L— x"- fi-‘y?,§* Ir: a" g A W 'Il «FL-I11 0‘ Qt: Frrv'fl:_g:qxfl
‘7 :3 L-r““'~‘.-‘% "9" p174 ‘ a ’ w ”vi“: \ 5"" 3.14:3;er “‘3” 7
..u a!» :a z.. ~.. \. ...... L Vang» \: {53.2.545— ‘91—'61'

Fmrtatim fez-E firm Segree 2:? PL. Q
Mfifiifikfl SYA'EE QMWERSHV
iRMES WWW GUME
3.977

 

ll3l "lllllzlllfllllllllllllllslll"”3115."ng

V---.p~.". a.

This is to certify that the

thesis entitled
"The Creative Man in the Novels of Unamuno"
presented by
James Dayton Gunn

has been accepted towards fulfillment
of the requirements for

DOCtOI‘ degree in ._.Philosophy

 

Helene Tzitsikas

 

Major professor

M 2,1
Date ayT 977

 

0-7 639

LIBRARY

Michigan State
University

 

ABSTRACT
THE CREATIVE MAN IN THE NOVELS OF UNAMUNO

By

James Dayton Gunn

Creative men, that is, men possessed of a Creative
Will, are recurrent figures in the fiction of Miguel de Unamuno
and they share certain interesting traits that set them apart
from the majority of fictional characters. This study was un-
dertaken to demonstrate how Creative Will functions in Unamuno's
novels, to trace its trajectory, and to show that it is a major
feature uniting all his novels into one thematic whole.

Unamuno's philosophy as revealed in his novels is based
upon a dualistic view of existence, upon the view of life as a
continuum of growth toward ever greater Self-awareness or con-
sciousness. Though it may take divers forms this growth is
ultimately motivated by the "tragic sense," the anguish and
dread of death which is the symbol of man's impotence and fi—
niteness. The vital desire of all men who are conscious of
their being is to be more, to be eternal and infinite; they
strive toward Total Being, embodied in the idea of God. Move-
ment in the direction of this positive pole is creative and
involves continuous struggle and the continuous absorption of
"otherness" and enlargement of being. Whereas the negative

pole of this continuum tends toward conservation and reduction

Gunn

of consiousness, the positive tends toward perpetuation and
increase.

This negative-positive polarity corresponds, in Unamu-
no's world view, to the two basic types of men: those in whom
inert material forces predominate and those, the heroes or
creative men, in whom dynamic spirit predominates--who are
characterized by possession of "a furious hunger to be, an ap-
petite for divinity." Man has the choice of resigning himself
to being a slave to external forces or he may rebel by exerting
his Will-~by willing to be or willing not to be-—by becoming
creatively involved in his own destiny. The Self-conscious or
"authentic" men and women struggle to be "creators" (masters)
and rebel against being "creatures" (slaves) because in Unamu-
no's ontology man is a being who can "make" himself in his
gpgas and thus become the creator and the creation of himself.

The key to all the volitive heroes and heroines of
Unamuno's novels is his affirmation that the most intimate,
creative and real thing in a man is what he wills to be, and
since Will is synonymous with appetite for Unamuno the Will-
to—Be means the Will-to-Be-More, to increase and become greater
internally by enlargement of consciousness and externally by
means of the struggle to push back the limits of space and time.

Unamuno's creative heroes and heroines have focused
all their being and energy on a single facet of their personal-
ity and have thereby achieved not only a sharply defined image
of themselves that they can project upon the world but also a
concentration and intensification of energy which is the source

of their strength. Once this has been accomplished these

Gunn

individuals are ready to become subject rather than object and
to act upon the world rather than allow it to act upon them;
and they do act upon it, reshaping and creating an environment
amenable to their intimate needs over which they have full con-
trol, and imprinting their unique being upon the world.

This study investigates how the Will—to—Be causes these
individuals to create and affirm a "Self," how they extend the
boundaries of that Self by the exercise of influence or power
over others, and how this process of growth tends to be applied
in these novels to an ever-broadening world until it reaches
its culmination in Aunt Tula and Don Manuel who come to encom-
pass and to dominate, respectively, an entire family and an

entire village.

THE CREATIVE MAN IN THE NOVELS OF UNAMUNO

By

James Dayton Gunn

A DISSERTATION
Submitted to
Michigan State University
in partial fulfillment of the requirements
for the degree of
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY

Department of Romance Languages

1977

if)

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to express my appreciation to Dr. Helene
Tzitsikas, Chairman of my Guidance Committee and Director of
my dissertation, for her valuable and diligent assistance in
the preparation of this study; and to my good friend Roger

Ramsey for his help with the style and language.

ii

TABLE OF CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
Chapter
I. CREATIVE WILL AND THE DUALISTIC VIEW OF EXIST—
ENCE IN THE NOVELS OF UNAMUNO . . . . . . . . . 15
II. THE AWAKENING OF AWARENESS AND THE CREATION
OF THE SELF . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
III. THE AFFIRMATION OF THE SELF AND THE MANIPULA-

 

TION OF OTHERS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96

IV. THE CREATION OF THE COMMUNITY IN LA TIA TULA
AND_SAN_MANUELBUENO,MAEE . ..167
CONCLUSION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 215

BI BLI OGRAPI-IY O I O O O I I C I O I O O O O I C O O O O O 222

iii

'—

 

INTRODUCTION

Creative men, that is, men possessed of a Creative Will,
are recurrent figures in the fiction of Miguel de Unamuno (1864-
1936). These individuals share certain interesting traits that
set them apart from the great majority of fictional characters.
They are the manifestations, modified in various ways by Unamu-
no's particular personal philOSOphy, of ideas that were popu—
larized by Friedrich Nietzsche (lBAh-l900) in works such as
Thus Spake Zarathustra and Beyond Good and Evil.1 I refer in

part to the Will to Power, which can be defined as man's incli-

 

nation 39 enlarge and control his sphere g: interactions with
other men, and to the belief that the basic motivation of all
human action is not the pursuit of pleasure, nor mere survival,

but rather the creative alteration pf the environment and 2f

 

the Self,2 It is this alteration of the environment and of the
Self, along with the exercise of influence or power over others,
that characterize Creative Will, and the object of this study

is to investigate the nature of this phenomenon as it appears

in the novels of Unamuno.

Doris King Arjona's excellent study of 1928 entitled
"Lg'Voluntad and Abulia in Contemporary Spanish Ideology" (33-
Egg Hispanique LXXIV, 573-667) introduced an important facet
0f Unamuno's work which, surprisingly, has received scant at-
tention. Though the Will-to-Be is a fundamental concept for

l

C~

.\i_

'v

a.-
. a

him it was not until almost forty years later that it was
treated at length by Judith Spurlock in her doctoral disser—
tation "The Will-to-be as a Theme in the Novels of Unamuno"
(University of Florida, 1966). Her study, however, limits
itself strictly to the important, but brief and inadequate,

comments Unamuno makes on Will in his prologue to Tres nove-

 

las ejemplares; his diligent and detailed descriptions relat-
ing to the nature of Will and being scattered throughout his
non-fictional writings, and concentrated particularly in the
essays Dgl:§entimiento trégigg and Vida de Don Quijote y San-
ghg, are almost entirely ignored. Consequently, Judith Spur-
lock has only just penetrated the surface of this complex and
fascinating idea.

The present study begins where Judith Spurlock's study
leaves off. While on the one hand I have limited the focus to
the creative aspect of Will I have, on the other hand, attempt-
ed to give greater depth to the concept under investigation by
broadening my primary sources to include all Unamuno's avail-
able writings and, before entering into a discussion of the
novels, by constructing a firm foundation upon which an ade-
quate understanding of the concept of Creative Will can be
built. Although I frequently use pertinent references and
Quotes from sources outside Unamuno's own works I have made
an effort not to introduce alien ideas into Unamuno's thought
by basing my conclusions on his most clearly expressed state-
ments on the subject. I have also endeavored to increase the
depth of understanding of this facet of Unamuno by presenting

the probable origins of the interest he showed in the power of

3

Will and by comparing him throughout with like-minded writers

and thinkers with whom he was familiar, such as Hegel, Kierke-
gaard, James, and Nietzsche; and with some of his contemporaries,
such as Freud, Azorin, and Baroja. Furthermore, I have attempted
to demonstrate his profound significance for twentieth-century
man by relating his ontology to an undercurrent of thought that
extends from the ancient Greeks up to modern-day psychoanalysis
and existential psychology. Finally, I show that the creative
struggle unites all Unamuno's novels, from beginning to end,

in a purposeful trajectory that is ever faithful to his basic

thought on Will and being.

In Recuerdos de nifiezy mocedad (1908) Unamuno tells
us his early readings in philOSOphy were limited to the works
Of Donoso Cortes and Balmes, and that it was the latter who
introduced him to some of the major European thinkers: "Por
Balmes me enteré de que habia un Kant, un Descartes, un Hegel.

. . La discusién de Balmes fue lo que empezé a abrirme los
Ojos."3 It was also Balmes who awakened him to an interest in
the German idealists and stimulated him to study them, Hegel
in particular.“ But the single book that may have influenced
him most at an early age was Obermann by Sénancour. In 1911

he wrote:

yo me acordaba de mi Obermann, de mi intimo Obermann,
de este libro formidable, casi finico en la literatura
francesa, que fue el alimento de las profundas nostal-
gias de mi juventud y aun de mi edad madura; de este
Obermann, de aquel desdichado y oscuro Senancour, de
que he hecho casi un breviario. 5

His years as a student in the Facultad de Filosofia y

L;

Letras of the University of Madrid were characterized by fre-
quent readings of modern phiIOSOphers, and the intellectual
atmosphere to which he was exposed was saturated with Krausism
and positivism. The Second Carlist War had recently ended and
Spain was divided politically and culturally between two rival
camps: one promoting European "progressive" ideas and the scien-
tific method, and the other representing the preservation of
the Spanish Catholic and scholastic tradition.

During these years as a student at the University
Unamuno was powerfully influenced by Spencer and Hegel,6 but
he soon lost his admiration for Spencerian scientism and passed
on to the "irrationalism" that will characterize the rest Of
his life.7 On the other hand, he never loses his enthusiasm
for Hegel, whose influence was the most decisive Of all the
philosophers he read during his university years, and signs
Of Hegelian thinking are frequently to be seen in his works:
”me lancé a una carrera vertiginosa a través de la filosofia.
Aprendi aleman en Hegel, en el estupendo Hegel, que ha sido
unO de los pensadores que mas honda huella han dejado en mi.
Hoy mismo creo que el fondo de mi pensamiento es hegeliano."8
Although he rebels against Hegelian idealism in favor Of the
concept of the concrete man of flesh and bone, he retains the
egocentrism that is the psychological basis of Hegel's philo-
SOphic idealism, making it the point of departure of all his
philosophy; and he retains also an "idealistic" conception of
knowledge, such as in his doctrine of consciousness, the aware-
ness of being that is acquired through the discovery of one's

temporal and spacial limits. Hegel's influence can also be

5

seen in his "process philosophy” which views life as a conti—
nuum of growth toward greater and greater self-awareness, with
undifferentiated matter at one end of the continuum and total
consciousness at the other; and in his violent view of human
relations in which one is either a master or a slave.9 And
in respect to the relationship between man and God there are
also some significant similarities. Both Hegel and Unamuno,
for example, equate God with consciousness itself and with
totality of being, and both interpret the Book of Genesis very
much alike-—the Fall representing man's attainment of knowledge
and self-consciousness, the moment when he became like God.
Unamuno appears also to have been influenced by Hegel's belief
that man's realization that he is finite, and that the world
around him is changing and irrational, results in the need to
create a deity as a projection of the permanence and rational-
ity he craves.lo
It is well known that the year 1897 produced a deci-
sive crisis in Unamuno characterized, among other things, by
a criticism of the rationalism and intellectualism that until
then he had maintained. Moreover, his religious needs are
stronger day by day and his reasoning, positivism, and intel-
lectualism do not help him: ”de aqui su aficiOn a los poetas
Icopardi, Carducci, Wordsworth, Antero de Quental; a los hom-
bres de espiritu atormentado y agOnico, como Pascal 0 San
Agustin; a los misticos espafioles o a los teOlogos protestan-
tes.”ll Fortunately, his search for philosophers who would

understand his attitude and share his anxieties was not in

Vain, and he discovered at least two kindred spirits in

Kierkegaard and William James, who are writers that have left
the deepest marks on him.12 Unamuno felt great closeness to
the former in the tragic sense and anguish of religious doubt,
but he took advantage of the religious pragmatism of the latter
in an effort to overcome his doubt. An overt example of this
is his typical statement: "Si mi fe me lleva a crear o aumen-
tar Vida, apara qué queréis mas pruebas de mi fe?13 All
three thinkers, in fact, share common characteristics, not
the least of which is that they place themselves on the side
Of Will and sentiment against the extreme intellectualism of
the rationalists and idealists.lu

The theme of Will, in fact, is of great significance
in the literary production of the Generation of '98, of which
Unamuno was a prominent member. This may be explained as a
result of their dedicated interest in reading the works of
modern European authors, which brought them into intimate con-
tact with the great preachers of the Will—-Schopenhauer,
Stirner, Nietzsche, Ibsen, etc.--who, in the late nineteenth
and early twentieth centuries, were widely read and particular-
ly influential throughout Europe. Pedro Lain Entralgo remarks
on this in his study La generacién del noventa y ocho: "Tenga-
mos presente este avido comercio con el espiritu europeo y
moderno a la hora de comprender lo que de comun hay en la
reaccién de todos estos j6venes."15 His expansion on this
common interest is worth quoting at more length:

en el conjunto de las lecturas comunes a todos los
futuros literatos del 98 predominan dos notas distin-

tivas: son, en su mayor parte, lecturas "europeas" y
"modernas". A traves de la literatura, del ensayo,

7

del relato hist6rico y del libro filos6fico entran

sus almas en inmediato contacto con la EurOpa "moder-
na"--t6mese este vocablo en su sentido historiografico
mas estricto--y descubren la deslumbradora y terrible
aventura hacia la total secularizaci6n de la vida que
desde el siglo XVII, y aun mas atras, habia emprendido
el europeo. . . . en el remate del XIX, vacilante ya
la antigua fe en la omnipotencia de la raz6n humana,
prefirio el hombre mirar en su "naturaleza" lo que en
ella hay de impetu vital, de "vida". Raz6n y vida,
por muy ardua que hace unos lustros fuese la ya pasada
contienda entre intelectualistas y vitalistas, han sido
hist6ricamente los dos motes sucesivos de una misma
pretensi6n: la pretensi6n que el hombre ha tenido y
sigue teniendo de bastarse a si mismo en la tarea de
hacer su propia vida.

El anhelante contacto de nuestros adolescentes con
los testimonies escritos de esa gigantomaquia--en su
segunda fase, la antirracional o trasracional, si se
quiere mayor precisi6n--y el desabrido contacto de
todos ellos con la Espana de su tiempo, tan yerma de
encantos hist6ricos, actuan de consumo sobre sus almas
y determinan en ellas una reacci6n semejante. . . . l6

Toward the end of the nineteenth century man's faith
in his reason is substituted by an enthusiastic affirmation
Of life, life irreducible to pure reason, and at the same time
he begins to lose confidence in the ideal of progress. Irra-
tionalism, a thirst for new spiritual life, a feeling of menace
and, at times, a manifest pessimism reveal themselves:
Esa es la situaci6n hist6rica del esp1ritu europeo
que confusamente perciben, cada uno a su modo, los hom-
bres de nuestra generaci6n del 98. Para todos ellos,
la vida es superior e irreductible a la raz6n, el sen-
timiento superior a la l6gica, la sinceridad mas valiosa
que la consecuencia. Cuantas palabras expresan la ac-
tividad no racional de la vida humana--pasi6n, voluntad,
sentimiento, sensibilidad inefable, emoci6n--se hallan
estampadas con rara frecuencia en las paginas de todos
los escritores del grupo. 17
In her study on the subject of Will in Spanish writers
of the time of Unamuno, Doris King Arjona discusses the diverse
Conceptions they have of its nature and direction: "it is in

Ganivet effort directed towards self realization, in the

individualists, the vital instinct, in the internationalists,
purposive energy. and in the pantheists, a manifestation of

18 Will, she goes on to say, is "sometimes

universal harmony."
directed inward to perfect the philosopher, sometimes outward
to produce the hombre gg acci6n, but in one form or another
it is the basis of most Of the ideology for which Spanish
literature of this century is distinguished." (575) She sees
this as an attempt by Spain to identify herself with the main
current of Occidental thought "which rests entirely upon Will,
upon the conception of directed energy, as opposed to the static
philosophies of antiquity and the East." (575) It was SchOpen-
hauer, for whom Unamuno felt a sympathy that only began to fade
in the last years of his life, who was the first to give com-
plete expression to this Western point of view when "he sensed
the whole universe as desire, direction, or, as he said, 19-
luntad." (575)l9 Ganivet and his successors, she continues,
are directing the Will of the individual and nation alike to—
wards the satisfaction Of peculiar individual and national
needs with a growing tendency ”to seek the individual's strength
in contact or interpenetration with other men. . . ." (576)
Arjona sees the ideas of Ganivet on individual Will
incarnated in the figure Of Pio Cid, of whom he says: "yo quise
que fuera un Robinson espafiol: un hombre de acci6n y de per-

20

spicacia, un transformador de hombres." The principal func-

tion of this man of Will is to act upon other men, whom he
teaches as they come to him. In doing so he leaves his perso-
nal mark on them all: "dejas jirones de tu personalidad adhe-

21

ridos a cuantos cerca de ti vivieron." The Will, Ganivet

9

thought, should first be directed inward, ”to the realization
of the self, but that accomplished, it should reach out to
transform other selves. . . ." (611)

Arjona believes that the concept of the Will was en—
tirely different in the group of writers, including Unamuno,
Baroja and Azorin, that she characterizes as the Individualists.
She sees them as being terrified by the Schopenhauerian view
of Will as unappeasable desire, which leads to a sense of fu-
tility and abulia, or to the death of 1a voluntad in the indi—
vidual. (612) This is certainly true in Baroja, and especially
in Azorin, some of whose characters appear to be studies in the
lack of Will: hombres sin acabar. In La ruta de Don Quijote,
for example, Azorin asks himself: "aQué hay en esta patria
del buen Caballero de la Triste Figura que asi rompe en un
punto, a lo mejor de la carrera, las voluntades mas enhiestas?"22
But there are also some characters in their works who exercise
great influence over others, and, at least in Baroja's case,
many who have more than their share Of Will. We see this in
Roberto of Baroja's ngha por la vida series, who tells Manuel
that "Saber desear con fuerza es lo primero que se debe apren-
der." However, in Baroja this exercise of the Will seems to
have no purpose outside itself: "La acci6n es todo, la vida,
e1 placer. Convertir la vida estética en vida dinamica: éste
es el problema.”23

In Azorin's works, too, we sometimes see individuals,
usually pedagogues, who influence others profoundly. But it

is almost always in a negative way. The best example is that

of Yuste in La voluntad:

 

.L a

u‘

him i

nan

 

lO

Yuste era también un hombre frustrado: tenia una gran
inteligencia, una pintoresca originalidad, pero 1e
faltaba la continuidad en el esfuerzo, y por eso no
pudo nunca hacer ningun trabajo largo, ninguna obra
duradera. 24
Yuste becomes Azorin's master and passes his pessimism and
sense of futility on to him. His last words to his protégé
are:
iAh, la inteligencia es el mall Comprender es entris-
tecerse; observar es sentirse vivir . . . y sentirse
vivir es sentir la muerte, es sentir la inexorable
marcha de todo nuestro ser y de las cosas que nos ro-
dean hacia el Oceano misterioso de la nada. 25
It is precisely at this realization where Unamuno most
differs from his contemporaries. For him these are fighting
words. He too sees life as suffering and the awareness of
death and nothingness beyond as man's greatest problem. But
he does not despair and retreat to a meaningless philosophy
such as Baroja's "action for action's sake," or to Azorin's
abulia; rather he, and the heroes Of his novels, struggle to
A assert their unique individual existence, their personality,
through a monumental effort of Will. It is for this reason
that his protagonists have been called "monsters of volition"
and that Arjona claims that of his generation only Unamuno
made an "affirmation from the eternal suffering of desire."
(643) She summarizes the difference between the three writers
in the following way:
The three individualists, Azorin, Pio Baroja, and
Unamuno, unquestionably the greatest writers of their
generation, shared at first in the enthusiasm for the
rediscovery and regeneration of Spain, but they fell
away one by one, Azorin into complete nihilism, Baroja
into a trick of disguising the fatuity of life with
adventure, Unamuno into a mystical deification of the
will, creator of an ideal world, quite apart from neg-

ligible reality. Unamuno set up desire as a truth of
its own, as a reality in itself. . . . (666)

11

What Arjona says here about Unamuno is revealed in his
affirmation that the most intimate, creative and real thing in
a man is what he wills to be: "el que uno quiere ser, es en

d. .26

61, en su seno, el creador, y es el real de verda This

affirmation is the point of departure for this investigation.

