From the Absent Mother to the Oppressive Mother to the New Mother in Lucía Etxebarria's Un milagro en equilibrio

Abstract

This article examines the transformation of maternal and paternal images that occurs in Lucía Etxebarria's 2004 novel Un milagro en equilibrio. Sandra Schumm argues that the novel engages and transforms the postwar archetype of the “absent mother.” Using Schumm's study as a springboard, my article takes this argument further by showing how Etxebarria rewrites a second maternal archetype, the “oppressive mother,” a figure that symbolizes patriarchal values and the Francoist regime in many postwar narratives by women. At first, protagonist Eva Agulló characterizes her mother, Eva Benayas, as one of these oppressive mothers, a characterization that Etxebarria has also employed in her two most famous novels to date, Amor curiosidad, prozac y dudas and Beatriz y los cuerpos celestes. Un milagro en equilibrio marks a change in Etxebarria's treatment of mothers because, as the novel progresses, Agulló questions and then complicates this portrayal. The Benayas that emerges is a complex woman influenced by personal, familial, and national conflicts. Conversely, Agulló's father comes to assume more culpability for family abuse and dysfunction as Agulló associates him with Francoism. This reassessment of maternal and paternal roles demonstrates Etxebarria's own evolution in maternal representations as it dialogues with and recreates previous works such as Ana María Moix's 1969 novel Julia and Ana María Matute's 1959 Primera memoria and 1969 La trampa—three foundational novels that also employ tyrannical maternal figures. In rejecting the oppressive mother role she had assigned to her mother, Agulló rewrites a long history of maternal figures associated with the Francoist regime in many postwar narratives by women.

Keywords:

• Lucía Etxebarria
• motherhood
• oppressive mother
• postwar narrative

Notes

1. Carmen Martín Gaite writes about the chicas raras in her collection of essays Desde la ventana.

2. Agulló and her mother are both named Eva, making references about them suggestive but also confusing. I will refer to Agulló's mother exclusively by her surname, Benayas, and refer to Agulló as Eva only when there is little potential for confusing them. Catherine Bourland Ross and Sandra Schumm have commented extensively on the Biblical implications of Eva Agulló's name (148–49; 90–92).

3. See Luís Otero's satirical but informative work about Francoist indoctrination of gender.

4. This pronatalist campaign does not seem to be only in Agulló's imagination. Jacqueline Cruz and Barbara Zecchi argue that due to declining demographics, Spain is undergoing a pronatalist campaign.

5. See Ana Corbalán's article for a dissenting opinion. Corbalán argues that Un milagro en equilibrio partially fails in its attempt to provide a feminist vindication of motherhood.

6. Recently deceased historian Gerda Lerner explains, “Women are and always have been at least half of mankind and most of the time have been the majority of mankind. […] But men have defined their experience as history and have left women out. At this time, as during earlier periods of feminist activity, women are urged to fit into the empty spaces, assuming their traditional marginal, ‘sub-group’ status. But the truth is that history, as written and perceived up to now, is the history of a minority, who may well turn out to be the ‘subgroup.’” (11–12).

7. Bermúdez recognized first the homage to Martín Gaite (96).

8. See, for example, Marie-Linda Ortega, Patrick Gallagher, and Christopher Soufas for political interpretations of these works. A notable exception of nationalist mothers is Eulalia's oblique recollection of her mother helping former Republican soldiers in the woods near their house in Retahílas. The family, however, is Nationalist.

9. See, for example, Telo, Molinero, Nash, and Otero.

10. After Agulló's successful complication of her mother's identity, the representation of her father may seem unjust, a claim that Agulló recognizes (411). To insist on a “rhetoric of balance,” as in transitional political discourse that emphasizes the atrocities committed by both sides of the war, however, would be to “hide the fact that one side has not yet had access to redress”—in this case, Eva Benayas (Ferán 30).

11. Almudena Grandes's Malena es un nombre de tango (1994) has a similar ending in which Malena rejects her maternal Francoist family and begins a relationship with an undocumented Bulgarian immigrant. The revolutionary potential of this union is somewhat mitigated, however, when Malena makes him her employee and instead begins a relationship with a successful Spanish professional.