Halma A Novel

Annotation Galdós' early writings were inspired by the French writer Emile Zola, a practitioner of the literary school of naturalism. This interest then turned to a type of spiritual naturalism under the influence of Russian writers, including Tolstoy, Dostoevsky and Turgenev, whom he called his 'great teacher.' One of his most important works during this period was 'Halma', the story of an aristocratic lady who decides to use her inheritance to found an idyllic Christian society for the sick and the needy. This book examines Galdós' influential novel.

Galdós’s early writings were inspired by the French writer Émile Zola, a practitioner of the literary school of Naturalism. This interest then turned to a type of spiritual naturalism under the influence of Russian writers, including Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, and Turgenev, whom he called his “great teacher.” One of his most important works during this period was the novel, Nazarín, a kind of retelling of the life of Christ, in which the main character, a disgraced priest, wanders about the countryside with two female companions, attempting to follow the teachings of the Bible to the letter. He is taken for either a saint or a mad man, and at the end is shut up in an institution. The publication of Nazarín was followed by its sequel, Halma, only six months later. In this novel, the protagonist, an aristocratic lady named Halma, after suffering great hardships, decides to use her inheritance to found an idyllic Christian society, harboring the needy and the sick. Two of its citizens will be the priest, Nazarín, and one of his two women followers; another will be Halma’s ne’er-do-well male cousin, Urrea. Her family and their friends express admiration for her high ideals, but they also believe she may be just as mad as the priest, and work to defeat her. A fortunate denouement comes only after the unforeseen intervention of the supposedly “mad” priest. Halma also has many points of contact with the motion picture Viridiana, by Spain’s’ great director, Luis Buñuel. In this film, a religious novice, Viridiana, attempts to turn a farm into a shelter for needy beggars. During her absence, however, the beggars wreck the house in a drunken orgy. While not sharing Buñuel’s artistic vision, Galdós, nevertheless, expresses his own ideas with great imagination.

Halma is a stirring and moving novel of society in the Madrid of the later 19th century. From the periphery of the provincial world and nestled into the famous city, a young lady arrives, enamoured of the glitter and the glamour. Opening her eyes to these experiences leads to unforeseen tragedy, and as she grows and matures it becomes increasingly clear that there is no easy way of annulling past mistakes. Ultimately, the novel is about the lurking melancholy and stress of the city, the vanity and heedlessness of the privileged, and the awe-inspiring truth that the sad and bitter truth of life is that there is no hope. This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the "public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.

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This book explores how notions of deviancy and social control are dramatized in the novels of the late nineteenth-century Spanish realist author Benito Pérez Galdós. Galdós’s treatment of prostitutes, alcoholics, beggars and vagrants is studied within the context of the socio-cultural and medical debates circulating during the period. Drawing on Foucault’s very specific conceptualization of the idea of control through discourses, the book analyzes how Galdós’s novels interacted with contemporary debates on poverty and deviancy – notably, discourses on hygiene, domesticity and philanthropy. It is proposed that Galdós’s view of marginal social groups was much more open-minded, shrewd and liberal than the often inflexible pronouncements made by contemporary professional voices.

The contradictory nature of the work of Benito Pérez Galdós, Spain's greatest modern novelist, is brought to the fore in Catherine Jagoe's innovative and rigorous study. Revising commonly held views of his feminism, she explores the relation of Galdós's novels to the "woman question" in Spain, arguing that after 1892 the muted feminist discourse of his early work largely disappears. While his later novels have been interpreted as celebrations of the emancipated new woman, Jagoe contends that they actually reinforce the conservative, bourgeois model of frugal, virtuous womanhood—the angel of the house. Using primary sources such as periodicals, medical texts, and conduct literature, Jagoe's examination of the evolution of feminism makes Ambiguous Angels valuable to anyone interested in gender, culture, and narrative in nineteenth-century Europe.