FOOTNOTES

lGonzalo Sobejano, in his study Nietzsche en Espana
(Madrid: Gredos, 1965). has left little doubt as to the in-
fluence of Nietzsche in Spanish writers of Unamuno's time.
His conclusions in regard to Unamuno are:

Nietzsche destrona a Cristo para erigir a1 superhombre,
Unamuno hace de Cristo e1 Superhombre. Ambos toman
como principio creador la voluntad de poder, ambos

aman 1a eternidad en forma terrena y ambos, de distinto
modo, no creen en Dios, aunque Unamuno uiera creer en

61 . . . y Nietzsche quiera no creer. 303)
Unamuno no quiso ser, pero fue en gran parte, hermano
espiritual de Nietzsche. . . . (318)

2

Stanley V. McDaniel, The Philosophy of Nietzsche
(New York: Monarch Press, 1965), p. 142. Italics mine.

Nietzsche's most clearly and concisely stated ideas
concerning these concepts are found in his book of notes, Egg
Will to Power, trans. by Walter Kaufman and R.J. Hollingdale
(New York: Random House, 1967). Many of the more pertinent
exerpts from this work will be cited in the main body of this
study.

Paul Ilie, in Part II of his excellent study Unamuno:
An Existential View of Self and Society (Madison: The Univer-
sity of Wisconsin Press, 196771 deals in some depth with "Niet-
zschean Categories" in Unamuno' s thought, and though it is very
important for an understanding of the similarities and influence
of Nietzsche on Unamuno, it limits itself almost entirely to
the latter's non-fictional writings.

3Obras Completas, ed. manuel Garcia Blanco, VIII (Madrid:
Escelicer, S.A., 1966), p. 144.

4

 

Ibid., p. 145.

5Andanzas v visiones espanolas, in Obras ACompletas,
ed. Manuel Garcia Blanco, I (Madrid: Escelicer, S. A., 1966),
p 358

This influence has been studied by Lucia Svetlana Kegler,
"Obermann in the Works of Unamuno," MA Thesis Duke University

1958.

6José Luis Abellan, "Influencias filos6ficas en Unamuno,"
Insula, clxxxi (1962), p. 11.

12

13

7Pedro Lain Entralgo, La generaci6n del noventagy ocho,
7th ed. (1947; rpt. Madrid: Espasa- Calpe, S.A., 1970), p. 69.

8Emilio Salcedo, Vida de Don Miguel (Salamanca: Edi-
ciones Anaya, S. A., 1970), p. 45. This is the most complete
and reliable biography of Unamuno.

9Abellan, p. 11; and Leo Rauch, The Philosophy of Hegel
(New York: Monarch Press, 1965), pp. 31, 34, 41 and 50— 51.

Carlos Blanco Aguinaga, in his study "Aspectos dialec-
ticos de las Tres novelas__jemp1ares," Revista de Occidente
(1964) 51- -70, discusses the "Amo— Esclavo" relationship of the
characters in these three short novels and discovers a dialec-
tical vision of existence in which "es evidente 1a influencia
de Hegel, " (67) and which reveals itself in "la creaci6n de
personajes novelisticos cuya voluntad de conciencia es siempre
lucha con los otros, que tienden a desembocar en las relaciones
y conflictos del Amo y el Esclavo.” (53) Hegel speaks of this
Amo—Esclavo relationship in The Phenomenology of the Spirit.

lORauch, pp. 35, 72 and 111-12.
llAbellén, p. 11.
lzIbid.

Kierkegaard's The Sipkness Unto Death and James' The
Will to Believe are of special significance in relation to the
subject of this study.

13Miguel de Unamuno, Vida de _Donggu_j_tegy Sancho, in
Obras Completas, ed. Manuel Garcia Blanco, III (Madrid: Esce-
licer, S.A., 1968), p. 130. Future page references from this
work will be included in the text and the title will be abbre-
viated to D0.

Pelayo Hip6lito Fernandez, in his book Miguel de Una-
muno y William James: un paralelo_pragmatico (Salamanca: Talle-
res Graficos Libreria Cervantes, 1961), establishes that Una-
muno was a reader of William James and was influenced by him.
Interestingly, Fernandez translates a phrase from James' The
Will to Believe that comes close to describing the ”creative
man": "Invente algun modo de realizar sus prOpios ideales que
satisfaga a1 mismo tiempo las demandas ajenas y ése y S610 ése
es el camino de la paz." (125)

luAbellan, p. 11.

An excellent example is Unamuno' s statement in Vida de
DonkQuijote y Sancho, p. 130: "No es la inteligencia sino 1a
voluntad la que nos hace el mundo. . . .

l5Lain Entralgo, p. 58.

16Ibid., pp. 61-2.

14

l71bid.. pp. 68-9.

18Arjona, p. 574. Future page references will be in—
cluded in the text.

19Ibid.; Arjona's source was Spen ler, Der Untergang
des Abendlandes (Munchen: 1924), I, p. 43%.

Unamuno no longer seems to be in sympathy with Schopen-
hauer by the time he writes La novela de Don Sandalio in 1930.
In Chapter III of this work he says:

Y me acuerdo de aquella soberana tonteria del pseudo—
pesimista Schopenhauer cuando decia que los tontos,

no teniendo ideas que cambiar, inventaron unos carton-
citos pintados para cambiarlos entre si, y que son los
naipes. Pues si los tontos inventaron los naipes. no’
son tan tontos, ya que Schopenhauer ni aun eso invento,
sino un sistema de baraja mental que se llama pesimismo
y en que lo pesimo es el dolor, como si no hubiera e1
aburrimiento, e1 tedio, que es lo que matan los jugado-
res de naipes. (Obras Completas, II, p. 1161)

20Angel Ganivet, El libro de Ganivet (Granada: 1920),
p. 34. Cited by Arjona, p. 599.

21Idem, Los trabajgs de Pio Cid (Madrid: 1898), p. 178.
Cited by Arjona, p. 603.

 

22Azorin, Ruta de Don Quijote (Madrid: Rafael Caro Rag-
gio, 1919), p. 87. Cited by Arjona, p. 634.

23P10 Baroja, Aurora roja (Madrid: 1910), pp. 150-51
and 331. Cited by Arjona, p. 627.

24

Azorin, Ba voluntad, II (Madrid: Rafael Caro Raggio,
1919), p. 302. Cited by Arjona, p. 634.

251bid., p. 160. Cited by Arjona, p. 637.

 

26Miguel de Unamuno, Tres novelas e'em lares un r6-
logo, in Obras Com letas, ed. Manuel Garc1a Blanco, II (Madrid:
Escelicer, S.A., 1967), p. 973.

The nine volumes that presently compose this latest
edition of the complete works of Unamuno are the primary sources
for this study. Volume II contains all the novels and stories
and page references to these works will be given in parentheses
in the text, and, where confusion might occur, the titles of the
novels will be included in abbreviated form: Paz en la guerra
(PG), Amor y pedagogia (AP), Niebla (N), Abel SEHChez (AS), Tres

novelas e'em lares (TN), La tia Tula (TT), San Manuel Bueno,
martir (SN).

 

 

CHAPTER I
CREATIVE WILL AND THE DUALISTIC VIEW OF EXISTENCE
IN THE NOVELS 0F UNAMUNO

The purpose of this chapter is to provide a basis for
a clearer understanding of the ideological trajectory of Una-
muno's novels. Beneath it all is a dualistic view of the
Universe and of the forces at work on man, and combined with
this view is modern man's reliance on the saving power of
human Will, as a substitute, perhaps, for his lost faith in
God.

In 1920 and 1923 Sigmund Freud arrived at some conclu-
sions in his work that bear striking similarities to concepts
basic to the novels of Miguel de Unamuno. Seeing that life
exists always in polarity with death, he developed a dualis-
tic view of instinctual life, which he presented in Beyond
the Pleasure Principle. The major point emphasized in this
work is that "an instinct i§ an urge inhegent in organic iiig
39 restore an earlier state 9; things which the living entity
has been obliged to abandon under the pressure of external
disturbing forces," and since "inanimate things existed before
iiving ones" so our instincts draw us back toward the inanimate:

"the aim of all life is death. . . ."1 Freud called this the-

ory the death instinct, or Thanatos. Eros, on the other hand,

is the opposite to the death instinct; it is the sexual or

15

16

life instinct and fights for life against the death tendencies.
Together they are the two opposing forces which simultaneously
drive man toward life and draw him toward death, and it is this
struggle between them that characterizes man's most fundamental
problem of existence.2 Unamuno too held this dualistic view

of life, of the struggle between the life instinct and the
death instinct, and it runs as a thread through all his novel-
istic works.

This concept is a very old one and is reflected in
mythology. Ancient man made Eros a god, and symbolically in-
dicated in this way a basic truth of human experience-—that
Eros drives man to transcend himself.3 Eros is the god who,
in the classical Greek age, embodied the creative use of power,
the power that gave birth to new being and ideas.)+ The Eros
of Hesiod, for example, was the original creator from which
all life comes, and to Plato he was the god or demiurge who
constituted man's creative spirit. It is one of the four
kinds of love in Western tradition (the others being ggg,
philia and gggpg), and represents "the drive of love to pro-
create or create--the urge, as the Greeks put it, toward higher
forms of being and relationships." Moreover, "Love, in the
form of eros, is the power which generates, and this generation
is 'a kind of eternity and immortality'—-which is to say that
such creativity is as close as men ever get to becoming immor-
tal."5 In his book Love and Wiii Rollo may describes Eros as

a desiring, longing, a forever reaching out, seeking
to expand. . . . the drive toward union with what we
belong to--union with our own possibilities, union

with significant other persons in our world in rela-
tion to whom we discover our own self—fulfillment.

1?

Eros is . . . the mode of relating in which we do not
seek release but rather to cultivate, procreate, and
form the world. In Eros, wg seek increase 2f stimula-

 

tion. . . . eros is a desire . . . eros seeks . . .
the procreating of new dimensions of experience which
broaden and deepen being. . . . 6

In Eros there is "an eternal reaching out, a stretch-
ing of the self, a continuously replenished urge which impels
the individual to dedicate himself to seek forever higher
forms."7 These feelings which Eros represents are intentional,8
disquieting, irritating, and even painful. They are "a point-
ing toward something, an impetus for forming something, a call
to mold the situation. . . . a pointing toward the future, a
way I Egg; something to be."9 Eros, as Plato says in the

10

Symposium, is the desire of what we lack; and to no less an

authority than Saint Augustine, Eros is the power which drives
men toward God.11
What Plato, Freud and Rollo May all have in common is
a belief that this thing called Eros is fundamental in human
experience and a deep motivating force that pervades all ac-
tions. And significantly, everything said above about Eros
corresponds quite closely with the nature of the Creative Will
as we find it in the works of Unamuno. To see just how, we
will turn first to his prologue to Tres noveias ejemplares,
which he calls the novel of his novels and the explanation of
his noveieria. Here he speaks of the men and women who are
more real than the others because they are the creators.
These are the volitive men and women who live in the phenome-

nological and rational world but create within it, in pure

Will-to-Be, their own intimate reality, which Unamuno calls

18

the true and creative one: "éste, el que uno quiere ser, es

en 61, en su seno, el creador, y es el real de verdad." (TN,
12

973)

There is another face to this Creative Will, however,
for not only are there heroes of voluntad, the Will-to-Be, but
also of the Will-Not-to—Be, of noluntad. Those heroes charac-
terized by noluntad are the ones who have failed in their
struggle to be but who refuse to be the mere instruments of
external forces and abort themselves in one final act of Will.13
Unamuno explains this distinction in the following way:

Hay, en efecto, cuatro posiciones, que son dos positi-
vas: a) querer ser; b) querer no ser; y dos negativas:
o) no querer ser, d) no querer no ser. Como se puede:
creer que hay Dios, creer que no hay Dios, no creer
que hay Dios y no creer que no hay Dios. Y ni creer
que no hay Dios es lo mismo que no creer que hay Dios,
ni querer no ser es no querer ser. De uno que no
quiere ser dificilmente se saca una criatura poética,
de novela; pero de uno que quiere no ser s1. (TN, 973)

These volitive men, driven by Will, Eros or Desire,
to transcend themselves, are the protagonists of most of
Unamuno's novels. He stresses their reality because the cri-
tics have called them mere symbols and personified concepts.
His response is that a real man, who wills to be or not to be,
is a symbol, and, on the other hand, that a symbol or concept
can become a man, a person. (TN, 974_75)l4 He explains what
he means in a letter to the Portuguese poet Teixeira da Pas-
coaes dated June, 1920:

Ahora preparo Cuatro novelas ejemplares. Una de las
novelas sera e1 Pr6logo, tragedia de conceptos. Un
concepto (simbolo) es una persona cuando se le sabe
hallar voluntad. La eclipse guiere tener dos focos.

Y un personaje, cuando no se 1e halla la voluntad
--1a voluntad de ser 0 la de no ser-—, no pasa de

l9

concepto. La realidad es algo 1ntimo. No hay reali—
dad mas que en el querer. Querer ser 0 querer no ser.
. . . Yo siento los conceptos tragica y volitivamente.
Y hay quien nos describe personajes que no viven por-
que no quieren vivir, ni quieren no vivir. 15

Unamuno believes in the tragedy of this desperate
desire to be, to reach fulfillment and completion, and this
is what causes him to create his tragic heroes. Only those
poor "crepuscular" men who fear tragedy and flee from it will
not see them as real but as no more than symbols, whereas any-
one who also feels this tragedy will recognize their reality.
Speaking directly to the reader he says: "si . . . no sois
capaces, no ya solo de comprenderlo, mas de sentirlo y de sen-
tirlo apasionada y tragicamente, no llegaréis nunca a crear
criaturas reales, y por tanto no llegaréis a gozar de ninguna
novela, ni de la de vuestra vida." (TN, 973-74)

These volitive and obsessed individuals who deeply
feel the tragic sense of life are in fact, just as Unamuno
says, more real than other men because their suffering has
caused them to define themselves more clearly, pushing back
the surrounding mist of non-existence by the force of their
Will-to-Be. They do not simply know they are limited and fi-
nite--most men know this—-but they feel and suffer it as well;
and this heightened consciousness of existence and sensitive
and painful awareness of the limitations to their being causes
them to suffer a lack of a feeling of totality or completeness,
and they desperately desire to satisfy that need within them-

selves:

Porque tener conciencia de s1 mismo, tener personali-
dad, es saber y sentirse distinto de los demas seres,

20

y a sentir esta distinci6n solo se llega por el choque,
por el dolor mas o menos grande, por la sensaci6n del
propio limite. La conciencia de si mismo no es sino
la conciencia de la propia limitaci6n. Me siento yo
mismo al sentirme que no soy los demas; saber y sentir
hasta d6nde soy, es saber d6nde acabo de ser, desde
d6nde no soy.

El dolor universal es la congoja de todo por ser todo
lo demas sin poder conseguirlo. . . . La esencia de un
ser no es s6lo el empeno en persistir por siempre,
como nos ensen6 Spinoza, sino, ademas, el empeno por
universalizarse, es el hambre y sed de eternidad y de
infinitud. Todo ser creado tiende no 8610 a conser-
varse en 81, sino a perpetuarse, y, ademas, a invadir
a todos los otros, a ser los otros sin dejar de ser 61,
a ensanchar sus linderos a1 infinito, pero sin romper-
los. No quiere romper sus muros y dejarlo todo en
tierra llana, comunal, indefensa, confundiéndose y
perdiendo su individualidad, sin6 que quiere llevar
sus muros a los extremos de lo creado y abarcarlo todo
dentro de ellos. Quiere el maximo de individualidad
con el maximo también de personalidad, aspira a que el
Universo sea 61, a Dios. 16

Later, Unamuno states even more explicitly what he and
his "agonistas" want. The secret of human existence, he be-
lieves, is the furious and insatiable desire to be All and to
be forever, to take possession of the entire universe, but
without losing the uniqueness of one's own intimate personality.
In a word, it is the appetite for divinity, the hunger for God:

Y el secreto de la vida humana, el general, el secreto
ralz de que todos los demas brotan, es el ansia de mas
vida, es el furioso e insaciable anhelo de ser todo lo
demas sin dejar de ser nosotros mismos, de aduenarnos
del Universo entero sin que el Universo se aduene de
nosotros y nos absorba, es el deseo de ser otro sin
dejar de ser yo, y seguir siendo yo, siendo a la vez
otro, en una palabra, el apetito de divinidad, el ham—
bre de Dios. 17

The revelation of this secret of human existence may
have been inspired in part by one of Unamuno's favorite
sources, the Book of Genesis. In the second and third chap-

ters is provided, metaphorically, the supreme example to man

21

in respect to the problem of the attainment of immortality and
the desire to be godlike. There it is described how Jehovah
created a beautiful garden for the first man and woman, a

place where there was no suffering, or want or knowledge of
death. In that garden He placed two trees that produced the
forbidden fruit, the Tree of Life and the Tree of Knowledge.
But the serpent came to tempt man, and he said to Eve: "God

has forbidden you this one tree (of Knowledge) because . . .

He is afraid that you may be as good and as great as He is.

. . . To eat of it will raise you at once to the divine level."18
They are tempted and they fall, and when Jehovah finds out
what they have done He invokes a punishment upon them: they
will suffer pain, they will be destined to struggle futilely
against a hostile nature, and death will one day be their por-
tion. But still, what the serpent had said was true, for man
had attained to knowledge and he was not put to death imme-
diately. However, he had aroused Jehovah's fears, fears that
he might make use of his new powers and one day taste also

of the fruit of the Tree of Life, becoming thereby immortal
and taking away the one divine prerogative remaining to Jeho-
vah. And so it is that, in addition to the penalty already
imposed, the guilty pair are driven out of the garden of in—
nocence, guards are put at its entrance, and a whirling sword
of flame keeps the way to the Tree of Life.19 This, then, is
the story of how man became godlike in respect to knowledge,

but lost his chance for immortality.

Unamuno's conclusion is that man is a knowing, and

22

consequently a "sick," animal and that he is an ambitious one
as well, unsatisfied with what he is and wishing to be more.
Ambition was his downfall, but it is also his strength: "el
angel caido . . . cay6 por soberbia, y el hombre por querer
ser mas que es, por ambici6n. Cay6 el angel por soberbio y
caido queda: cay6 el hombre por ambicioso y se levanta a mas
alto asiento que de donde cayera." (DQ, 83) It is this ambi-
tion to be more that is re-enacted metaphorically in the story
of Adam. This is why Unamuno says that if a man wishes to be
more than he is he too must awaken in himself "Adam's felici-
tous guilt": "Porque Adan quiso ser como un dios, sabedor del
bien y del mal, y para llegar a serlo comi6 del prohibido fruto
del arbol de la ciencia, y se le abrieron los ojos. . . . Y
desde entonces empez6 a ser mas que hombre. . . ." (DQ, 82)

This is the path upon which man has been set; within
him a vague remembrance of, and longing to return to, the
comforts and security of the garden in a time before awareness,
but in his consciousness a burning desire to attain immortality
and to be like God. These are the two forces within man that
struggle for dominance, the forces earlier referred to as the
death instinct and Bros, and man must choose one or the other.
If he is ambitious, however, and is tempted by Eros and falls,
he must again suffer the punishments delt out to our first
parents and feel pain, and struggle futilely toward an impos-
sible goal.

This ambition, this furious hunger to be more, this
appetite for divinity, is the essential ingredient in Unamu-

no's creative men and women. They are reflections of his own

23

ambition, his own struggle to overcome the limits of time and
space on one hand and loss of personality on the other: "No,
no es anegarme en el gran Todo, en la materia 0 en la Fuerza
infinitas y eternas 0 en Dios lo que anhelo; no es ser poseido
por Dios, sino poseerle, hacerme yo Dios sin dejar de ser el
yo que ahora os digo esto." (ST, 137)

El universe visible, el que es hijo del instinto de

conservacion me viene estrecho, esme como una jaula

,que me resulta chica, y contra cuyos barrotes da en

sus revuelos mi alma; faltame en 61 aire que respirar.

