopez

Reader 3

Carolina Sitnisky-Cole

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Rights Information

© 2013 Elizabeth C. McGinnis

Abstract

This thesis discusses the female identity in the Franco era. It spans the years leading up to the formation of the Second Republic through the years immediately following Franco’s death. Using Carmen Martin Gaite’s novels Entre Visillos and El Cuarto de Atrás and Josefina Aldecoa’s trilogy Historia de una Maestra, Mujeres de Negro, and La Fuerza del Destino, I show how women were limited by society’s narrow idea of happiness for females in this time period. The ideals of the patriarchal order were so ingrained in the Spanish people that women themselves became promoters of the sexist ideology that was a part of Franco’s regime. Women who had goals for themselves in addition to or other than marrying and having children were viewed as strange. This thesis points out that perhaps those women were not so strange after all, and highlights the need for authentic communication in order for women to redefine themselves and their goals. Martin Gaite and Aldecoa not only use their novels to give women in this time period a voice, but also to point to the importance of remembering these years and all of their trauma as they were for individuals.

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