Petra, or the false jewel of the house: the anachronistic aristocratic economy of sex and the angel’s disorganization of the bourgeois house in La Regenta (1884-5) by Clarín

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Amanda Eaton McMenamin

Abstract

This essay maintains that the plot of La Regenta centers on the broken home of the Quintanar, which revolves around the servant Petra. As a mediator between Victor and Ana, the focal marital union, Petra is linguistically and semantically the “rock” that cracks apart the home. She is also the facilitator for the principal rivalry that threatens the home: that of Fermín and Álvaro. In this sense, Petra is located at the epicenter of the text, whose structure forms – symbolically – a diamond shape radiating from her central location. However, and more profoundly, this article also proposes that it should not be the servant who is considered the “jewel” of the home, but rather the bourgeois angel of the house; in this, Clarín critiques the social disorder of Vetusta – seen in the anachronistic, aristocratic obsession with sexual economy and its resulting gender trouble and disorder in the home. 

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Literatura

How to Cite

Petra, or the false jewel of the house: the anachronistic aristocratic economy of sex and the angel’s disorganization of the bourgeois house in La Regenta (1884-5) by Clarín. (2016). VERBEIA. Revista De Estudios Filológicos. Journal of English and Spanish Studies, 2(1), 143-161. https://doi.org/10.57087/Verbeia.2016.4189