Mas, mas y cada vez mas; quiero ser yo y sin dejar de

serlo, ser ademas los otros, adentrarme en la totali-

dad de las cosas visibles e invisibles, extenderme a

lo ilimitado del espacio y prolongarme a lo inacaba-

ble del tiempo. De no serlo todo y por siempre, es

como si no fuera, y por lo menos ser todo yo, y serlo

para siempre jamas. Y ser todo yo, es ser todos los

demas. 30 todo o nada. (ST, 132) 20

What Unamuno says here is a typical expression of Eros,

the Will-to-Be-More and to-Be-Forever, which is born out of a
deeply felt dissatisfaction with what one is. This passionate
desire is an agressive force, fighting against time and every-
thing that confines and limits. It is a painful drive that
enlarges consciousness, and the only solution to it is to stop
feeling, to become satisfied and apathetic. But satisfaction
and apathy are symptoms of the death instinct, and since they
represent a reduction in tension they lead necessarily to a
reduction in being, as Freud describes in his discussion of

21 True satisfaction, therefore, lies

the Pleasure Principle.
not with surrender to forces outside the Will, but to the
overcoming of obstacles that limit growth. man's supreme

pleasure is in acquisition and increase. Limits, that is,

 

”otherness," and the stimulation of the constant struggle

2L:

against them, are necessary. We end with the seeming contra-
diction that man's greatest pleasure is a result of displeas-
ure.22

The three ideas that we constantly see involved in
this dialectic of being are consciousness, struggle, and pain.
One becomes aware of his own being only upon recognition of
what he is not, recognition of his temporal and spacial limits,
and by feeling the pain and suffering this recognition causes.
Therefore, struggle, heightened consciousness, and pain also
are necessary and even desirable states in Unamuno's ontology.
Pain is positive--an idea Nietzsche also expresses in The Will
to Power. In Part III, 698, he quotes Kant, who is himself
quoting from Sull indoledel piacere e del dolgrg of Count
Verri: "Il solo principio motore dell' uomo e il dolore. I1
dolore precede ogni piacere. I1 piacere non e un essere posi-
tivo."23 This is why Unamuno says: "cuando te duermas y no
sientas ya e1 dolor, es que no eres. Y hay que ser. No ce-
rréis, pues, los ojos a la Esfinge acongojadora, sino miradla
cara a cara. . . ." (ST, 275)

In Chapter VII of Del sentimiento tragico, entitled
"Amor, dolor, compasi6n y personalidad," Unamuno even develops
the idea of a suffering God. In reference to this an American
friend, Benjamin Burges Moore, wrote to him in a letter dated
July 12, 1912, from Baden Baden, asking the following question:
"aC6mo puede sufrir Dios si es perfecto y omnipotente, si es
un ser ilimitado?” Unamuno’s answer is very interesting, es-
pecially since he also reveals here some of his thoughts on

consciousness and progress toward divinity:

25

Dios, si algo es, ha de ser la Conciencia colectiva y
total del Universo, e1 Alma del Mundo. Concepci6n
nada moderna. Y si el Universo evoluciona y progresa,
es decir, asciende hacia mayor conciencia, es porque
sufre, porque 1e falta algo. Toda la vida es un ad-
quirir mayor conciencia cada vez. . . . Y el dolor uni-
versal, el dolor de Dios, el dolor de no ser todav1a
toda conciencia, se hace conciencia en el hombre. Lo
mas genial del cristianismo es haber concebido un Dios
que sufre pasi6n y muerte. Zfi .

The vital desire of all men who are conscious of their
being is to be more, to be eternal and infinite. Thus it is
that to be is a process rather than a state or condition, and
it requires constant struggle toward Total Being, embodied in
the idea of God who is "e1 ideal de la humanidad, el hombre
proyectado a1 infinito y eternizado en 61." (DQ, 128) Con-
sciousness is of fundamental importance, for the greater one's
consciousness of Self the greater is one's being: "e1 supremo
placer del hombre es adquirir y acrecentar conciencia," (ST,
244) and he later adds, "e1 mayor goce de un hombre es ser
mas hombre, esto es, mas Dios, y que es mas Dios cuanta mas
conciencia tiene." (ST, 2&8)25 But since Unamuno realizes
that completion, the attainment of the goal, would mean the
end of desire and result in a reduction of being, he has de-
veloped a dynamic "process" philosophy. To be for him means
32 become more;26 it is an increasing, a becoming greater in—
ternally, by enlargement of self-awareness or consciousness,
and externally, through the struggle to push back the limits
of space and time--but above all, it is a growing that must
not ever end:

todos vamos al infinito . . . todos vamos "infinitando-
nos" , nuestra diferencia estribara en marchar unos mas

de prisa y otros mas despacio, en crecer éstos en mayor
medida que aquéllos, pero todos avanzando y creciendo

26

siempre y acercandonos todos al término inasequible,
al que ninguno ha de llegar jamas. (DQ, 186)

¢No sera la absoluta y perfecta felicidad eterna una

eterna esperanza que de realizarse moriria? . . . 5N0

sera, digo, que todas las almas crezcan sin cesar,

unas en mayor proporci6n que otras, pero habiendo to-

das de pasar alguna vez por un mismo grado cualquiera

de crecimiento, y sin llegar nunca al infinito, a

Dios, a quien de continuo se acercan? (ST, 253)

This philosophy of becoming more necessarily has its

counterpoint: one must either grow or he will become less,
for being is thought of by Unamuno as existing at some point
between two poles, and moving between them in either direction.
At the negative pole, possessing all the characteristics of
the peace and unconsciousness of the womb, and beyond which
is non-being or nothingness, is the mist that surrounds and
threatens at any moment to engulf the individual who is aware
of his being. Any movement in the direction toward this pole
is motivated by what Freud called the death instinct and is
destructive and tends to reduce being. It is frequently re-
presented as female, or as the inert material that "hace sufrir

a1 espiritu limitandolo." (ST, 234)

Y la materia, la inconciencia, tiende a ser menos,
cada vez menos, a no ser nada, siendo la suya una sed

de reposo. E1 espiritu dice: ";Quiero ser'", y la
materia le responde: ”;No 10 quiero'" (ST, 235)
La pereza es el peso de la materia . . . nos dice que

trata de conservarnos por el ahorro, en realidad no
trata sino de amenguarnos, de anonadarnos. (ST, 274)

To return to unconsciousness--desvivir, desnacer, or dormir
are terms Unamuno sometimes uses--is the fate of those who
resign themselves to their finiteness.27

The hero, on the other hand, is the one who suffers

the desire to be more and who struggles to push back the

27

limits of time and space. Only these heroes who direct their
Will to creating what they desire truly exist in Unamuno's
idea of things, and the archetype of them all in his writings
is Don Quixote. Of the ”bachilleres, curas y barberos" of
this world, who are very satisfied just because they live and
for whom just to live is enough, he asks the question:

aexisten? gExisten en verdad? Yo creo que no; pues

si existieran . . . sufrir1an de existir y no se con-

tentarian con ello. Si real y verdaderamente exis-

tieran en el tiempo y en el espacio, sufrir1an de no

ser en lo eterno y lo infinito. . . . [es] la pasi6n

de Dios en nosotros, Dios, que en nosotros sufre por

sentirse preso en nuestra finitud y nuestra tempora-

lidad, este divino sufrimiento. . . . (DO, 52)

The two opposing forces acting upon man are clearly
revealed in Unamuno's second novel, Amor y pedagogia (1902),
of which he says in the prologue to the second edition: ”En
esta novela esta en germen--y mas que en germen--lo mas y lo
mejor de lo que he revelado después en mis otras novelas."
(312) One of these forces is Eros, or what might in this case
be more appropriately called the Apollonian force of Will,
which drives man upward toward the goal of light, pure reason,
science and Total Consciousness; and at the other extreme is
the death instinct or Thanatos. the Dionysian force which
drags him back toward the peace, warmth and security of the
prenatal state, back to the dark mystery of the Unconscious.28
The Apollonian and Dionysian forces of nature, Form and Matter,
are in this novel incarnated in Avito Carrascal and his wife
Marina.

The ambitious Avito is aware of this polarity and

desires, by the force of Will and reason, to give form to the

28

amorphous matter from which all creation springs. "El arte,

la reflexi6n, 1a conciencia, la forma lo seré yo," he says,

"y ella, Marina, sera la naturaleza, el instinto, la inconcien-
cia, la materia." (322) This modern Prometheus will give their
son, the future genius he proposes to scientifically create,
the name Apolodoro, "don de Apolo, de la luz del Sol, padre

de la verdad y de la vida," (331) as a sign of the ideal to-
ward which he plans to direct the boy. But Marina will give
him another name, Luis, ”el nombre prohibido, e1 vergonzante,
e1 intimo," (343) and she will have him secretly baptized with
it.29 These two names are obviously meant to represent the

two opposing forces at work upon Apolodoro-Luis, forces which
in the end will destroy him.

Marina's most outstanding characteristic, which is
entirely in keeping with the unconscious and inert side of
being which she embodies, is her almost constant state of
somnolence, which becomes increasingly acute whenever living

30

becomes more difficult for her. Each time she manages to

get Apolodoro alone she calls him Luis, kisses him, and pours
out all the maternal emotions she is not permitted to show in
Avito's presence. She teaches him religion and, significantly,
she sings him to sleep with this lullaby:

Duerme, duerme, mi nifio,
duerme en seguridad,
duerme, que con tu madre

duerme la vida.
Duerme, sol de mis ojos,
duerme, mi encanto,
duerme, que si no duermes
yo no te canto. ~
Duerme, mi dulce sueno,
duerme, tesoro.

29

Duerme, que tu te duermes
y yo te adoro.
Duerme para que duerma
tu pobre madre,~
mira~que luego rine,
rine tu padre.
Duerme, nino chiquito,
que viene el Coco~
a llevarse a los ninos
que duermen poco... (335)

In fact, the adolescent Apolodoro's waking hours are
made so painful by his father's coldness and treatment of him
as if he were a laboratory guinea pig that he finds special
pleasure in sleep, which for him is an escape from life.31

3Con qué ansia coge Apolodoro la cama por las

noches! Son entonces sus auroras,’las fiestas de su
alma. Recogese al frescor de las sabanas, acurrucadito,
como estuvo, antes de nacer, en el vientre materno, y~
asi, en postura fetal, espera al sueno, al divino sueno,
piadoso refugio de su vida y tierra firme en que reco-
bra ganas de vivir. (362)
This is a clear expression of the force of the negative pole,
the desvivir or desnacer to which Unamuno frequently refers
and which exerts such a powerful attraction, especially on
those who suffer, because it offers security and an escape to
peace and unconsciousness.

Shortly after the passage just quoted Apolodoro medi-
tates on the nature of sleep: "El suefio es la fuente de la
salud, porque es vivir sin saberlo. No sabe que tiene coraz6n
quien le tenga sano, ni sabe que tiene est6mago o higado sino
quien los tenga enfermos; no se sabe que vive el que duerme."
(362) However, the form of health mentioned here is not desi-
rable in Unamuno's view. Man is a sick animal, as he tells

us in the essay Del sentimiento tragigo de la vida, suffering

from the sickness that is the consciousness of the death and

30

nothingness that await him; and Unamuno, of course, believes
that only the man who knows it and feels it profoundly is
fully alive, for "quien no se cuida de la enfermedad, descuida
la salud, y el hombre es un animal esencial y sustancialmente
enfermo . . . pero esa enfermedad es el manantial de toda
salud poderosa." (ST, 133)32 He also makes it clear that it
is not sleep but consciousness that he recommends for man in
his comments on the lullaby sung by the mother to the child

in the Xida de DongQuijote y Sancho. In the quote that follows
Unamuno is making reference to the superficiality of the niece
of Alonso e1 Bueno:

Ese tu espiritu, tu almita, que acaso fue sofiadora
otrano, te la alicortaron y encanijaron en un terri-
ble potro, te 1a han brezado desde que lanz6 su pri-
mer medroso vagido, te la han brezado con el viejo
estribillo de ~
Duerme, nino chiquito,

que viene el Coco

a llevarse a los ninos

que duermen poco.
te la han brezado con la gangosa canci6n con que tu
misma, mi pobre Antonia, brezas a tus hijos, cuando
eres madre, para que se duerman. Y mira Antonia, no
hagas por un momento caso alguno de los que te quieren
gallinita de corral, no les hagas caso y medita en ese
planidero estribillo con que aduermes a tus hijos.
Medita en eso de que venga el Coco y se lleva a los
ninos que duermen poco; medita, mi querida Antonia,
en eso de que sea e1 mucho dormir lo que haya de li-
brarnos de las garras del Coco. Mira, mi Antonia,
que el Coco viene y se lleva se traga a los dormidos.
no a los despiertos. (DO, 154)

From the very beginning of his life Apolodoro is pulled
between the cold logic of reason and science as represented by
his father and the blind and unconscious emotion of the mother
--literally between Apollonian and Dionysian extremes, the in-
compatible opposition upon which is founded the tragic sense

of life:

31

vivir es una cosa y conocer otra, y como veremos

acaso hay entre ellas una tal oposici6n que podamos
decir que todo lo vital es antirracional, no ya s6lo
irracional, y todo lo racional, anti- vital. Y ésta

es la base del sentimiento tragico de la vida. (ST, 129)

Neither of these extremes gives the boy the support
he needs to realize his own being. Apolodoro is his father's
creation and Luis his mother's. It is not surprising that,
since he has not been allowed to be himself, and all his ef-
forts to create his own being have been frustrated, he chooses
to cease to be, which in his case is the only positive act
left to him.

In review, it has been shown that the negative pole is
instinct, conservation, inert material, and that it exercises
a powerful attraction on man because it offers him an escape
from suffering: the peace, security and unconsciousness of
the maternal womb. The positive pole, on the other hand, is
the diametrical opposite in every respect, and possesses the
characteristics usually associated with divinity: All, immor-
tality, infinitude and complete consciousness. It is frequent-

ly represented, in fact, as God, and it is agressive, volitive

and spiritual. Movement in the direction of this pole 's

 

creative and invglves continuous struggle and warfare, t_g
continuogg overcoming and absorption of "otherness" and gn-
largement 9f Bging. Whereas the negative pole tends toward
conservation, the positive tends toward perpetuation and in—
crease.33

These two poles correspond, in Unamuno's world view,

to the two basic types of men: those in whom the inert mate-

rial forces predominate and those, the heroes or creative men,

32

in whom dynamic spirit predominates.

Al hombre, 0 le sobra materia 0 le sobra esp1ritu,
o, mejor dicho, o siente hambre de espiritu, esto es,
de eternidad, o hambre de materia, resignaci6n a ano-
nadarse. Cuando 1e sobra esp1ritu y siente hambre de
mas de 61,10 vierte y lo derrama fuera, y al derra-
marlo, se le acrecienta con 10 de los demas; y, por
el contrario, cuando, avaro de s1 mismo, se recoje en
s1, pensando mejor conservarse, acaba por perderlo
todo. . . . (ST, 274)

This man of dynamic spirit is characterized by posses-
sion of "una furiosa hambre de ser, un apetito de divinidad."
(ST, 114) He is the man Unamuno truly admires, for "8610 es
hombre hecho y derecho el hombre cuando quiere ser mas que
hombre." (DO, 82) Unamuno himself strongly expresses this
hunger to be more in Del sentimiento tragico where he says:

3Ser, ser siempre, ser sin término' 3Sed de ser,

sed de ser mas. 3Hambre de Dios. 3Sed de amor eter-
nizante y eterno. 3Ser siempre. 3Ser Dios.

"3Sereis como dioses'", cuenta el Genesis (III, 5)

que dijo la serpiente a la primera pareja de enamora-
dos. (132)

This hunger for infinitude results, as Unamuno shows,
in the invasion and conquest of otherness, which is an expres-
sion of the Will-to—Be-More, or what Nietzsche called the Will
to Power:

a desire to overwhelm, a forming, shaping and reshap-
ing, until at length that which has been overwhelmed
has entirely gone over into the power domain of the
agressor and has increased the same. . . . the only
reality is the will to grow stronger of every center
of force--not self-preservation, but the will to ap-
propriate, dominate, increase, grow stronger. 34

This need to overwhelm and reshape, to appropriate
and dominate, is the principal expression of the Creative Will

and we will see how it develops in Unamuno's novels, how his

heroes struggle against the obstacles that limit their being

33

and either overcome them or are overcome by them, and how their
being is likewise either increased or decreased. This "strug-
gle for life" is revealingly discussed in the essay "La locura
del doctor Montarco," written in February, 1904. In defense
of his actions and of his apparent arrogance doctor Montarco
makes reference to theories presented by Rolph in the book
Problemas biol6gicos:

No es instinto de conservaci6n lo que nos mueve a

obras, sino instinto d9 invasi6n; no tiramos a man-

tenernos, sino a ser mas, a serlo todo. Es, sirvién-

dome de una fuerte expresi6n del padre Alonso Rodriguez,

e1 gran clasico, "apetito de divinidad". Si, apetito

de divinidad: "3Sereis como dioses3"; as1 tent6, dicen,

e1 demonio a nuestros primer9s padres. El que no sien-

ta ansias de ser mas, llegara a no ser nada. 3O todo o

nada3 . . . para no llegar, mas tarde o mas temprano,

a ser nada, el camino mas derecho es esforzarse por

serlo todo. 9

La lucha por la vida, por la sobre- vida mas bien,

es ofensiva y no defensiva; en esto acierta R9lph.

Yo, amigo, no me defiendo, no me defiendo jamas; ataco.

N9 quiero escudo, que me embaraza y estorba; no quiero

mas que espada. Prefiero dar cincuenta golpes y reci-

bir diez, a no dar mas que diez y no recibir ninguno.

