Characteristics of naturalism in Los Pazos de Ulloa

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We return in the lesson that begins here in a PROFESSOR to one of the most important books of Spanish literature. Next, we are going to investigate the characteristics of naturalism in The Pazos de Ulloa, the best known work of the popular Galician writer Emilia Pardo Bazán. However, it would be unfair to say that this novel draws solely from the sources of naturalism.

The author, greatly influenced by many of the literary currents of her time, the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, She also shows a great ability for realism, both movements closely related, which she is observed persistently in this book. It is not strange, given the cultural restlessness of Pardo Bazán, who was a writer and journalist of her time, capable of "drawing" with words the reality of his native Galicia and the world in general with his accurate and refined pen.

Index

1. Introduction to Los Pazos de Ulloa
2. Introduction to naturalism
3. Naturalism in Los Pazos de Ulloa

Before going fully into commenting on the characteristics of naturalism in The Pazos de Ulloa, it is worth making a small paragraph to briefly know the work that concerns us.

The Pazos de Ulloa It is a book where it is narrated in five parts and 30 chapters the misfortune of a chaplain, Julián Álvarez, sent to manage the house of the Marqués de Ulloa, who lives with Perucho, son and grandson of Sabel and Primitivo, the servants. As a result of the discoveries of Julián, who observes that the child is the illegitimate son of the Marquis, the chaplain invites the aristocrat to leave to find a marriage to match him.

In Santiago, the Marquis marries Nucha, a woman socially acceptable to him. However, after some happiness, the return to the Pazos and the back in contact with the natural and rustic They will once again wreak havoc on the nobleman. The woman becomes pregnant and discovers that Perucho is the son of the Marquis. Primitivo, the servant, ends up being assassinated, and Julián, the chaplain, accused of his death.

In this other lesson we offer you a brief summary of The pazos de Ulloa so you can get more into this essential novel.

Now that we briefly know the work, it is also important to know what this literary, social and cultural movement consists of. Naturalism originated as a derivation of realism, it can be considered as an extreme form of this. That is, it is a literary trend that establishes the human being as someone controlled by the ups and downs of destiny.

Both realist literature and naturalism are a form in themselves of understand the human being. For this reason, the authors who originated these movements, such as Emile Zola or the Goncourt brothers, all of them French, establish as the main basis of their work a human being who is a victim of his environment.

Thus, those who are born and develop in marginal environments, act in a sordid and atrocious way, generally hostile, with no possibility of improvement; in contrast to other more refined and educated, usually associated with urban and culturally more advanced environments.

In Spain, it should be noted that the movement was not overly well received, given that it had a certain anti-clerical degree, although there were authors who cultivated it, such as Leopoldo Alas “Clarín”, Benito Pérez Galdós or, to a greater extent, Emilia Pardo Bazán.

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Now that we know a little better the work and the literary movement that influenced it, we discover certain characteristics of naturalism in The Pazos de Ulloa that are reflected very clearly:

• Characters are victims of their environment. Thus, the marquis's servants, raised in a very depressed rural area of ​​Galicia, are degraded and brutal, at the level of the village environment. The nobleman has been imbued with this environment, who regains his perspective when he travels to Santiago, where he meets the refined Nucha, his future wife. A victim of rural brutality, the chaplain, Julián, also ends up being much more refined when he leaves the seminary.
• We also find beings controlled by their instincts and passions, as established by naturalism, which is largely based on theories of determinism. Thus, the economic and social environment is decisive in the work for the course of events and the evolution of the characters.
• They look themselves characters delivered to the conditions and their destiny, with little reaction capacity, and practically no possibility of free choice. That is, the environment controls everything.
• The more traditional aesthetic principles. In other words, there is no comparison between the beautiful and the ugly, and it is far from what is considered aristocratic literature. It's even a reaction to romanticism, where everything was more tragic, but in an almost supernatural sense.
• There is great variety of characters, and all of them obey primary impulses without being conscious or capable of amending their way.
• The language is very descriptive, thorough, with a certain inclination towards popular speech according to the areas.

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