Spectral Spain
Haunted Houses, Silent Spaces and Traumatic Memories in Post-Franco Gothic Fiction
9781837721269
Distributed for University of Wales Press
Spectral Spain
Haunted Houses, Silent Spaces and Traumatic Memories in Post-Franco Gothic Fiction
An analysis of texts representing multiple regional cultures within Spain while examining the Gothic haunting motif in post-Franco Spanish literature.
Employing a theoretical framework in memory and trauma studies and placing emphasis on the inclusion of women’s voices that are frequently left out of Spanish Gothic scholarship, Spectral Spain is the first study to provide an in-depth study of spectrality and haunting in the Gothic literature of contemporary Spain. Through close readings of eleven main texts, Dr. Heidi Backes examines haunting as the perfect motif for Spanish authors to portray the tension between modernity and the imposition of a nationalized tradition throughout the twentieth century—noting not just the trauma of the civil war and the resulting dictatorship of Franco, but also the continuing and widespread disenchantment during and after the transition. It is a study of multiple manifestations of individual and collective trauma in texts written after the transition, which will assist readers’ understanding of the relationships between Gothic fear, trauma, and spectrality.
Employing a theoretical framework in memory and trauma studies and placing emphasis on the inclusion of women’s voices that are frequently left out of Spanish Gothic scholarship, Spectral Spain is the first study to provide an in-depth study of spectrality and haunting in the Gothic literature of contemporary Spain. Through close readings of eleven main texts, Dr. Heidi Backes examines haunting as the perfect motif for Spanish authors to portray the tension between modernity and the imposition of a nationalized tradition throughout the twentieth century—noting not just the trauma of the civil war and the resulting dictatorship of Franco, but also the continuing and widespread disenchantment during and after the transition. It is a study of multiple manifestations of individual and collective trauma in texts written after the transition, which will assist readers’ understanding of the relationships between Gothic fear, trauma, and spectrality.
272 pages | 5.43 x 8.5 | © 2024
History: European History
Literature and Literary Criticism: General Criticism and Critical Theory
Table of Contents
Series Editors’ Foreword
Acknowledgements
Introduction: Spectral Spain
Part One: Haunted Houses. Introduction.
1 A Ghost in the Looking Glass: Reflections on Women’s Autonomy and Catalan Independence in Mercè Rodoreda’s A Broken Mirror
2 Shifting Borders: Race, Class and the Phantasmagoric Other in Bene by Adelaida García Morales
3 A (Haunted) Room of One’s Own: The Evolution of Gender Roles and Female Sexuality in Adelaida García Morales’s Aunt Águeda and Elisa’s Secret
4 War at Home: The Haunted House as Battlefield in Ana María Matute’s Family Demons
Part Two: Silent Spaces. Introduction.
5 The Ghost Howls at Night: Silence, Death and the Politics of Fear in Julio Llamazares’s Wolf Moon
6 Life in a Ghost Town: Gothic Landscapes, Rural Memory and the Silence of Loss in Julio Llamazares’s The Yellow Rain
7 Unspeakable Truths: Silence, Spectrality and the Artifacts of Memory in Cristina Fernández Cubas’s The Swing
Part Three: Traumatic Memories. Introduction.
8 Violent Childhood: Dark Imagination and the Trauma of Progress in Espido Freire’s Irlanda
9 The End of Innocence: Childhood Fantasy and Monstrous Reality in Ana María Matute’s Uninhabited Paradise
10 As the Ghost Speaks: Bearing Witness to Fascist Horror in Carlos Ruiz Zafón’s The Prisoner of Heaven
Conclusion
Notes
Bibliography
Acknowledgements
Introduction: Spectral Spain
Part One: Haunted Houses. Introduction.
1 A Ghost in the Looking Glass: Reflections on Women’s Autonomy and Catalan Independence in Mercè Rodoreda’s A Broken Mirror
2 Shifting Borders: Race, Class and the Phantasmagoric Other in Bene by Adelaida García Morales
3 A (Haunted) Room of One’s Own: The Evolution of Gender Roles and Female Sexuality in Adelaida García Morales’s Aunt Águeda and Elisa’s Secret
4 War at Home: The Haunted House as Battlefield in Ana María Matute’s Family Demons
Part Two: Silent Spaces. Introduction.
5 The Ghost Howls at Night: Silence, Death and the Politics of Fear in Julio Llamazares’s Wolf Moon
6 Life in a Ghost Town: Gothic Landscapes, Rural Memory and the Silence of Loss in Julio Llamazares’s The Yellow Rain
7 Unspeakable Truths: Silence, Spectrality and the Artifacts of Memory in Cristina Fernández Cubas’s The Swing
Part Three: Traumatic Memories. Introduction.
8 Violent Childhood: Dark Imagination and the Trauma of Progress in Espido Freire’s Irlanda
9 The End of Innocence: Childhood Fantasy and Monstrous Reality in Ana María Matute’s Uninhabited Paradise
10 As the Ghost Speaks: Bearing Witness to Fascist Horror in Carlos Ruiz Zafón’s The Prisoner of Heaven
Conclusion
Notes
Bibliography