Atacar, atacar, y nada de defenderse. 35

Struggle and invasion are a constant, and at the very

center, of Unamuno's thought on existence as expressed in his
works, and it is reflected even in the vocabulary he used.
In paging through Del sentimiento tragico, for example, one
is impressed by the large number of words denoting agression
and invasion. Some of the most numerous are the following:
Luchar and its variants, used no less than 53 times; and if
related words such as pelear (16 times) and combatir (10
times) are included, the number is a quite impressive 79.
Vencer and its variants are used 35 times, and dominar appears

23 times. Other similar words are: destruir 23, defender 15,

34

atacar 8, guerra l9, batalla 8, enemigo 12, esclavo 8, poseer
l3, and someterse 8. Violence, struggle, and agression, it
seems, are in the nature of Unamuno's world view, and they
will be present in some form in all his novelistic works.36
In spite of this constant emphasis on warfare, however,

it is the idea of love that is the foundation of all Unamuno's
thoughts on being and reality. This may seem contradictory,
but for Unamuno it is self-love that leads a man to authentic
being, and it is this love that moves him to penetrate within
himself, to know himself and to become aware of the tragic
sense of his temporal and spacial limits. When he has reached
this awareness his self-love becomes a creative love or desire
to achieve the full realization of Self, a love that obliges
him to attempt to transcend himself and to become more.37 It
leads him to the discovery of the secret of human life, the
hunger for God, inducing in him the desire to be infinite and
eternal by opening him to an intensity of consciousness not
otherwise possible. Carmen Valderrey reaches similar conclu-
sions in her study of the problem of love in Unamuno:

el amor aparece en Unamuno como una’potencia-:la unica

--descubridora del propio yo, del nucleo mas intimo de

la persona y, al mismo tiempo, como potencia realiza-

ggga de la personalidad, pues es el amor lo que nos

mueve a obrar, a realizar aquello que queremos ser. 38

Self-love is also the prerequisite for the highest

form of love, which Unamuno sometimes calls compassion. When
self-love reveals to a man his intimate ”naderia" he feels
compassion first for himself:

Segun te adentras en ti mismo y en ti mismo ahondas,

vas descubriendo tu propia inanidad, que no eres todo
lo que eres, que no eres lo que quisieras ser, que no

35

eres, en fin, mas que nonada. Y a1 tocar tu propia na-

der1a, a1 no sentir tu fondo permanente, a1 no llegar a

tu prOpia infinitud, ni menos a tu propia eternidad, te

compadeces de todo coraz6n de ti propio, y te enciendes

en doloroso amor a ti mismo, matando lo que se llama

amor prOpio. . . . (ST, 191)
Later, the love of others is the paradoxical result of this
experience, for a man soon comes to see that his brothers suf-
fer just as he does:

Amar en espiritu es compadecer, y quien mas compadece

mas ama. Los hombres encendidos en ardiente caridad

hacia sus pr6jimos es porque llegaron a1 fondo de su

propia miseria, y volviendo luego sus ojos, as1 abier-

tos, hacia sus semejantes, los vieron tambien misera-

bles, aparenciales, anonadables, y los compadecieron,

y los amaron. 39

The man of inauthentic being, Who is lost in the appar-9

ential and phenomenological world of superficial and trivial
daily living, content and satisfied with his lot, is incapable
of true love. Because he does not suffer he neither feels com-
passion for himself nor for others-~and suffering, as we have
seen, is the measure of both love and being:

Los satisfechos, los felices, no aman; aduérmense en

la costumbre, rayana en el anonadamiento. Acostumbrar-

se es ya empezar a no ser. El hombre es tanto mas hom-

bre, esto es, tanto mas divino, cuanta mas capacidad

para el sufrimiento. o mejor dicho, para la congoja,

tiene. (ST, 231)

On the other hand, the man of authentic, tragic, exist-

ence feels love and compassion for himself, which motivates
him to delve into the depths of his being awakening creative
love, the Will-to-Be—More. It is creative in that it moves
him to create works and personality, to strive to realize that
which he desires. Unamuno gives us an excellent example in
his essay Xida de DonQuijote y Sancho where he sees love as

the motivating force behind his archetypal hero Don Quixote:

36

ansia~de vida eterna es la que le dio vida inmortal,

mi §enor Don Quijote; e1 sueno de tu vida fue y es

sueno de no morir. . . . Y pOr debajo de esa ansia de

no morir. 3no andaba, mi pobre Alonso, tu soberano

amor? (228)
Through love man can transcend himself, as does Alonso e1
Bueno. Moreover, Unamuno states clearly in his essay that all
the concepts of life, all the eternal concepts, spring from
love. (233)”0

Unamuno explores in his novels what it is that is

wrong with love and Will in our time. In this respect he is
well within the mainstream of twentieth-century art, confront-
ing exactly what is tragic in contemporary human existence.
The point he stresses is that man must first face up to his
mortality as a prerequisite to growth. However, for twentieth-
century man, who has lost his faith and who has tended to
cover up his fear of death with multiple obsessions, this
basic truth of human existence has become an especially acute
problem:

We in the 20th century have fewer defenses against

this universal fear, such as the belief in immortality

which armored our ancestors, and we also lack any wide—

ly agreed upon purpose of life. Consequently, the

awareness of death is widely repressed in our day. 41

What is seen, indeed, wheanuaobsessions common to

Unamuno's protagonists are penetrated, is their fear of death
and oblivion. They have no belief, nothing to grasp, no an-
chor to hold them to life, such as Don Manuel will attempt to
give to his people, and their obsession, whatever form it
takes, is at one and the same time a repression of the idea

of death and an attempt to overcome it in some way. Death is

the symbol of ultimate impotence and finiteness, and anxiety

37

arising from this inescapable experience calls forth the
struggle to make themselves infinite. They are trying to
silence the inner fear of death and, through some sort of
creation, to triumph over it.”2
The Creative Will that characterizes the heroes and
heroines of the novels and stories studied in the following
pages springs out of the Will-to-Be, Unamuno's guerer s93,
which leads necessarily to the Will-to—Be-More and to-Be-For-
ever. We will see that their desire to be causes them to
create and affirm a "Self" in the form of a part to play out
in the "theater of life"; and their desire to be more is mani-
fested by the extension of the boundaries of the Self by ab-
sorption of others, that is, through the exercise of influence
or power over others, which tends to be applied in these novels
to an ever broadening world: first from Self to another, then
to a group or family, and in the end, to an entire community.
On the other hand, their desire to be forever causes them to
create works into which they impress the essence of their be-
ing so that it will be prolonged in time. It is both the ex-
ercise of power over others and this obsession to indelibly
imprint his being on the world that differentiates the crea-
tive man from other men, who seem to lack Will in comparison
and who are frequently used by the former merely as instruments
or as raw material to be molded and manipulated in his strug-

gle to realize his desires.

FOOTNOTES

1Sigmund Freud, "Beyond the Pleasure Principle," Egg
Standard Edition_gf the Complete Psychological Works of Sig-
mund Freud, trans. under the editorship of James Strachey,
XVIII (London: The Hogarth Press and the Institute of Psycho-
Analysis, 1955), pp. 36 and 38.

Freud explains that an instinct is "the expression of
the inertia inherent in organic life." (36) Later he describes
the function of the pleasure principle as "concerned with the
most universal endeavor of all living substance--namely to
return to the quiescence of the inorganic world." (62) Note
that "Beyond the Pleasure Principle" was first written in 1920,
with parts added dealing with Eros in 1923.

2In a note at the end of chapter VI of "Beyond the
Pleasure Principle" Freud says: "Eros operates from the be-
ginning of life and appears as a 'life instinct' in opposi-
tion to the 'death instinct' which was brought into being by
the coming to life of inorganic substance. These speculations
seek to solve the riddle of life by supposing that these two
instincts were struggling with each other from the very first."
(61) He notes the similarity of this dualistic view of in-
stinctual life to a theory of E. Hering in which "two kinds
of processes are constantly at work in living substance, oper-
ating in contrary directions, one constructive or assimilatory
and the other destructive or dissimilatory." And he further
notes a similarity to Schopenhauer's philosophy: "For him death
is the 'true result and to that extent the purpose of life',
while the sexual instinct is the embodiment of the will to
live." (49-50)

3Rollo May, Lgve and w;11 (New York: w.w. Norton, Inc.,
1969): pp. 75-76-
4

Stanley Rosen, "Introduction," Plato's Symposium (New
Haven: Yale University Press, 1968), p. xxxv. See also Rollo
may, 02. Cit. , pp. 9“”‘960

5May: PP- 37: 78-9 and 94-
6Ibid., p. 74.
7Ibid.. pp. 78-9.

8Ibid., p. 74.

38

39

May's theory of intentionality relates closely to the
material under discussion:

It is in intentionality and will that the human
being experiences his identity. "I" is the "I" of
"I can." Descartes was wrong in his famous sentence,
"I think, therefore, I am," for identity does not
come out of thinking as such, and certainly not out
of intellectualization. Descartes' formulation leaves
out . . . exactly the variable that is most signifi-
cant; it jumps from thought to identity, when what
actually occurs is the intermediate variable of "I
can." . . . potentiality is experienced as mine--my
power, my question-—and, therefore, whether it goes
over into actuality depends to some extent on me--
where I throw my weight, how much I hesitate . . .
What happens in human experience is "I conceive--I
can--I will-~I am." The "I can" and "I will" are
the essential experiences of identity. . . . [one]
experiences the identity in the action, or at least
in the possibility for it. (243- 44)

9Ibid., p. 91.

loRosen, p. 3.

11May, p. 72.

12To Ganivet' 3 "know thyself" Unamuno answers: "Te debe
importar poco lo que eres; lo cardinal para ti es lo que quie-
res ser." (DO, 82)

13Mario J. Valdés, Death in the Literature of Unamuno
(Urbana: The University of Illinois Press, 1964), p. 16, de-
fines these heroes of noluntad in the following way: "For the
authentic characters, that is, those with the tragic sense,
life is a battleground which is always in 'in-struggle'. How-
ever, the characters are completely free and they may choose
death over life. This active assertion of will in choosing

death is what Unamuno calls noluntad." Apolodoro, Augusto
Pérez, and Tulio Montalban are examples of this type of hero.
14

He illustrates this in the prologue saying:

Yo creo que la rama de una hipérbola quiere-~3as1,
quiere3—-ll9gar a tocar su asintota y no lo logra,

y que el ge6metra que sintiera ese qu9rer desesperado
d9 la union d9 1a hiperbola con su a81ntota nos crea-
ria a esa hiperbola como a una persona, y persona tra-
gica. Y creo que la eclipse quiere tener dos focos.

Y creo en la tragedia 0 en la novela del binomio de
Newton. Lo que no se es si Newton 1a sinti6. (975)

40

15From the "Introducci6n" by Manuel Garcia Blanco:
Obras Completas, Vol.11, p. 36. This letter is also included
in E jLstolario iberico: Cartas de Pascoaesgy Unamuno (Nova Lis-
boa, Angola, 1957).

16Miguel de Unamuno, Del sentimiento tragico de’ la
vida en los hombresgy en los pueblos, in rObras fiCompletas, ed.
manuel Garcia Blanco, VII (Madrid: Escelicer, S. A., 1967),
pp. 192 and 232. All future page references to this work will
be included in the text and the title will be abbreviated to
ST.

 

Unamuno explains what he means by the terms individual-
ity and personality in Del sentimiento tra agico:

La individualidad es, si puedo asi expresarme, 91 con-
tinente, y la personalidad el contenido; o podria tam-
bién decir en un cierto sentido que mi personalidad es
mi comprensi6n, lo que comprendo y encierro en mi--y
me es de una cierta manera todo el universo--, y mi in-
dividualidad es mi extensi6n; lo uno, lo infinito mio,
y lo otro, mi finito. (210)

This ”tragic sense of life," or consciousness of fini-
tude, is also the origin of Soren Kierkegaard's "sickness unto
death," the existential despair that is the foundation of a
theory of Self which almost certainly influenced Unamuno. In
Kierkegaard's own words this despair "is a Sickness in the
Spirit, in the Self, and So It May Assume a Triple Form: in
Despair at Not Being Conscious of Having a Self (Despair Im-
properly So Called); in Despair at Not Willing to Be Oneself;
in Despair at Willing to Be Oneself. ” Fear and Trembling and
The Sickness Unto Death, trans. by Walter Lowrie (New York:
Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1954), p. 146.

17Miguel de Unamun9, "El secreto de la vida," in Obras
Completas, ed. Manuel Garcia Blanco, III (Madrid: Escelicer,
s. A., 1968). p 884.

18The Abingdon Bible Comment ary eds. Frederick Carl
Eiselen, Edwin Lewis, and David G. Downey (New York: Abingdon-
Cokesbury Press, 1929), p. 222.

 

l9Ibid.. pp. 222-24.

20Unamuno continues this thought: adding:

30h todo o nada3 jY qué sentido puede tener e1
el de aquel mismo poeta que hizo decir de Marcio en
su Coriolano (V, 4) que s6lo necesitaba 1a eternidad
para ser dios: £9 wants nothing of a ggd but eternity?
3Eternidad3 3Eternidad3 Este es _el anhelo . . . Lo
que no es eterno tampoco es real. (132)

 

41

21Eros stands against any reduction in tension, and
tends rather to increase tension, appearing as a ”life in-
stinct." "After Eros has been eliminated through the process
of satisfaction," writes Freud, " the death instinct has a
free hand for accomplishing its purposes." Sigmund Freud,
"The Ego and the Id,” The Standard Edition of the Complete
Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud, trans. under the editor-
ship of James Strachey, XIX (iondon: The Hogarth Press and the
Institute of Psycho-Analysis, 1961), p. 47.

22Nietzsche speaks of this in his The Will to Power:

pleasure is every increase of power, displeasure every
feeling of not being able to resist or dominate . .
Opposites, obstacles are needed; therefore, relatively,
encroaching units . . . The measure of failure and fa-
tality must grow with the resistance a force seeks to
master; and as a force can expend itself only on what
resists it, there is necessarily an ingredient of dig-
pleasure in every action. But this displeasure acts
as a lure of life and strengthens the will to power.
(III, 693 and 694, p. 369)

It is not the satisfaction of the will that causes
pleasure... but rather the will's forward thrust and
again and again becoming master over that which stands
in its way. The feeling of pleasure lies precisely in
the dissatisfaction of the will, in the fact that the
will is never satisfied unless it has opponents and
resistance. . . . dissatisfaction, instead of making
one disgusted with life, is the great stimulus to life.

(III, 696 and 697, p. 370)

23ghe Will to Power, pp. 370-71.

0n the Nature of Pleasure and Pain by Count Verri:
"The only moving principle of man is pain. Pain precedes
every pleasure. Pleasure is not a positive state. "

According to Unamuno "S610 es divino lo que sufre,"
(ST, 230) and so it follows logically that "El hombre es tan-
to mas hombre, esto es, tanto mas divino, cuanta mas capacidad
para el sufrimiento, o, mejor dicho, para la congoja, tiene."
(ST, 231)

In Amor y pedagog__ Avito Carrascal is aware of the
value of pain in the creation of consciousness of one 's own
Self, for when the child Apolodoro burns his finger in a can-
dle flame he says to Marina:

--Déjale que llore; es su primera lecci6n, 1a mas
honda. No 1a olvidara nunca, aunque la olvide. . .
Asi aprendera que el dedo es suyo, porque ese llanto
queria decir: mi dedo, iay., mi dedo. Y del mi al 1_
no hay mas que un paso, un solo paso hay del posesivo
a1 personal, paso que por el dolor se cumple. (335)

42

24Richard L. Predmore, "Tres cartas inéditas de Unamu-
no," Cuadernos de la Catedra Miguel de Unamuno, XIV- XV (1964-
65), oh- 5. LUnamuno' s answering letter is dated January 7,

1913.
25Again, Kierkegaard expresses a very similar idea:

Generally speaking, consciousness, i.e. consciousness
of self, is the decisive criterion of the self. The
more consciousness, the more self; the more conscious-
ness, the more will, and the more will the more self.
A man who has no will at all is no self; the more will
he has, the more consciousness of self he has also.

. . With every increase in the degree of conscious-
ness, and in proportion to that increase, the intensity
of despair increases: the more consciousness, the more
intense the despair. (The Sickness Unto Death, pp.
162 and 175)

26This coincides with an idea found in Nietzsche: "It
can be shown most clearly that every living thing does every-
thing it can not to preserve itself but to become more"(The
Will to Power, III, 688, p. 367), and also with Kierkegaard' s
belief that "the existent individual always feels himself to
be in becoming, with a task before him. It is a matter of
sustained effort." (Lucia S. Kegler, "Obermann in the Works
of Unamuno, " p. 31. Her source was: Jean Wahl, A Short His-
tor% §f Existentialism [New York: Philosophical Library, 1940],
p.

27This tendency is studied in Carlos Blanco Aguinaga' s
excellent book El Unamuno contemplativo (Mexico: Publicaciones
de la Nueva Revista de Filologla Hispanica, V, 1959). See Una-
muno 's essay- parable "La sima del secreto" (1911) for a good
example of the powerful attraction exercised by this mysterious
and irrational force.

Rollo May remarks on the popularity among contemporary
thinkers of this notion of negative-positive polarity:

The existence of maleness and femaleness, seen
ontologically, is one expression of this fundamental
polarity of all reality. The smallest molecular par-
ticle gets its dynamic movement from the fact that it
consists of a negative and positive charge, with ten-
sion--and therefore movement--between them. Using this
analogy of the molecular particles of matter and energy,
Alfred North Whitehead and Paul Tillich both believe
that reality has the ontological character of negative-
positive polarity. Whitehead and the many contemporary
thinkers for whom his work has become important see
reality not as consisting of substances in fixed states
but as a process of dynamic movement between polarities.
(Love and Will, p. 112)

43

28Blanco Aguinaga describes these two opposing forces
in E1 Unamuno contemplatLvo: "Dos hombres, pues, que no son
ya e1 del coraz6n y el de la cabeza, sino dos querencias con-
trarias del mismo 'coraz6n' que parece dividirse entre su vo-
luntad de querer estar por siempre (fuente de la agon1a y la
acci6n) y una oscura tendencia a dejarse ser, sin carne, ni
hueso, ni conciencia (esencia, eternidad, fuente de la paz).'
(34) Later, he remarks on the consistency of this dualism in
Unamuno's works: "Siempre el mismo dualismo y, siempre, este
Unamuno escoge alternativamente: unas veces lo que en estas
parejas de contrarios significa guerra, otras lo que significa
paz." (55) See also Blanco Aguinaga' s article "Interioridad
y exterioridad en Unamuno," Nueva Revista de Filologla Hispa—
nLca, VII (1953), 686- 701.

Unamuno speaks of this tendency in himself in "Conver-
saci6n primera" (La Naci6n, Buenos Aires: June 11,1910): "iAy
amigo. He ah1 mis dos grandes anhelos, e1 anhelo de acci6n y
el anhelo de reposo. Llevo dentro de m1, y supongo que a usted
1e ocurrira lo mismo, dos hombres, uno activo y otro contempla-
tivo, uno guerrero y otro pa01fico, uno enamorado de la agita-
ci6n y otro del sosiego." (Obras Completas III. p 373)

29Luis is the name of Apolodoro's maternal grandfather.
This is apparently a manifestation of that familial duty to
project the ancestral line into the future that several of
Unamuno's female characters will demonstrate, Carolina and
Aunt Tula being outstanding examples. Marina's name too is
significant. El may, the sea, is frequently a symbol in Una-
muno of those very characteristics that Marina seems to embody
in this novel. See, for example, what the sea means to Julio
Macedo in the drama Sombras de sueno; and also Blanco Aguina-
ga 's El Unamuno contemplativo, pp. 221- 51, where he discusses
the symbolic function of water in Unamuno's works.

30Marina' 's retreat into the world of dreams is repeat-

edly emphasized: "iQué mundo éste, Virgen Sant1sima.," she
says, "y recae en el sueno. . . . aQué mundo éste, Virgen San-
t1sima. —-y adéntrase aun mas en el sueno." (334)

31

The attraction of sleep is one of the constants in
the contemplative Unamuno.‘ Blanco Aguinaga notes:

la idea del sueno inconsciente, cuyo centro simb6lico
es el regazo de la madre, es una de las constantes de
su pensamiento y su sensibilidad no ag6nicos.~. . .
el concepto de la vida inconsciente y del sueno se
apoya, .con todo rigor e insistencia, en dos simbolos

basicos: 1a madre y ela agua. . . . Dormir, "vivir sin
saberlo", _wsonar inconscientemente" Desde Poesias

(1907) su primer libro de versos, hasta el Cancionero,
su ultimo, el tema del dormir sueno inconsciente es
una de las constantes obsesivas de la obra de Unamuno.
(El Unamuno contemplatiyg, pp. 136, 137 and 138)

an

32Both Nietzsche and Kierkegaard express similar ideas.
See, for example, The Will to Power III, 778, p. 408. Kierke-
gaard says, in The Sickness Unto Death, p. 148, that the "pos-
sibility of this sickness is man 's advantage over the beast”,
and yet it is also his greatest misfortune and misery.

33One might object to the use of the word positive to

describe the pole characterized by consciousness and spirit
and negative the inert and material pole, these terms being
in their very nature prejudicial. But Unamuno's preference
for any movement in the direction of increased consciousness
is quite obvious throughout most of his writings, moreover,
he maintains we assign value to these two directions: "Nuestro
apetito es eternizarnos, persistir, y llamamos bueno a cuanto
conspira a ese fin, y malo a cuanto tiende a amenguarnos o
destruirnos la conciencia." (ST, 255) Since it is a question

of all or nothing, the man of Will, in his struggle not to be
reduced to nothing, tends toward being A11: "Tendemos a serlo
todo, por ver en e110 e1 unico remedio para no reducirnos a
nada." (ST, 142)

3”The Will to Power, III, 656, p. 346: and 689, p. 367.

350bras Completas, ed. Manuel GarC1a Blanco, I (Madrid:
Escelicer, S. A., 1966): p. 1131.

Eleven years later he refers again to Rolph's theory
in part of a prologue he wrote for the Spanish edition of the
fiistoria Ilustrada de la Guerra by G. Hanotaux:

Ha sido un aleman, Rolph, el que en sus Biologischen
Probleme ha sostenido que no es la lucha por la exis-
tencia, the struggle for life, del ingles Darwin, el
motor de la evoluci6n, sino 1a superfluidad, e1 exceso
de vida, der Ueberfluss. Cada especie crece mientras
e1 animal toma mas alimento que el que necesita para
conservarse, y por ello evoluciona. Segun Darwin, e1
aumento en crecimiento exige aumento de a1imentaci6n:
segun Rolph, la lucha por la vida no es la lucha por
lo necesario, sino por el aumento: no una lucha defen-
siva, sino ofensiva. Y esta doctrina ha116 su culmina-
ci6n poética en Nietzsche.

Sin duda hay un gran fondo de verdad en esto. Una
personalidad no se desarrolla y as1 se conserva--pues
en ella no expansionarse y ampliarse es recojerse y
menguar--sino invadiendo a otras a expensas de ellas.
Ahora, cabe que las formas de invasi6n sean diversas.
(Obra§Comp1eta§, VIII, p. 1052)

’ 36B1anco Aguinaga notes, in his article "Aspectos dia-
lecticos . . .," p. 56, that the first book of the 01d Testa-
ment, which so frequently served as a source for Unamuno' s art,
is dominated by hatred and war, often between brothers or
other closely related pairs. If we add to this influence the
effects on Unamuno of the fratricidal Carlist War which he

45

experienced as a child and which serves as the foundation of
his first novel, significantly entitled Paz en la guerra, it
begins to become clear that there was a constant reinforce-
ment for him of the agressive nature of the relationship be-
tween men--of the idea of constant warfare, even in times of
peace, in a world composed either of vencedores in this con-
tinuous struggle or of vencidos. We might also add that his
readings in Hegel, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, and other thinkers
popular in his time, would have influenced him in the same
direction.

In an essay entitled "Sobre 1a europeizaci6n" Unamuno
states: "E1 unico modo de relacionarse en vivo con otro es el
modo agresivo . . . La honda vida moral es una vida de agre-
si6n. . . . Cada cual debe procurar hacer a los demas a su
imagen y semejanza, como dicen que a su imagen y semejanza nos
hizo Dios." (Obras Completas, III, p. 936)

37This "creative love" and Will are intimately inter-
related, a relationship inherent in the fact that both are
constituted by the tragic sense of death and that both "des-
cribe a person in the process of reaching out, moving toward
the world, seeking to affect others or the inanimate world,
and opening himself to be affected, molding, forming, relat-
ing to the world or requiring that it relate to him." (May,
pp. 29- -30) Love and Will are the two forces which push toward
the positive and creative pole, their Opposite element is apa-
thy--a_pathos, the withdrawal of feeling.

38Carmen Valderrey, "El problema del amor en los ensa-
yos de Unamuno," Arbor, 325 (1973), p. 60.

39Ibid., p. 57.

uOLove and compassion are the basis of Unamuno's moral
system and the answer to "the tragic sense of life." In Del
sentimiento tragico he says:

Es el amor . . . lo mas tragico que en el mundo y en
la vida hay . . . es el amor consuelo en el descon-
suelo, es la unica medicina contra la muerte, siendo
como es de ella hermana. . . . los hombres s6lo se
aman con amor espiritual cuando han sufrido juntos un
mismo dolor. . . . Porque amar es compadecer, y si a
los cuerpos les une e1 goce uneles a las almas la pena.
. . . La compasi6n es, pues, 1a esencia del amor que
no es puramente animal, del amor, en fin, de una per-
sona rac1onal. El amor compadece, y compadece mas
cuanto mas ama. (187- 90)

Carmen Valderrey interprets his concepts on compassion
and love in the following way:

Esta experiencia de no ser lo que deseo, de no ser
nada, hace brotar en mi esp1ritu un profundo senti-
miento de compasi6n hacia mi mismo, compasi6n que

46

engendra, a su vez, un movimiento de amor a la propia
miseria. "El alma misma, aqué es sino amor, dolor en-
carnado?", dice a su perro Augusto Perez, el heroe de
Niebla. Conciencia de s1, compasi6n y amor son una
misma cosa. Cuanto mas conscientes somos de nuestra
nada, mas nos compadecemos de nuestra indigencia y mas
nos amamos. . . . Esta experiencia, que parece llevar
a un puro egoismo, es, parad6jicamente, la condici6n
del amor a los otros. En efecto, mi condici6n misera—
ble me hace salir de m1 mismo para buscar en "lo otro"
la plenitud que ans1o. Pero dolorosamente compruebo
que todos los seres que me rodean, desde las cosas in-
animadas hasta los hombres, mis hermanos, padecen del
mismo mal; ellos tambien son "nada" en el fondo de s1
mismos. Y porque son indigentes como yo, los compadez-
co y los amo. . . . El amor a si mismo, cuando es au-
téntico, lejos de cerrarnos egoisticamente, nos abre
a los que padecen de nuestro mismo mal y nos une a
ellog.) ("El problema del amor. . . .," pp. 56-7 and

1

This idea is further developed in Valderrey' s article and ar-
rives eventually at an amor cosmico and the discovery of the
Conciencia del Universo which, personalized, is what we call

41
42

May, p. 106.
Ibid.

CHAPTER II
THE AWAKENING 0F AWARENESS AND
THE CREATION OF THE SELF

The first step in the process of Self creation is the
awakening of awareness, followed by the struggle to increase
consciousness or being and to affirm that being. It is this
creation of the Self that is the principal concern of the
first novels of Unamuno: Paz en¥;a_guer§§ (1897), Amor y peda—
gggia (1902), and Niebla (1914). This process is a struggle
fraught with pain, frustration, and dangers of all kinds.

The two characters who seem to be of primary impor-
tance in Paz en la guerra, Ignacio and Pachico, quite effec-
tively represent the extremes of being. The former will never
become truly aware of his being, whereas Pachico, through me-
ditation, suffering, and fear of death, all brought on by the
loss of his boyhood faith, becomes acutely conscious of his
unique Self and in the end agressively sets out to fight the
battles of this world. ‘These two characters are fictional
incarnations of the duality seen throughout the works of Una-
muno and reflected in the title of this novel, of the two
extremes, with Peace and Unconsciousness at one pole and Aware-
ness and Warfare at the other.

Rarely has Paz en la guerra been seen as the beginning

of Unamuno's fundamental ideological trajectory, the first

47

48

novelistic manifestation of the most basic ideas he will
faithfully develop in all his later novels. It is usually
seen rather as a false start, a work that bears little or no
relation to his more mature works. This, however, is true

only superficially.l The structure and technique are some-
what different, perhaps, being more similar to the traditional
realist novels popular in the period. But in fact, one can

see born here ideas that will be central to all his novels,

and I refer most specifically to the creation of being and

to a contrast between what has been termed "inauthentic" and
"authentic" being;2 that is, to being that has little aware-
ness of Self and to being that has great awareness of Self.

In the former case the person lives in almost a somnambulistic
state, in dreams and memories, and as the instrument of exte-
rior forces. To be a thing, an object, utilized by forces
outside one's consciousness is one of the attributes of "in-
authentic" being, and many of the characters of the novel are
of this type. Pedro Antonio and Ignacio are especially good
examples. At the other end of the spectrum are those who are
the utilizers, the creative men, who have great inner strength
and who act upon others. The most important example is Pachico
Zabalbide, who has gone deeply within himself and is profoundly
sensitive to his own unique being. This gives him an awareness
and a strength which the others seem to lack. He appears to
stand outside the flow of things, apart and alone, but self-
contained, uninfluenced by the external forces which move the
others along. He is subject rather than object, and by the

end of the novel he is prepared to act upon the world rather

49

than allow it to act upon him. In the others their being
simply is, but in Pachico his being is a constant becoming as
his consciousness of Self increases. We see in Pachico that
self-awareness and strength of character are closely related,
the latter growing out of the former, for self-awareness makes
one resistant to influences outside one's consciousness.

Both Pedro Antonio and his son Ignacio are examples
of being that is static. They are tools of forces outside
themselves: of other individuals, and of their historic mo-
ment. They are like blocks of floating matter carried along
by currents over which they exercise no control and of which.
indeed, they are unaware. On the very first pages of the novel
we see this in Pedro Antonio Iturriondo. At a very young age
he was taken to Bilbao to be taught a profession by a maternal
uncle who profoundly influences him in his political opinions
and from whom "sac6 Pedro Antonio lo poco que sabia de la
naci6n en que la suerte le puso, y 61 se dejaba vivir" (93)
--and "he let himself live," that is, he surrendered himself
to life. His marriage to Josefa Ignacia, who is the embodi-
ment of serene calm and of sweet and defuse happiness, and
his enlistment in the Carlist cause, with the seven epic years
of war that follow, are decisions that are not his own but
rather the Will of his uncle.3 When the war is over he settles
down to his profession with Josefa Ignacia and to a monotonous
and dreamlike existence of memories; his one guiding ideal,
which he repeatedly invokes, is pgage.

En la monotonia de su vida gozaba Pedro Antonio

de la novedad de cada minuto, del deleite de hacer
todos los d1as las mismas cosas, y de la plenitud de

50

su limitaci6n. . . . Fluia su existencia como corriente
de rio manso, con rumor no oido y de que no se daria
cuenta hasta que se interrumpiera. . . . de nada sentia
falta. (95)

Pedro Antonio feels himself to be fulfilled, feels
pleasure in the completeness of his limitations, and he needs
nothing more in his life. Josefa Ignacia, on the other hand,
and typically of Unamuno's women, feels the need of a child
and for years she prays daily for one until finally, late in
life, she gives birth to Ignacio.

It is at this point that Pedro Antonio begins to re-
semble a type of character that Unamuno will develop more
fully in later novels. Among others, he resembles Avito Ca-
rrascal of Amor y pedagogia, for he shows little affection
for the child,” and he proposes to educate his son according
to a rigid set of preconceived ideas with the help of his
cousin Pascual, who is a priest. The boy is raised on the
stories of the martyrs and the legends of the Crusades with
its pious knights and warrior-priests, and these first years
of his life "modelaron el lecho del espiritu virgen de Ignacio,
y las impresiones en ellos recibidas fueron mas tarde el alma
de su alma." (99)

During this period Uncle Pascual, for the influence
he exercises over the family and the interest he takes in
Ignacio's education and the formation of his personality, re-
sembles Aunt Tula, one of Unamuno’s most ingenious creatures:
"Absorto su animo por el cuidado de su sobrino, procuraba pre-
servarle el espiritu de toda mancha, y forrarle de algod6n el

santo almacén de las creencias salvadoras. . . . A los sermones

51

morales del tio sucedian no pocas veces las narraciones de
los siete afios, contadas por su padre." (10“) It is not sur-
prising that the result is a young man whose mind is filled
with the beliefs and prejudices of his uncle and father, and
whose active imagination recreates the heroic exploits of
great warriors who died for God and king.

Aquel mundo de violento claroscuro, lleno de sombras

que no paran un momento, mas vivo cuanto mas vago,

descend1a silencioso y confuso, como una niebla, a

reposar en el lecho de su esp1ritu para tomar en éste

carne de suenos, e iba enterrandose en su alma sin 61

darse de ello cuenta. (10?)

Later, there is a period in Ignacio's youth when he
regularly takes part in orgies of eating and sex. Both, of
course, are profoundly related to anxieties concerning life,
procreation, and death, and appear more than once in Unamuno's
works in this context. Ignacio seems here on the verge of an
awareness of his existence which until now has been absent.

It is also here that an interesting point is touched upon that
will be of great importance in Unamuno's later novels and which
has already been discussed in Chapter I; that is, the indivi-
dual who is healthy in body and spirit is not Unamuno's ideal,
for to be healthy is to be unconscious of the pain of true
being.5 He describes Ignacio’s condition in the following

way:

Asi como, sano de cuerpo, no hab1a sentido hasta
entonces los latidos del coraz6n, tampoco sano de es-
piritu, hab1a sentido jamas las palpitaciones de la
conciencia; mas ahora despertabanle dolorosamente unos
y otras. Hab1a vivido sin sentir la vida, con el co-
raz6n abierto a1 aire y a la luz del cielo, pero ahora

no se dorm1a en cuanto se acostaba,quemaban1e las sa-
banas a las veces. (112)

52

He had lived without feeling life, but now, for the
first time, he feels the beating of his heart and the palpi-
tations of the consciousness that is painfully awakening in
his breast. His father, mother, and uncle, however, take im-
mediate and effective steps to combat this unhealthy behavior
and to adormecer this "sickness” within him:

Entonces tom6 e1 tio Pascual a su sobrino de su

cuenta, 11ev6lo consigo de paseo alguna que otra vez
para mejor aleccionarle. Quer1ale cuanto él pod1a
querer segun 1a carne, per9 sobre todo se empenaba en
formar sus ideas, considerandole como a materia de
educaci6n. Las ideas, lazo social, eran a sus ojos
todo; jamas 1e ocurri6 mirar a un hombre por mas aden-
tro. . . . Reprend1a a su sobrino los pecados carnales
con razones de prudencia humana, a la vez que se es-
forzaba por confirmarle en la fe de sus padres. (113)

This priest of fixed ideas preached to him of how
Carlism was "affirmation” while liberalism promised all men
would be kings, just as the infernal serpent promised our
first parents they would be like gods, and he instilled in
his nephew his own contempt for the Liberals who he deemed
stubborn, ignorant and cowardly. He was so successful in his
efforts to stir his spirit, in fact, that Ignacio began a
period of intense religious ostentation; but he had not for—
gotten completely the path of sin, for from time to time he
would return to the brothel at night to satiate the flesh.
Afterward, he would rationalize his weakness by saying:
"—-Puedo ser un calavera, hasta un perdido si quieres, sin
dejar de ser cat6lico... Soy de carne y hueso, pero la fe..."
(114)

It is significant that Ignacio does not finish this

last phrase because this is the choice he is being given,

53

between faith and the flesh. It is well known, and clearly
stated in Del sentimiento traglgg, that Unamuno's whole philo-
sophy, the very purpose of philosophy for him, is to deal with
the existence of the man of flesh and bone. The man of flesh
and bone, who feels pain and desire, is the man with whom
Unamuno is concerned in all his works, not with the man of
faith, for this latter does not exist in a real sense; his
very faith blinds and numbs him to awareness of life, for it
takes away the pain that makes man know he is and the desire
that makes him struggle to affirm and increase his unique be-
ing. One suspects for a moment here that perhaps one should
rather follow the dictates of the flesh, listen to the promises
of that infernal serpent as did our first parents, desire to
be like gods and suffer the consequences of that desire. This
is the path upon which mankind has been set from the beginning
and Unamuno will constantly return to the story of Adam and

to the Book of Genesis in search of metaphors appropriate to
describe his view of man. He seems to be telling us that to
know himself truly man must rebel against God, he must first
seek to be man and then to be more. He must suffer the pain
and insecurity of "agonic" faith, for to believe blindly, or
to disbelieve blindly for that matter, is to live in the mist
of sleep and non-being.

In any case, Ignacio is never in any real danger of
losing his "health," the faith, Carlist and Catholic, so care-
fully instilled in him: "La carne de Ignacio, amodorrada en el
pecado, no hostigaba a1 espiritu, dejéndole dormir virgen en

su fe." (114)6 In the end, no doubt is left as to the firmness

59

and completeness of his faith: "La fe de Ignacio se confirmaba.
No entendia de filosofias ni enredos, no se metia en honduras
jamas: habianle presentado cerrado el libro de los siete sellos,
y sin abrirlo, crey6 en 61.” (115) When the Second Carlist

War begins Ignacio, influenced by the teachings he has received,
joins the Carlist cause as his father did before him, and he

is killed in the battle of Sommorrostro.

The third important figure in this novel is Pachico
Zabalbide who, orphaned at seven years of age, was also taken
in and raised by a maternal uncle, don Joaquin, a wealthy,
unmarried ex-seminarist who takes great pride in affecting a
serious attitude toward religion, and whose.time is taken up
with his devotions and other matters. Consequently, he spends
little time with his nephew, his influence being mainly reli-
gious. Pachico is somewhat sickly as a boy and very timid
and sensitive, which causes him to turn within himself "y des-
plegar su voluntad hacia dentro, ardiendo en deseos de saberlo
todo." (126) He would listen attentively to his uncle, satu-
rating himself in the seriousness of official faith, and upon
entering young manhood he passed through a period of infantile
mysticism and of voracious intellectual curiosity. He felt
a strong desire to become a saint, and his spiritual exercises
leave a deep impression on him, especially stories of the ap-
pearance of the devil (the Coco infant11 that repeatedly appears
in Unamuno's fiction and seems to be the childhood metaphor
which parallels the adult awareness of the existence of death).
His desire for knowledge is insatiable and he reads all the

books in his uncle's library.

55

Sobre los libros de aquella pobre biblioteca son6
mil vaguedades abstractas, y exalt6 su imaginaci6n con
la lectura de Chateaubriand y de 10s demas devagadores
del catolicismo romantico. Empenabase en racionalizar
su fe, iba a los sermones, y se hizo razonador del d9g-
ma y desdenador, como su tio de esas gentes que repi-
ten "creo cuanto cree y ensena la Santa Madre Iglesia, "
ignorantes de lo que ésta enSena y cree.

Sus anos de bachillerato hab1anle llenado la mente
de f6rmulas muertas bajo las cuales vislumbraba un mun-
do, que le producia sed de ciencia. . . . (126- 27)

In 1866, at the age of eighteen, he is sent off to
study in Madrid. This is the period when Krausism, Hegel,
rationalism and positivism are at their height. At first
he continues to go to Mass every day but, influenced by the
tumult of new ideas, he abandons this custom as meaningless.
It is only by speaking to him of his mother that his uncle
is able to return him briefly to his old faith. He begins
to live within himself and, disenchanted with faddish ideas,
he turns to the ancient and eternal and is tormented by the
terrible mystery of time.

Tales reflexiones 1e llevaban en la oscuridad solita-
ria de la noche a la emoci6n de la muerte, emoci6n
viva que le hac1a temblar a la idea del momento, en
que 1e cojiera e1 sueno, aplanado ante e1 pensamiento
de que un d1a habria de dormirse para no despertar.
Era un terror loco a la nada, a hallarse solo en el
tiempo vacio, terror lOC9 que sacudiendole el coraz6n
en palpitaci9nes, 1e ha01a sonar que, falto de aire,
ahogando, ca1a continuamente y sin des9anso en el va-
c1o eterno, con terrible caida. Aterrabale men9s que
la nada el infierno, que era en 61 representaci6n
muerta y fria, mas representaci6n de vida al fin y al
cabo. (128) 7

Related to this preoccupation with his own unique
being is Pachico's need to be loved and understood by every-
one, his concern about "how he was reflected in the minds of
others.” (129) On the other hand, he refuses to be a part

of any group, to be defined by any policy or doctrine; he

56

was neither Carlist nor Liberal, nor Royalist nor Republican:
"5Y0? 5Y0 con mote como si fuese un insecto seco y hueco, cla-
vado en una caja de etimologia, y con una etiqueta que diga:
genero tal, especie tal...?" When asked what he is, he res-
ponds: ;Yo? Francisco Zabalbide. No te ofendas, s6lo los
tontos pueden pensar todos del mismo modo, y suscribir el mismo
programa..." (129-30) As a consequence he stands apart, unin-
volved in the lives of others or in historical movements. He
is introspective and self-contained. Rather than feel himself
a part of something greater, he feels himself a unique being,
separate from otherness, and he is much more aware of that
uniqueness and has defined the limits of his being much more
so than any of the other characters.

The conflict in this novel takes place on two levels.
On the historical and social level it is a description, pat-
terned somewhat after the Epgsgdigs nacignaleg of Pérez Gald6s,
of the Second Carlist War and the bombardment of Bilbao that
the author witnessed as a boy. On the psychological and spi-
ritual level it is a description of the varied ways man experi-
ences his existence. In both cases it is a search for "peace"
through victory, the suggestion being that this desired peace
can only be attained by struggle. However, it is clear that
it is the second, psychological and spiritual, level that
really interests Unamuno most, and it is this intimate strug-
gle of the soul which comes more and more to predominate in
this work and to be the outstanding center of attention in all
his later novels. This interest is best expressed here in a

statement made in reference to Uncle Joaquin: "La verdad era

57

que su vida interior era variadisima, que jamas se aburria en
ella. Todo aquello de la guerra, de que los demas se preocu-
paban, aqué era junto a1 combate intimo de un alma.... de su
alma?" (263)

We see this interest also in Pachico, who is fascinated
by observing how card players in the casino reveal their most
intimate selves.

Cada uno de los concurrentes a aquel cafetin tenia

su caracter propio, insustitu1b1e, como cada hijo de
vecino, y Pachico se entretenia en observarlos produ-
cirse tales cuales eran, en sus interminables discu-
siones acerca de las jugadas. Cambiando cartas en la
lucha del juego del tute, alimentaban sus espiritus,
y ahondaban su modo peculiar de ser. Renian a las
veces violentamente, se ponian como trapo viejo por
una jugada, para volver luego a barajar las cartas y
continuar jugando. . . . Atraianle a Pachico las dis-
cusiones aquel1as de viva voz 3y tan viva. entre hom-
bres para el vivos y de carne y hueso, entre hombres
que dejaban asomar en ellas sus almas. . . . (264)

This appears to be a clever metaphor for struggle in
the game of life in which each man not only reveals his unique
character, but by which they also "feed their spirit" and "go
deeper into their own peculiar being." It is a necessary in-
teraction and confrontation with others in which each one af-
firms and strengthens his own nature; and Pachico much prefers
these discussions "de viva voz" in which souls are revealed to
the dry notices in a few lines in a newspaper. Unamuno too
prefers to reveal souls than to tell stories.

Only Pachico faces and feels the full and terrible
truth of death. Pachico's Uncle Joaquin, though like his neph-

ew in his tendency to introspection, is a mystic, and though

the idea of death is constantly with him it is kept at

58

an "invisible distance," and his only fear is that he may lose
salvation through some unknown sin. Most of the other charac-
ters also keep death at arm's length and only on rare occasions
do they unwillingly allow it to penetrate their consciousness,
and then they only feel a vague discomfort and usually reject
it at once. It takes Pedro Antonio a very long time, for ex—
ample, to come to accept the reality of his son's death, which
he thinks of rather as a material loss to himself. They all
have learned to use some protective device to ward off any real
awareness of being.

At the end of the story Pachico, unlike later prota-
gonists, does find peace through doubting his own doubt, see-
ing it as illusion and mere spectacle. At those unexpected
moments When the fear of darkness comes upon him he prays the
prayers of his childhood and he feels his soul become quiet
and the calling forth of the nebulous world that lives in the
dark depths of the unconscious. (265-66) In the final scene
Pachico's solution to the tragic sense is rather a retreat
than a victory, a return to childlike faith and a less con-
scious state. Though he sees warfare in everything, not only
between men and within the soul, but in nature as well, he
comes to believe that there is actually an alliance between
victor and vanquished, and that out of this struggle new life

8

is born. Everything becomes fused into an immense and serene

panorama:

luego, adormiladas por la callada sinfonia del ambito
solemne, se le acallan y aquietan las ideas; los cui-
dados se le borran . . . Esponjado en el amb1to y el
aire, enajenado de si, le gana una resignacion honda.

59

[y 61, ] libertado de la conciencia del lugar y
del tiempo . . . goza de paz verdadera, de una como
vida de la muerte. (300)

Ultimately all the major characters of this novel
resign themselves to their fate and are rewarded with inward
peace. In Pachico's case, however, this "contemplaci6n serena
1e da resignaci6n trascendente y eterna, madre de la irresig-
naci6n temporal," and he, who had until now remained uninvolved
in things outside himself, goes out into the world "decidido a
provocar en los demas e1 descontento. . . ." (301) Pachico,
interestingly enough, becomes the exact inversion of the pro-
tagonist of one of Unamuno's last novels, for don Manuel of
San Manue1TBueno, martir never finds inward peace as Pachico
does, and yet his goal in life is to bring peace and content—
ment to the lives of others. It is an inversion, yes, but the
basic concepts involved remain the same: peace, submission and
resignation on one side and spiritual anxiety, rebellion and

struggle on the other.

Much of what is central to Unamuno's next novel, Amp;
ypedagogia, is a further develOpment of ideas previously ex-
pressed in Paz en la guerra and in a short story entitled
"El diamante de Villasola," first published in Madrid 06migg
on April 9, 1898, and later included in the collection Espejo
de lagmuerte. In a Pr6logo-Epilogo" to the second edition of
this novel, which Unamuno added many years later in 1934, he
says

En esta nove1a que ahora vuelvo a prologar esta en

germen --y mas que en germen-- lo mas y lo mejor de
lo que he revelado después en mis otras novelas.

6O

. . . Y es que en ella acerté, mas que en otra alguna,
a descubrir el fondo de la produccion poetica, de la
producci6n de leyendas. (312) 9

Here we will see that just as Pedro Antonio and Uncle
Pascual set out to educate Ignacio to be a defender of Carlist
and Catholic ideals, an education which obstructs Ignacio's
natural instincts and the develOpment within him of his own
unique being, so Avito Carrascal and Fulgencio Entrambosmares
will attempt to create a genius through amateur eugenics and
"sociological pedagogy." Tragically, their efforts also will
lead, in the end, to the boy's death.

At the very beginning of Amor yepedagogia Unamuno em-
ploys a symbol he will use again many years later in La tia
2913, the metaphor of the bee hive. Avito Carrascal, an en-
thusiast of progress and lover of sociology, having corrected
by reflexion all instinct and made everything about himself
scientific--though he is constantly plagued by a contradiction
within himself revealed by an inner voice--believes that just
as man has made the gods in his image and likeness, he, Avito,
will come to make geniuses by means of sociological pedagogy.
He then proceeds to introduce, in the way of an example, the
metaphor of the bees who select any egg at random and by means
of special treatment and diet, "mediante una acertada pedago-
gia abejil,” create the new queen bee. (317-18) This is more
or less what he too prOposes to do, to create scientifically
a genius out of his own son, who he will name Apolodoro after
the ancient god of reason and science. Moreover, he proposes
to be both father and educator, and in this way to transcend

both time and space through flesh of his flesh and spirit of

61

his spirit.10

He then sets off to look for the appropriate
woman to give him the living material from which he can form
his genius.

Unfortunately, the inner conflict with which Avito
will struggle throughout the novel, the struggle to suppress
that instinctual being within, his antagonistic other Self,
will repeatedly surface and sabotage his best laid plans--
this devil within he calls 91 Inconscignte.ll It interferes
with his selection of a mate, for example, and he marries not
Leoncia, who he has chosen deductively as the correct female,
but the dark and mysterious Marina, "sueno hecho carne, con
algo de viviente arbusto en su encarnadura y de arbusto reves-
tido de fragantes flores, surgiendo esplendorosa de entre los
fuegos del instinto, cual retama en un volcan." (322) He un-
derstands and clearly describes the conflicting extremes that
are acting against each other here, but he seriously underes—
timates the power of instinct, of inert unconscious matter,
which Marina symbolizes for him, and overestimates the power
of science and reason. He, the embodiment of science and art,
is determined to be the Epgma that gives shape to the genius
created out of amorphous Materia, the raw material that is
Marina. This is Avito's ideal, the expression of his guerer
s93. Ultimately, however, he is always unable to resist the
call of instinct.

It is the fundamental biological difference between
men and women that determines, in most cases, the direction
the need to produce an gbga takes in the protagonists of Una-

muno's novels. All women fulfill themselves through the

62

experience of maternity, by creating living being within them-
selves. This is a godlike power denied men, for which they
try to compensate in many ways. Man sublimates this need to
"give birth" by creating works. Woman's basic function is to
give birth to living being, man's is to give birth to children
of the spirit. When these basic needs in man and woman are
frustrated, the individual suffers anxiety and may even become
psychoneurotic. This seems to be what happens to many of Una-
muno's major characters.

When his son is born, Avito, like Pedro Antonio, will
show little affection for him. He will not kiss him or allow
Marina to, because he feels love and pedagogy to be incompati-
ble and because love is the most powerful of those instinctual

12 This is why Avito

passions against which he is struggling.
sacrifices love for the sake of the genius he would create:
el amor y la raz6n se excluyen... Padre y maestro no
puede ser; nadie puede ser maestro de sus hijos, nadie
puede ser padre de sus discipulos; los maestros debe-
rian ser celibes, neutros ma9 bi9n, y dedicar a padrear
a los mas aptos para ello; si, si, hombre cuyo solo
oficio fuera hacer hijos que educarian otros, dar la
primera materia educativa, la masa pedagogizable... (398)
A very interesting idea is developing here, though
examples appeared already in Paz en la guerra. Unamuno's
great teachers, the successful ones, who give form to the raw
material provided by others, will not only be childless but
frequently celibate, and they often show both masculine and
feminine characteristics: they are varones matriarcales like
Don Manuel, or mujeres varoniles like Aunt Tula. Love is the
major creative force, but those for whom love is impossible,

unproductive, or objectionable, resort to alternatives; if

63
unable to create children of the flesh they will create chil—
dren of the spirit. It is clear that in all of them, moreover,
this act of creation is an expression of the fundamental need
to prolong themselves in time and extend themselves in space,
to be more.

The focus of the novel soon switches from the father
to the son. Though, at first, Apolodoro seems to prefer liv-
ing in a dreamlike state, his sudden confrontation with love
and death open his eyes to the reality of being. Love is
awakened in the breast of Apolodoro by Clarita, the daughter
of his drawing instructor: "y brota en 61 un nuevo hombre."
(367) And along with this awakening of love inherited ances-
tral voices begin to speak to him of eternity and infinitude,
of the mysterious reality that surrounds and envelops the
theater of life; "Y Apolodoro siente de noche, en la cama,
como si se le hinchase el cuerpo todo y fuera creciendo y en-
sanchandose y llenandolo todo, y, a la vez, que se le alejan
los horizontes del alma y le hinche un ambiente infinito.

. . . Revélasele la eternidad en el amor." (370)

It is soon after this awakening of love that he comes
face to face with death, in the form of a suicide floating in
the waters of the river. He remembers the lullaby that his
mother used to sing to him ("Duerme que viene el Coco"), and
he wonders why this man killed himself. His friend Federico
answers that it must have been someone who hated death, be-
cause those gloomy lovers of death sensually enjoy the wait
for it, and hold death off as long as possible to increase

the pleasure of it. (371-72) In Del sentimiento tragico

64

Unamuno explains suicide saying: "A la mayor parte de los que
se dan a si mismos la muerte . . . es el ansia suprema de la
vida, de mas vida, de prolongar y perpetuar la vida, lo que
a la muerte les lleva, una vez persuadidos de la vanidad de
su ansia." (135)13 Suicide in Unamuno's fictional world, as
he frequently demonstrates, is usually a positive act and
occurs as an expression of free will. The taking of his own
life is the ultimate act a man can make as an assertion of
his potency when faced with the insupportable anxiety of
being a slave to forces outside himself and of living on in
the face of a death coming no one knows when. Something of
this nature will happen to Apolodoro.

In a state of desperation after the failure of the
novel he has written and after losing his Clarita to a rival,
Apolodoro goes to his tutor, Fulgencio Entrambosmares, and
says: "entre usted y mi padre me han hecho un desgraciado,
muy desgraciado; zyo me quiero morir! . . . ac6mo soy, sino
como ustedes me han hecho?" (383) Apolodoro has not been his
own man, moreover, he has been wounded in his desire for fame
and in his desire for love, both springing from the desire
for immortality, and he will only gain added despair from his
tutor.

To prepare him for the advice he will give, Fulgencio
tells him about Herostratus, who burned the temple of Ephesius
in order to acquire undying fame. Then, taking him by the
hand, he says:

no creemos ya en la inmortalidad del alma y la muerte
nos aterra, nos-aterra a todos, a todos nos acongoja

65

y amarga el coraz9n la perspectiva de la nada de ul-
tratumba, del vacio eterno. Comprendemos todo lo
lugubre, lo espantosamente lugubre de esta funebre
procesion de sombra9, que van de la nada a la nada, y
que todo esto pasara como un sueno, como un sueno Apo-
lodoro, como un sueno, como sombra de un sueno. y Que
una noche te dormiras para n9 volver a despertar. nunca,
nunca, nunca, y que ni tendras el consuelo de saber lo
que alli haya... Y los que te digan que esto no les pre-
ocupa nada, o mienten 0 son unos estupidos, unas almas
de corcho, unos desgraciados que no viven, porque vivir
es anhelar la vida eterna, Apolodoro. (383)

Since man no longer believes in the immortality of the soul,

he continues, he dreams of leaving behind a name, so that

other men will remember and talk of him.
--5Qué soy yo? Un hombre que tiene conciencia de que
vive, que se manda vivir y que no se deja vivir, un
hombre que qui9re vivir, Apolodoro, vivir, vivir. Yo
tengo resignaci6n y no voluntad de vivir; y me resigno
a morir p9rque qu1ero viv1r; no, no m9 resigno a morir,
no me resigno... 3y mor1re. . . . Aqui me tienes, medi-
tando en la eternidad dia y noche, en la inasequib1e
eternidad, y sin hijos.... sin hijos, Apolodoro, sin
hijos... (389)

Fulgencio expresses the fervent desire of all suffer-
ing humanity, of all Unamuno's heroes of desire, the impossi-
ble solution to our finitude, when he exclaims: "aSer diosest,
iser dioses3, aser diosest, aser inmortales'" He speaks of
faith; that he who has robust, absolute and unquestioning
faith, without even a spark of doubt, will not die. "Mas gay
de 61 si tiene un solo momento, por fugaz que sea, de duda3,"
he adds, "gay de 61 si en las ansias mismas de la agonia deja
que le pase sombra de duda de que no ha de morir}, gay de 61
si llega a decirse: 'gY si me muriera?’ Porque entonces esta
perdido, muerto!" (384)

But Fulgencio himself does not and cannot have faith

in his immortality. This absolute saving faith is only a

NI

66

desperate joke he has invented, he tells Apolodoro, just as
is his elaboration of the law of conservation by which every-
thing that enters our senses is conserved in our subconscious
--our parents also, and theirs, in an unending series. We
carry our parents inside us and our children shall carry us,
he says, and those who have no children must reproduce them-
selves another way, in their works, for example, which are
their children. But the surest way to attain some measure of
immortality is to have children of the flesh: "Ten hijos, haz
hijos, Apolodoro," Fulgencio advises. Ultimately though, these
are nothing but desperate dreams of immortality, substitutes
for the real thing. What Fulgencio, and Unamuno, really want
is a material immortality, 99 29139: "Vivir yo, yo, yo, yo,
yo," as the good professor exclaims. (385)

Upon leaving Fulgencio's office Apolodoro has already
decided to kill himself: "Soy un genio abortado; el que no
cumple su fin debe dimitir..." (385) But first some form of
immortality must be assured, so he leaves behind a child in
the maid Petra. He also considers writing another book, this
time on the need to die when we are denied love; after which,
he says to himself: "me mataré, por no dejarme morir..." (386)

Apolodoro's reasons for suicide are clearly stated.
He was not loved, nor allowed to be himself, but was rather
the creation of "sociological pedagogY"; he was what his fa-
ther and professor had made him. He is totally frustrated,
and has not even become the genius he was programmed to be:

"no sirvo para nada. zTodo han querido convertirmelo en

67

sustancia, sin dejar nada al accidente! Hasta cuando me deja-
ban por mi propia cuenta era por sistema." (394) He now has
the choice of continuing to be a slave of external forces or
he can exert his Will in the only way left to him, he can "re-
sign"--dimitir--from life.1”
The pain of his decision to kill himself does not last
long. His mother and the dark forces of the death instinct
she represents still act strongly on him, and so he actually
finds some satisfaction in the fact that Clarita has left him,
giving him an excuse to resign from life, "como es su secreto
anhelo." (391) When his young sister Rosa dies, both the
thirst for immortality and the attraction of death are increas-
ed; and when Marina says to him: "Yo quiero morirme, Luis...,
gno quieres tu morirte?", he hears from invisible space a far
away voice singing the haunting lullaby of his childhood that

w

lures him toward the unconscious: "Duerme . . . que viene e1
0000-" (393)

Apolodoro's last thoughts are of love, of Clara who
will produce men of flesh and bone out of love and not pedago-
gy: "El genio nace y no se hace, y nace de un abrazo mas inti-
mo, mas amoroso, mas hondo que los demés, nace de un puro
momento de amor, de amor puro. . . ." (394) This is how Apo-
lodoro ends, and the novel itself will end with the words:

"El amor habia vencido." Love had avenged itself, it had
conquered because it had been denied. In one way or another,
love will be involved in all Unamuno's suicides.

When Avito discovers his son's body he feels great

spiritual distress and he is submerged in emptiness. Marina,

68

the now childless mother, becomes his refuge:
se levanta la Materia, y yéndose a la Forma le coge de
la cabeza, se la aprieta entre las manos convulsas, 1e
besa en la ya ardorosa frente y le grita desde el co-
raz6n: iHijo mic! ’
--;Madre! --gimio de9de sus honduras insondables
el pobre pedagogo, y cayo desfallecido en brazos de

la mujer. (395)

This is not an unusual occurence in Unamuno's works.
He was greatly impressed by the motherly embrace and heart-
felt "ihijo mic!" of his wife Concha in his own moments of
crisis. When, in his public life as rector of the University
of Salamanca, essayist and political activist or in his inti-
mate struggle with faith and mortality, he lost heart and
wanted only to return to the warmth, comfort and security of
his mother's breast, Concha would be there, and for a time he
could be the innocent and pure child he had left behind.15
This desire to return to a less conscious state, which is such
apowerfully attractive force on man as has already been de-
nmnistrated, will even cause some of Unamuno's male characters
130‘become the child-substitute for a woman of strong Will who
hats either failed to give birth or has lost her children.
Suflih.is the case in the play Soledad, for example, and also
in-'the story of Raquel. In fact, the maternal drive on one
halld.and the desire to return to the security of childhood on
thfié other may explain, to a large extent, the unusual rela-

tiOnships between many of the men and women in the works of

Unamuno .

As indicated above, Amor y pedagogia was not Unamuno's

first elaboration of the power of pedagogy. In the earlier

69

mentioned short story, "El diamante de Villasola," which pre-
dates Amor ypedagogia by several years, the maestro of the
town discovers a promising young man-~an "iHermoso conejillo
de Indias para experiencias pedag6gicas! aExcelente materia
pedagogizable!" (498)--and he feels the joy of a lapidary into
whose hands has fallen a beautiful raw diamond. Here again
Unamuno's choice of metaphor is very fortunate, and the con-
cept of the scientific man giving form to inert raw material
instantly brings Avito and Apolodoro to mind.

There is no doubt that this teacher of Villasola is
a man of science because we are told that "science for the
sake of science" is his motto; beneath this motto, however,
there is another, more basic, formula which reveals his true
motive: "La ciencia para mi solaz y proprio progreso." (498)
His work upon the youth, then, is not really for science but
for "his own progress," his end being the world's admiration
Q? his skill and power in producing such a beautiful and per-
feC‘t stone. The boy himself is submissive to the manipulations
0f ‘the lapidary, and the world does marvel, in fact, as first
one; brilliant facet and then another is revealed. The diamond,
however, is so rare and beautiful, and the lapidary so proud
of 1118 creation, that he hesitates to mount it, aspiring rather
thert it should be a solitaire; and the result is that the boy
is zalienated from others and is both unloved and unable to
love. When, finally, the young man is sent off to the court
he :is much admired, though still not loved:

Maravill6 a1 punto a cuantos se le acercaron; pero

last1mados por su9 aristas, tenian que dejarlo.
Pasearonle de sal6n en sal6n dandole mil vueltas

70

para admirar sus reflejos todos; pero nadie le qu9ria
si no era para montarle en un anillo y 61 se queria

libre, sin engaste. (499)

The turning point comes, as it does in Apolodoro's
case, when he meets, courts, and is rejected by the young
woman he feels would be a suitable mate. Afterward he suffers
a similar crisis: "Aquella misma noche mordia 1a almohada, sin-
tiéndose a solas y a oscuras mero pedrusco, seco y frio." He
begins to lose some of his brilliance and he notices for the
first time, and envies, the humble carbones around him, with
whom he had disdained to associate but who do not merely give
off a reflected sparkle like himself, but rather a light of
their own--"luz de su carne y de su sangre, con dolor si, pero
con amor tambien. . . ." (499) In the end only his essential
and.most intimate characteristic is 1eft--his dureza, and he
spends his lonely days in the cafés bitterly attacking the
r“eputations of others with his harsh, dry, hard and grating
eloquence.

Interestingly, the lesson taught in these two works
seENmS to have been learned in the next one that deals with
thee theme. In 1903, only a year after the publication of Amp;
Mllaedagogia, Unamuno wrote another short story, "El maestro de
Calirasqueda," in which pedagogy, in combination with love,
tr'i'umphs. The lesson the maestro don Casiano teaches his
Stnldents is to obey the heart: "Discurrid con el coraz6n, hi-
305: mics, que ve muy claro. . . .," (809) he was accustomed
1“) say to them. However, one student in particular, Ramonete
QLIejana, demonstrates special talent and so the maestro di-

reCts his lessons to him.

71
It is not only Ramonete, nevertheless, who is being
formed and manipulated by this apparently humble and self-
effacing maestro, because by means of his teachings he also
molds the new spirit of the town of Carrasqueda. Don Casiano
is yet another of those frequent Unamunesque heroes who has no
children of the flesh, "pero tenia a Ramonete, y en 61 a1 pue-
blo, a Carrasqueda todo." "Yo te haré hombre," he would tell
the boy, "'tfi déjate querer.‘ . . . Y fue el maestro traspa-
sandole las ambiciones y altos anhelos, que, sin saber c6mo,
iban adormeciéndosele en el coraz6n." (810) He even comes to
influence the entire nation through his talented student and
to become famous "por el célebre estribillo de Ram6n, estri-
billo que apenas falta en ninguno de los discursos; aquello
que 'Decia una vez mi maestro...'" (811)
Don Casiano is successful in his experiment where

AVito Carrascal and the maestro of Villasola were not, and
(Wily one significant ingredient has been added--love. He is,
irl fact, an early prototype, alike in most of the essential
Characteristics, of Unamuno's last and greatest hero, Don
MEJIuel Bueno. Don Casiano's "He derramado mi espiritu en
Carrasqueda . . . Carrasqueda es mi mundo," for example, is
Very similar to Don Manuel's "Yo debo vivir para mi pueblo,
InOr'ir para mi pueblo." Like Don Manuel, this teacher of
Carrasqueda has successfully created his o_b;a_, successful be-
ca-use it was an 92;; 99.9m9r. Its creation was his objective
arua purpose in life, and so when don Ram6n asks him why he
C1(Des not write, he answers: "aEscribir yo? iObra t6, Ramonete!

jMe he enterrado en vosotros, en vosotros, en mis discipulos."(8ll)

72
Death, as always, is not far off, for it is the fact

of imminent death that gives meaning to these tales. So we
are not surprised that don Casiano, like all Unamuno's great-
est heroes and heroines, will die, just as the fertile seed
must die in order to produce its fruit: "Si e1 grano de trigo
no cae en la tierra y muere, 61 S610 queda; mas si muriere,
lleva mucho fruto." (812) On his deathbed don Casiano says
to his protégé:

Mira, Ramonete: nada muere, todo ba'a del rio del

tiempo al mar de la eternidad y alll queda... e1 uni-

verso es un vasto fonograf9 y una vasta placa en que

qgeda todo sonido que muri9 y toda figura que pa9o;

solo hace falta la conmocion que los vgelva un d1a...

Las v09es perdidas y muertas resusitaran un dia y

formaran coro, un coro inmenso que llene el infinito...

(812)
And then the maestro is silent forever, and two tears from
the living eyes of the disciple fall into the dead eyes of
“file teacher, which are fixed on eternity. It is this final

mmphasis on infinity and eternity that reveals don Casiano's

mos t intimate secret .

Before discussing Unamuno's next novel the signifi-
Callce and influence of Cervantes' masterpiece on his thought
anti art should be mentioned. Constant reference is made to
the; Quijote throughout his works and one of his most important
eSSays is based on it. This essay, Eda de Don Qu_ijote y
§§£19h2, was published only nine years before N1991a (1914),
axfii among the several references made to Don Quixote and Cer-
Valltes in the prologues to the novel he says: "Y creo por mi

Parte que Don Quijote me ha revelado intimos secretos suyos

73

que no revel6 a Cervantes. . . ." (552) Niebla was the first
novel written after his study of the Quijote, and it is not
by chance that its protagonist, Augusto Perez, is the best
example in Unamuno's fiction of the man who struggles to create,
define and affirm his own being. There are interesting paral—
lels between this character and Don Quixote, parallels which
Unamuno was clearly aware of since he compares the two in the
prologue to his third edition of the essay. An investigation
of the similarities between them may help to clarify Unamuno's
concept of the discovery and creation of the Self and to illus-
trate the subject of this chapter.

In his essay Unamuno asks what it truly means to exist.
He partially answers the question by saying that those who
really and truly exist "sufririan de existir y no se contenta-
rian con ello. Si realmente y verdaderamente existieran en el
tiempo y en el espacio, sufririan de no ser en lo eterno y lo
infinito." (52) Then, he gives the following advice: "Procura
vivir en continuo vértigo pasional, dominado por una pasi6n
cualquiera. S610 los apasionados llevan a cabo obras verda-
deramente duraderas y fecundas." (58) This advice is an im—
portant key to the understanding of Unamuno's heroes.

Augusto's'obsessive concern throughout the novel is,
in fact, whether or not he truly exists. He "suffers his ex-
istence," that is, he is profoundly pained whenever he feels
himself to be a mere fictional entity, or whenever something
occurs to him that seems to reduce his quantity of being.
He constantly struggles to define and affirm his being, and

he realizes that to become dominated by a strong passion is

74

the way. He therefore makes a valiant attempt to fall in love,
but unfortunately he only manages an "amor de cabeza" and never
a profoundly felt love from the heart. So here again is anoth-
er of those Unamunesque heroes who is too cerebral and who ul-
timately fails because he is unable to love truly. He is in-
deed, as Victor Goti says, a little Hamlet, who thinks far too
much, but is never quite able to act.

In his relationship with Eugenia he is playing a role,
and not very well at that. Augusto does not really love her,
but is rather attempting to prove something to himself and to
the world, to prove that his being has value and substance.

In the end, however, he is literally and figuratively "belit-
tled" by the girl and her boyfriend; in desperation he decides
that the only way to prove his existence is real is to put an
end to it by his own hand, his reasoning being, apparently,
that what does not exist a priori as independent being cannot
destroy itself. Suicide for Augusto would therefore be a
positive act, an affirmation proving once and for all that he
had truly existed. This is why for Unamuno the desire not to
be is regarded as one of the two positive desires of man, for
one cannot desire not to be without being, moreover, if he is
successful in ceasing to be he proves both the fact of his
existence and of his possession of free will. Unfortunately
for Augusto, however, this route becomes so confused and en-
shrouded in multiple possibilities by his meeting with Unamuno,
and the death scene itself is so lacking in clarity, that one
cannot be certain just what has happened. Was Augusto killed

by his author, did he commit suicide, or did he die of "natural"

75

causes as the doctor believes? The answer is of fundamental
importance, but it will be denied to us.

Both Don Quixote and Augusto Perez begin as "new" men,
that is, by more or less consciously creating a role to play
out on the stage of life: the role of errant knight in one
case and of suitor to Eugenia in the other. This gives an ob-
jective to their lives which was apparently lacking previously.
Both have a tendency to live within themselves and these roles
they have created bring them out, into contact with the world,
and give them a goal toward which to direct their thoughts and

16

actions. For both of them their point of reference is their
love, a love which creates within their fantasy its object.
Dulcinea is not Aldonza, but rather an idealized and fantastic
love object invented in the mind of Don Quixote, just as Augus-
to's Eugenia is not the real but the imagined one: "Mi Eugenia,
si, la mia . . . ésta que me estoy forjando a solas, y no la
otra, la de carne y hueso. . . ." (N, 561)17

They now have direction in their lives provided by
their love of an idealized and mostly imagined woman, and they
also have a model or pattern of behavior familiar to them and
easily recognizable to other men. An errant knight and a suit-
or are expected to act in very predictable ways, and Don Qui—
xote and Augusto do their best to behave appropriately. The
problem is, of course, that their imagined reality does not
coincide with the reality of everyone else, and the result is
necessarily frustration and eventual failure. In both novels

the protagonists set out to play their respective roles as

best they know how, and each suffers a series of clashes with

76

reality, in the form of reason and 93219, and in the end they
become disillusioned and "awaken from the dream of existence."
They are broken and destroyed by cruel reality and finally
"killed off" by their authors, but only after a valiant strug-
gle to be.

They set out on an adventurous journey, trusting to
fate to give them direction--Augusto waits for a dog to pass
by which he will follow and Don Quixote allows Rocinante to
choose the road he will take. The need for a faithful friend
to whom they can bare their souls soon becomes evident, and so
Sancho and Orfeo become the soundingboards against which they
direct their most intimate thoughts. At the end of their jour-
ney they come face to face with cruel reality, with Sans6n
Carrasco and with Miguel de Unamuno; they are forced to see
the truth, and this confrontation is the destruction of the
world they had created for themselves, the end of their dream,
and they both return home to die unhappy and disillusioned.

At the bottom of their adventure is the wish to dis-
tinguish themselves, to "make" something of themselves, which
is motivated by an even deeper sentiment, by the fear of death.
Both Don Quixote's constant emphasis on performing acts that
will assure his eternal glory, and Augusto's sudden fascination
with food and sex, are signs of this fear. Unfortunately, the
unwillingness of the general reading public to face up to this
basic fact of human existence often makes works that deal with
this concern unpopular. This is why, in his "Historia de
Niebla" written in 1935 for a new edition of the novel, Una-

muno talks of the difficulty of concluding the work because of

77

the public's resistance to the real problem: "no tolera que
se le saque de su sueno y se le sumerja en el suefio del sueno,
en la terrible conciencia de la conciencia, que es el congo-
joso problema. No quiere que le arranquen la ilusi6n de reali-
dad." (551) Most men are not truly awake to their reality,
they are dreaming the dream that is dream, for "$610 esta de
veras despierto el que tiene conciencia de estar sofiando, como
s6lo esta de veras cuerdo el que tiene conciencia de su locura."
(554)

Augusto is presented as the living example that Descar-

tes pr0position, "I think therefore I am," is insufficient.
Augusto thinks, he is very much a man of intellect, however,
unlike Don Quixote, he has little Will and is unable to feel
a powerful and real passion. This is why he continues to live
in a nebulous world, lacking the necessary power to give clari-
ty to his being: "No es la inteligencia, sino la voluntad, la
que nos hace el mundo," Unamuno says in his Vida de Don Quijote
y Sancho. (130) One cannot be or love without first experienc—
ing the desire to be or to love. Nihil cognitum guin praevoli-
tum: Nothing can be known without first being desired.

Primero el amor, el conocimiento después. . . . Y para

am9r algo, aQue basta? aVislumbrarlo! . . . la intui-

cion amorosa, la vislumbre en la niebla. Luego viene

el precisarse, la vision perfecta, el resolverse la

niebla en gotas de agua 0 en granizo, 0 en nieve, 0

en piedra. (N, 566)
Once the thing is desired, and then known, comes the job of
resolving the mist and of clarification and definition, of

actualizing it; this is where Augusto fails.

Augusto's mother had advised him to find a wife that

78

he might have another mother to care for him. It has already
been shown what the mother figure signifies in these novels:
whenever a man suffers the pains of living and the thought of
his own destruction, his woman envelops him in a motherly em-
brace and repeats the litany: ahijg gig, h1j2.m19! She is his
refuge when he wishes to be childlike in the warmth and protec-
tion of the mother's care, innocent again of the knowledge of
death. One of Augusto's first memories, in fact, is of the
death of his father and of the refuge he found in his mother's
arms from this dark mystery of the adult world: "[se apret6 a
su madre] sin atreverse a volver la cara ni a apartarla de la
dulce oscuridad de aquel regazo palpitante, por miedo a encon-
trarse con los ojos devoradores del Coco." (571)18 "L0 que
temo, hijo mic," his mother used to tell him, "es cuando te
encuentres con la primera espina en el camino de tu vida."
(572) And when he finally does encounter that first thorn his
mother is no longer there to enfold him in the sweet anesthe—
tic bliss of her love, and he must face the pain of it alone.
It is precisely at the moment of beginning to feel
this first pain and of thinking these thoughts when Augusto
discovers his "Sancho"; the orphaned puppy for whom he may
feel a special sympathy:
Unos débiles quejidos, como de un p9bre animal,
interrumpieron su soliloquio. Escudrin6 con los ojos
y acab6 por descubrir, entre la verdura de un matorral,
un pobre cachorrillo de perro que parecia buscar cami-
no en tierra. "iPobrecillo. --se "dijo--. Lo han de-
jado recien nacido a que muera...’ Y 10 recogi6.
El animalito buscaba e1 pecho de la madre. (573)

He calls the dog Orfeo, "no se sabe ni sabia él tampo-

co por qué." The reason, however, is easy to guess at.

79

Orpheus, as do Unamuno's heroes and heroines in a figurative
sense, descended into Hell and experienced a living death.
To Orfeo Augusto will speak of how others see him, about eter-
nity, death, nothingness, and about the saddest and sweetest
of all suffering-~that of living. When he arrives home after
his first interview with Eugenia he tells Orfeo that they have
begun a new life. He feels more vital, and he also feels a
desire to be more than he is: "5N0 sientes que el mundo es mas
grande, mas puro el aire y mas azul el cielo? zAh, cuando la
veas, Orfeo . . . sentiras la congoja de no ser mas que perro
como yo siento la de no ser mas que hombre." (578) It is this
love for a woman, which awakens the heroic desire to be more
in both Augusto and Alonso el Bueno, that Unamuno describes in
his essay: "del amor a mujer brota todo heroismo. Del amor a
mujer han brotado los mas fecundos y nobles ideales. . . ."
(DQ. 98)
It was seen earlier that love is rooted in the fear

of death and longing for eternity, "pues es en 61 [amor] donde
el instinto de perpetuaci6n vence y soyuga al de conservaci6n.

. Ansia de inmortalidad nos lleva a amar a la mujer, y
asi fue como Don Quijote junt6 en Dulcinea a la mujer y a la
Gloria, y ya que no pudiera perpetuarse por ella en hijo de
carne, busc6 eternizarse por ella en hazafias de espiritu."
(DQ, 98) There is another, Opposite, view of love, however,
that is seen again and again in the works of Unamuno; that is,
of love as a disguised form of the Will to Power. According
to Liduvina, for example, when a man really and truly falls

in love he is no longer a man but a thing, a little animal,

80

and the woman can do with him as she likes. Love is nothing
more than the expression of her power over him. Moreover, she
adds, a man in love does crazy things--a statement which causes
Augusto to admit that he has not done or said "tonterias de las
gordas" that would prove his love is real. (589) This need to
prove love by means of eccentric acts, it should be noted, also
occurs to Don Quixote, who goes off into the Sierra Morena to
"run mad," just as did Amadis and Orlando as signs of their
love.19
Augusto is concerned with proving that he is like other

men and feels the same passions as they: "hay quien me cree in-
capaz de enamorarme de veras3," (592) he tells Eugenia with
great agitation. He realizes that he has not yet felt the pas-
sion of true love, but he does not see that he lacks a powerful
Will as well. Besides, he is not one of those who would impose
his Will upon others but rather who would sacrifice himself to
their Will, which in fact is what he does with Eugenia, believ-
ing that a heroic act of self-sacrifice will prove his love is
of the heart and not just of the head. He does understand, at
least, that to feel deeply and passionately is to live. This
is certainly true in Don Quixote's case also, for of his love
for Dulcinea he says: "yo vivo y respiro en ella y tengo vida
y ser." (DQ, 128)

el la habia hecho en pura fe, 61 1a habia creado con

el fuego de su pasi6n; pero una vez creada, ella era

ella y de ella recibia su vida él. (DQ, 195)

In the beginning Augusto sees Eugenia as a conquest

to be made and speaks of winning or being defeated in the

struggle. Later, however, he is obviously on the defensive

81

because he cannot begin to compete with her strength of Will.
Moreover, this struggle with another Will has made him aware
not only of what it means to live, but also desperately aware
of what he could lose, of what it means to die. To Rosario he
says: "Esa mujer . . . me ha vuelto ciego a1 darme la vista,
y ahora vivo; pero ahora que vivo es cuando siento lo que es
morir. Tengo que defenderme de esa mujer." (595) He knows
that she is stronger than he, and that when confronted with
her powerful Will he is helpless: "Eres t6, que me traes y me
llevas y me haces dar vueltas como un argandillo . . . eres
t6, que haces que yo no sea yo..." (626) And when she comes
to visit him he thinks: "Viene a conquistarme, a jugar conmigo
como un mufieco . . . hay que mostrarse fuerte!" (625)20
Augusto is very sensitive to how others react to him.
When he is slighted or ignored or made fun of he feels it very
deeply, for it lessens him. His great fear in his relation-
ship with Eugenia, in fact, is that she is treating him as if

he were a "thing" rather than a real flesh and blood man; a

fear that turns out to be wholly justified. "Quiere jugar
conmigo," he says, "como si fuese un piano . . . un mufieco,
un ente. . . . aY yo tengo mi caracter, vaya si le tengo, yo
soy yo! Si, iyo soy yo! zYo soy yo! . . . zMi alma sera pe-

quefia, pero es mia!" (623) As usual, this exaltation of his
"yo" makes him feel as if it were swelling within him and
growing too large for the house. He goes out into the street
and joins the multitude, but there no one notices him or pays
him any attention at all, and he feels his "yo" becoming smal-

ler and smaller, retreating back into a little corner where

82

it cannot be seen. It is only when he is alone that he feels
himself and can convince himself that ";yo soy yo!" So he
goes to sit alone in a garden, but there overhears two small
boys playing make-believe, and thinks: "Asi jugamos tambien
los mayores. 3T6 no eres tu! {Yo no soy yo!" (624)21
This idea of the world as a stage reappears with some

frequency in these works. In one of his "monodialogos" with
Orfeo Augusto says:

No hacemos sino representar cada’uno su papel. aTodos

personas, todos caretas, todos comicos! Nadie sufre

ni goza lo que dice y expresa, y acaso cree que goza

y sufre; si no, no se podria vivir. En el fondo esta-

mos tan tranquilos. Como yo ahora aqui, representando
a solas mi comedia, hecho actor y espectador a la vez.

(619)

However, as Frances W. Weber notes in "Unamuno's Niebla: From
Novel to Dream," the performer needs more than simply to be
a spectator of himself in order to confirm his existence; he
also needs the collaboration of an audience, and "Augusto's
plight is that others either use or ignore him."22

ziodos caretas, mufiecos todos! This is a suspicion
more than once expressed in Unamuno's novels.23 Are our pas-
sions merely theatrics beneath which we are perfectly tranquil
and unfeeling? Are we merely puppets of a greater Will? We
are given no answer, but it appears that this constant intel-
lectualizing on the infinite possibilities of existence and
the resultant confusion and contradictions are what rob Augusto
of Will. He dissipates his vital energy rather than concen-
trating it on a single passion and toward a single objective.

He therefore lacks the intensity necessary to define himself

clearly, a fault he perhaps could have corrected by attention

83

to Paparrig6pulos' motto: "Todo lo que en extensi6n parece
ganarse, piérdese en intensidad. . . ." (N, 638 and 643)

The truth is that in his relationship with Eugenia,
Augusto sometimes seems to be an inherent victim, or even a
masochist: "fPégame, Eugenia, pégame, insfilteme, escupeme,"
he says to her, for example, when she has accused him of try-
ing to buy her love, "haz de mi lo que quieras!" (598)24 Or
perhaps it could be something quite different. Eugenia may
be right when she accuses him of playing a new role, that of
heroic victim, martyr. She does not understand that Augusto's
only purpose is to feel and to affirm his being. At this mo-
ment, however, he is again unsuccessful because in the highly
agitated state of intellectual and emotional confusion he now
finds himself he is unable to resist a slide back into the en-
veloping mists of the unconscious, and he dreams once more of
his childhood in that sweet warm house when he formed part of
his mother and lived under her protection.

Augusto seems to want two separate and mutually exclu-
sive things at once. 0n the one hand, he wants to be and to
have sharp awareness of being, which only comes through suf-
fering and passion: "Lo que yo necesito," he says, "es alma,
alma, alma. Y un alma de fuego. . . . El alma es un manantial
que s6lo se revela en lagrimas. Hasta que se llora de veras
no se sabe si se tiene o no alma." (604-05) Like Apolodoro,
on the other hand, he also wants to return to the comfort and
unconsciousness of the mother's breast. He seeks to fulfill

both these contradictory desires in his love for Eugenia.

84

Toward the end, a very interesting and revealing state-
ment is made by Augusto when he says that the head, the heart,
and the stomach are the three faculties of the soul that
others call intelligence, feeling, and Will: "Se piensa con la
cabeza, se siente con el coraz6n y se quiere con el est6mago."
(643) What is revealed here is that Will is synonymous with
appetite, and this is a very appropriate comparison for the
way in which Unamuno employs the term Will, or voluntad. It
is significant, therefore, that when Augusto becomes convinced
that his death is imminent he develops a strange and ravenous
hunger and begins to stuff himself with food: "Edo, ergo sum,"
he says with irony. He remembers reading of convicted crimi-
nals dedicating their last hours of life to eating, and he
concludes that it is the body's way of defending itself, of
demonstrating its furious appetite to be. (672)

In fact, the appearance of this sudden uncontrollable
appetite is apparently not uncommon in persons suffering frus-
tration and existential anguish. Rollo May reports a similar
case where a certain man called John found himself possessed
by intense terror: "doubting and doubting his doubts, and
doubting the doubting of his doubts. . . ." He was hospital-
ized and there made seventy-one attempts at suicide. When
asked why he made these repeated attempts, he gave two reasons:
the first was to relieve a feeling of guilt, and the second
was that he felt "to commit suicide was to live; the only act
of life left to him."

One day his doctor said to him, "you want to kill

yourself. Isn't there anything at all in life that
you want?" With great effort John mumbled, "Eat, to

85

eat." The doctor took him to the patients' cafeteria
and told him, "You may eat anything you want." John

immediately grabbed a large quantity of food and ate

in a ravenous manner. 25

Augusto's case parallels John's very closely. Augusto
demonstrates his desperate appetite to live, to be, precisely
at the moment he is about to die; and suicide for him also is
the only act of life left to him, for if he is successful he
will have taken his destiny into his own hands and proven de-
finitively that he was not entirely a manipulated puppet-—cre-
ated, moved, and destroyed by forces outside himself. In
other words, this is his "momento metadgamatico" as Fulgencio
Entrambosmares called it, the mysterious moment upon which his
entire destiny depends, the moment when he will attempt to in-
troduce his morcilla into the role his author has alloted to
him.

Before the act is done, however, Victor Goti suggests
another means of resolution to the problem of Augusto. He ex-
plains that it is said that in this world one must either de-
vour or be devoured, but that there is a third possibility,
and it is to devour oneself. One can either play the part of
the victor or of the vanquished, or one can choose to "resign"
from active participation in life. So, like Shiva, the Hindu
god of Destruction and Creation, Augusto is told to devour
himself: "y como el placer de devorarte se confundira y neutra-
lizara con el dolor de ser devorado, llegaras a la perfecta
ecuanimidad de espiritu, a la ataraxia; no serés sino un mero

espectéculo para ti mismo." (662)

Augusto's decision to commit suicide, as was Apolodoro's,

86

is the result of a continuously frustrated desire to be him-
self. This frustration is apparent throughout the story and
especially at the end of the interview with Unamuno. After-
ward, Augusto feels himself to be the victim of his author,
and in revenge suggests to him that he too "will not be him—
self," (670) will cease to be dreamed by God. Finally, when
his hunger for life leaves him physically and spiritually weak,
he retreats to his home and prepares to meet his fate. He as-
sociates this retreat to the home with his mother, and his in-
sistence on being stripped naked "like his mother bore him"
and being put to bed where he will sleep the eternal sleep,
suggests that this retreat is something more, that it repre-

sents a process of return to the prenatal state-~a desnacer.

(674)

A careful study of Unamuno's first three novels re-
veals that from the very beginning he was concerned with the
awakening of awareness and with the creation of being in the
individual. Also, there are certain basic similarities in
these works that accurately indicate the trajectory the author
is following, a trajectory to which he will remain faithful to
the end.

In the first chapter the nature of the dualistic view
of life that is the foundation of Unamuno's philosophy and
fiction was explored, and in these first three novels it is
seen that the struggle which characterizes the creative man,
the man who possesses awareness of being and therefore "au-

thentic" being, is always directed toward the goal of increase

llallf. . (Ill. 4"] Ill-Ii III! I II] I.

87

--of being, consciousness or awareness. Pachico, in Paz en la
guerra, is the prototype of this creative man and he is shown
struggling with his fear of death or nothingness and with the
intrahistoric forces of tradition and religion which seem to
move those about him in an effort to reconcile the opposing
forces within himself and to find inward peace. He is success-
ful, as no other of Unamuno's heroes will be after him, in
achieving this inward peace that results in outward conflict,
but only through surrender, by resigning himself to being part
of an ever-dying, ever-recreated universe. This solution,
however, seems not to have been acceptable to Unamuno, and he
will not repeat it, perhaps because his now famous crisis of
1897 occurred in the very year of publication of the novel.26
This would explain why his direction changes, why from then on
peace is not the goal or reward of inward struggle but rather
the danger that awaits the one who gives up the battle and re-
signs himself to his limitations. In the future this struggle
is a war fought against the peace that threatens to envelop
one and annihilate his unique personality. Never again will
resignation be the solution for the volitive heroes of Unamu-
no's novelesque world. They will be tragic heroes, destined
to struggle and suffer but never, one feels, to be truly ful-
filled.

Unamuno's subsequent novels also reflect a change in
focus that occurs first in Paz en la guerra. I refer to a fo-
cus on conflicts occurring on the psychological and spiritual
level rather than on the social and historical, to the combate

intimo 99 EB alma that so fascinates Uncle Joaquin. The

88

intimate reality of man, rather than his historical reality,
obviously concerns Unamuno more and more in this novel until
toward the end it becomes exclusive of all else. But also,
all the basic themes he will develop in his later novels are
to be found here: the dualistic view of the universe and of
the forces acting upon man, which the titles of the first two
novels reflect, as do the characters, Ignacio and Pachico in
Paz en la guerra and Apolodoro-Luis in Amor y pedagogia; the
preoccupation with human finitude and the fear of death or
nothingness; the absence of love; and the Will to Power as
seen in the urge to manipulate others. Paz en la guerra, in
fact, should more appropriately be considered a point of de-
parture for Unamuno's subsequent novels rather than shunted
aside or ignored as if it were merely a false start as has so
often been the case.

Both Amor y pedagogia and Niebla are born out of ideas
already present in Paz en la guerra. In the first of these
novels Unamuno further develops, and personalizes, the concept
of duality; embodying the opposing forces at work upon Apolo-
doro-Luis in his father Avito Carrascal, la Forma, and in his
mother Marina, 1a Materia. Avito and professor Fulgencio En-
trambosmares set out to create a genius, and they do so in a
much more conscious, and consequently "cold blooded," manner
than we see in Paz en lagguerra where Pedro Antonio and Uncle
Pascual impose their beliefs on Ignacio. The results, however,
are similar in both cases, for they obstruct the natural life
instincts of these young men and inhibit the development within

them of their own unique being. Their subjects are manipulated,

89

and as a result are in the end destroyed. The difference is
that Apolodoro rebels against this manipulation, and after a
futile and frustrating effort to create authentic being for
himself, he commits suicide.

Augusto Pérez, like Apolodoro before him, also awakens
to the awareness of his existential condition through a con-
frontation with love and death. They are both frustrated in
their desire to be more: Apolodoro sees himself as an aborted
genius, and Augusto's being is reduced to mist by the ridicule
and mocking of Eugenia and finally by the discovery that he
is no more than a fictional entity of Miguel de Unamuno. Nei-
ther of them was loved nor allowed to be himself, but was the
creation of others-~a creature rather than a creator--and this
is the condition against which each of them rebels. They both
have the choice of remaining slaves to external forces or of
exerting their Will in the only way left open to them--by com—
mitting suicide. Though they both choose the latter, it does
not seem in the end to be a pure act of Will, for the death
instinct is also exercising an influence over them, and in
Augusto's case his demise may rather respond entirely to the
Will of his author. But one should not expect, and will not
find, at least not after Paz en la guerra, clearcut or satis-
fying solutions to any of the existential problems Unamuno
presents in his novels because man's most intimate desire--
"38er, ser siempre, ser sin término! iSed de ser, de ser mas!"
(ST, 132)--is in large part unreachable.

This desire to be more than what one is, the ambition

for increase and immortality, is investigated by Unamuno in

90

his study of the Quijote, and in many respects Augusto Pérez'
struggle runs a parallel course. Unamuno sees Don Quixote as
the archetype of the creative man, who strives to raise him—
self to a superhuman level, and he will use Don Quixote, and
the Spanish mystics as well, as the inspirations for several
of his most powerful fictional creations. Both Don Quixote
and Augusto, for example, create for themselves a love object
toward which to direct their thoughts and actions. This gives
them needed focus and direction in their lives, but when they
are forced to see that the intimate reality that they have
created for themselves is an illusion, they are destroyed.
Augusto Perez fails in his struggle to clarify, define
and affirm his unique being; and he fails not because he does
not "suffer his existence" but mostly because he is not able
to live in that continuous vertigo pasional, dominado pg; 22%
pasi6n cualquiera (DQ, 58) that Unamuno so admired in Don Qui-
xote. In the novels that follow it will be seen, in fact,
that this is the direction Unamuno will now take, the next

logical step in his ideological trajectory.

FOOTNOTES

lUnamuno himself, as he states in the prologue to the
second edition of the novel (1923). saw the difference between
this and his later novels to be purely technical. Most of
Unam9no' s 9ritics, however, do not agree. See, for example,
Julian Marias, Miguel de Unamuno (Madrid: Espasa- Calpe, S. A.,
1950). pp- 88- 95

2W. D. Johnson, "Vida y ser en el pensamiento de Unamu-
no, " Cuadernos de la Catedra Miguel de Unamuno, VI (1956), 9-
50.

3The influence of his uncle is very evident as can be
seen in the following quote9 from a brief description of his
youth: "Aconseja9o por 9u tio . . . obedeciendo Pedro Antonio
al tio . . . decia e1 tio. . . . era la voluntad de su tio.
- - " (PG. 93- -4)

a
(PG. 99)

51n Del sentimiento tragico, pp. 119 and 121, we find
the following discussion of this idea:

"nunca 1e pas6 por las mientes besar a1 chiquitin."

el hombre, por ser hombre, por tener conciencia, es
ya, respecto a1 burro o a un cangrejo, un animal en-
fermo. La conciencia es una 9nfermedad. . . . Si eso
de la salud fuera una categoria abstracta, algo que en
rigor no se da, p9driamos decir que un hombre perfecta-
mente sano no seria ya un hombre, sino un animal irra-
cional. Irracional por falta de enfermedad alguna que
encendiera su raz6n. Y es una verdadera enfermedad,

y tragica, la que nos da e1 apetito de conocer por
gusto del conocimiento mismo, por el deleite de probar
de la fruta del arbol de la ciencia del bien y del mal.

6Life in the city disturbs Ignacio's faith, whereas,
the countryside and hikes through the mountains bring him
peace. This coincides with Unamuno's opinion that the cities
are the centers of progress, civilization, culture, science,
etc.—-a11 destructive to inner tranquillity. Only when in
close contact with "mother" nature does Ignacio feel at peace.

7Most of what is said here about Pachico's youth coin—
cides with Unamuno's biography and with what we know of his

91

92

loss of childhood faith. It is generally accepted that Pachico
is a fictional recreation of Unamuno at about the same age.

8Joseph Campbell discusses this ancient struggle to
produce new life in his Masks of the Gods, Occidental Mytholo-
gy (New York: The Vikingr Press, 1964}, p. 235:

this mythologY. based as it is on the mystery that in
old Egypt was known as "the Secret of the Two Partners,"
the slayer and his victim, though on the stage apparent-
ly in conflict, are behind the scenes of one mind--as
they are, too, it is well known, in the life-consuming,
life-redeeming, -creating, and -justifying dark mystery
of love.

9Leyenda for Unamuno often refers to an "other" that
is not our essential Self, but that has been imposed upon us
by other men (though we may also participate in its creation).
It is a mask we wear in society, a role we are expected to act
out. Unamuno develops this idea most fully in his story "Tu-
lio Montalban y Julio Macedo" and in his essay- -nove1 Como se
hace una novela. See Chapter III of this study.

It is Fulgencio who best expresses this feeling that
he is merely an actor playing out a predetermined script:
"Esto es una tragicomedia, amigo Avito. Representamos cada
uno nuestro papel; nos tiran de los hilos cuando creemos obrar

. . e1 Apuntador nos guia; e1 Tramoyista maquina todo esto."
(339) This is why he is obsessed with the idea of introducing
a morcilla into the play, one momentary act of free will that
will make him something more than just a puppet:

iPor la morcilla sobreviviremos los que sobrevivamos.
No hay en la vida toda de cada hombre mascnueun momento,
un solo momento de libertad, de verdadera libertad,
solo una vez en la vida se es libre de veras, y de ese
momento, de ese momento, aay., que si se va no vuelve,
como todos los demas momentos y como todos ellos se va,
de ese nuestro momento metadramatico, de esa hora mis-
teriosa depende nuestro destino todo. Y ante todo,
asabe usted Avito, lo que es la morcilla? . . . --Pues
morcilla se llama, amigo Carrascal, a lo que meten los
actores por su cuenta en sus recitales, a lo que anaden
a la obra del autor dramatico. iLa morcilla. Hay que
espiar su hora, prepararla, vigilarla, y cuando llega
meterla, meter nuestra morcilla, mas o menos larga, en
el recitado, y siga luego 1a funcion. Por esa morcilla
sobreviviremos, morcilla iay., “que tambien nos 1a sopla
a1 oido e1 gran Apuntador. (390

lo"Avito Carrascal . . . no solamente anhelaba sobre-
vivirse fisicamente, en un fruto de su propia carne, sino
tambien espiritualmente, en una mente moldeada con arreglo a
sus concepciones. . . ." Jose Miguel Azaola, "Las cinco bata-
11as de Unamuno contra la muerte," Cuadernos de la Catedra
Miguel de Unamuno, II (1951), p. 78.

93

11This conflict with "e1 Otro" within oneself is the
primary subject of several of Unamuno's works and figures in
many others. It is the root of what he calls the "problem of
personality."

12Since Avito and Marina represent opposite and con-
flicting ontological poles (as was shown in Chapter I) Marina
secretly subverts all Avito' s efforts to create a Hpure genius
by means of reason and science: "mientras su marido teoriza y
predica e1 estar despierto, Marina cobija a Apolodoro-Luis en
la paz del sueno cantandole canciones de cuna. " (Blanco Aguina—
ga, E1 Unamuno contemplativo, p. 197.

13Unamuno also says that suicide is the inevitable vi-
tal consequence of rationalism. (ST, 179)

lLhme mataré por no dejarme morir...." is a sentiment
that reveals the positive aspect of suicide. Earlier Apolo-
doro had been accused of being a slave to his circumstances.
(318) The message apparently is that one must rebel against
destiny or remain a slave to it. Unamuno has more to say on
the subject in the Epilogo to the novel:

Yo lancé hace algun tiempo e1 grito de imuera Don Qui-
jote3, y este grito hallo a1 una resonancia y quise
explicarlo diciendo que queria decir iViva Alonso e1
Bueno3 , esto es, que grite imuera el rebelde3, querien-
do decir aviva e1 esclavo3, pero ahora me arrepiento

de ello y declaro no haber comprendido ni sentido en-
tonces bien a Don Quijote, ni haber tenido en cuenta
que cuando éste muere es que tocan a muerto por Alonso
e1 Bueno. (409)

l5Sa1cedo, pp. 85-94.

l6Before Augusto meets Eugenia he is one of those
directionless "crepuscular" men--"no era un caminante, sino
un paseante de la vida" (557)--like the ones Unamuno describes
, in the prologue to Tres novelas ejemplares that "ni quieren
ser ni quieren no ser, sino que se dejan llevar y traer. . . ."

(975)

17There are moments when Augusto sounds very much like
the militant Don Quixote, for example when he says:

iLucharemos3 Militia est vita hominis super terram.
Ya tiene mi vida una finalidad: ya tengo una conquista
que llevar a cabo. 30h Eugenia, mi Eugenia, has de
ser mia3 {For 10 menos, mi Eugenia; esta que me he
forjado sobre la vision fugitiva de aquellos ojos, de
aquella punta de estrellas en mi nebulosa; esta Euge-
nia si ha de ser mia; sea la otra, la de la portera,
de quien fuere3 iLucharemos3 Lucharemos y vencere
Tengo e1 secreto de la Victoria. (563)

94

Man's purpose in life is to struggle--to be and to be
more--, this is why all Unamuno' 5 creative heroes and heroines
are characterized by this militancy. In respect to this there
is an interesting story entitled "Juan Manso" (E1 Nervi6n, Bil-
bao, May 22,1892), which is included in E1 espe 0 de la muerte.
The protagonist of the story has been as meek and gentle in
life as his name would indicate, but when he dies he is not al-
lowed into the Kingdom of Heaven. Juan reminds God that the
Kingdom was promised to the meek, and God replies: "--Si: pero
a los que embisten, no a los embolados." (II, 504) He is sent
back to the world to try again and when admitted to Heaven af-
ter his second death the words eternally on his lips are: "iMi-
licia es la vida del hombre sobre la tierra!"

18All women represent a maternal refuge to Augusto.
For example, upon seeing and following an attractive woman in
the street he thinks: "aQué dulzura debe de ser olvidarse de
la vida y de la muerte entre sus brazos! iDejarse brezar en
ellos como en olas de carne3" (586)

 

19"It is very possible that a mature, reciprocated

love . . . might have redeemed Augusto from his alienation,
as it did in the case of Alejandro G6mez. . . . Reciprocated
love . . . it can be demonstrated, often confers a new concep-

tion of self to one who has never had a sense of identity."
John F. Tull, Jr., "Alienation, Psychological and Metaphysical,
in Three 'Nivolas' of Unamuno," Humanities Association Bulle-
tin, 21, i (1970), 29.

20Geoffrey Ribbans, "The Development of Unamuno' s Amor
y pedagogia and Niebla," Hispanic Studies in Honour of I Gon-
zalez Llubera (Oxford: Dolphin Book Co. , 1956). P- 275. notes
some important similarities between Clara of Amor ygpedagogia
and Eugenia. They both become a motivating force which helps
to orient their novios; moreover "Clara clearly anticipates
the more subtle Eugenia in her calculating attitude. and both
accept the ineffectual heroes as novios for their own purposes.

Eugenia is one of those dominating and possessive wo-
men that abound 1n Unamuno' s works. She says of Mauricio, for
exam 1e: "Sera mio, mio, y cuanto mas de mi dependa, mas mio.
(608 Later, Mauricio confesses the truth of his relationship
to her: "no soy quien la ha conquistado, sino ella quien me ha
conquistado a mi. . . . Esa mujer queria absorberme. " (611)

21Later the butler, Domingo, tells Augusto that every-
one likes to play a role, and nobody is who he is, but rather
who others make him. (630) This is another reference to the
leyenda that so concerned Fulgencio Entrambosmares and will
be the subject of several of Unamuno's works.

22Publications of the Modern Language Association
LXXXVIII (March, 1973). 212.

95

23See also the "iMunecos todos3" of Aunt Tula (La tia
Tula. II. p 1105)

24Freud suggests that masochism is a form of the death
instinct and an indication of regression. ("Beyond the Pleasure
Principle," pp. 54-5)

25May, pp. 190-91.

May's source was: Sylvano Arieti, "Volition and Value:
A Study Based on Catatonic Schizophrenia," delivered at the
mid-winter meeting of the Academy of Psychoanalysis, December,
1960, and published in Comprehensive Psychiatr j, II/2, (April,
1961), 77 By permission of Grune & Stratton, Inc.

26Salcedo, pp. 88-90.

For effects of the crisis see Armando F. Zubizarreta,
Tras las hugllas de Unamuno (Madrid: Taurus, 1960). He is one
of the few critics who has recognized the similarity of Paz en
la guerra to Unamuno's later novels:

Con cierto atrevimiento se podria llegar a afirmar
que casi todas las palabras que don Miguel emplea para
aludir a1 caracter de sus novelas posteriores son per-
fectamente aplicables, si se observa con cuidado, a Paz
en lagguerra. E1 problema de la personalidad--si uno
es el que es y si seguira siendo el que es--aparece,
creo . . . en su novela Paz en la guerra. (51- 52)

He is also in agreement with what has been said here about the
possible impact of the crisis of 1897: "Esa cierta paz de re-
signacion a la muerte iba a ser quebrada definitivamente por
el impacto de la experiencia religiosa de 1897. " (107) Zubi-
zarreta further discusses the crisis and its effects on Unamu-
no 's literary production in Unamuno eni su nivola (Madrid: Tau-
rus, 1960), pp. 262-

CHAPTER III
THE AFFIRMATION OF THE SELF AND THE MANIPULATION OF OTHERS

The protagonists in the works to be studied in this
chapter have personalities that are very well defined, they
are sensitive and highly conscious of Self, and their strug-
gle goes beyond anything seen in earlier characters because
they are no longer concerned with the creation of Self but
with the affirmation of Self and with its increase. Moreover,
the problem of the relation between the Self and others has
been reduced by Unamuno to the confrontation between the Self
and the Other; the collective aspect apparent in his first
novel, Paz en la guerra, has been eliminated. The heroes and
heroines of these works are frequently the "monsters of voli-
tion" previously referred to, who are characterized by some
great passion or obsession which focuses and motivates their
invincible Will, by their radical solitude and seeming inabi-
lity to feel compassion, and by the creation of what they
desire through the manipulation of situations and of others.
Some of them bring to mind Nietzsche's barbarians: "a species
of conquering and ruling natures in search of material to

mold."1

The subtitle of Abel Sanchez, una historia de pasion

(1917) is very significant at this juncture in Unamuno's

96

97

trajectory because for the first time we have a protagonist,
Joaquin Monegro, whose being is clearly defined by his having
.become completely obsessed with one single overriding passion:
the envy of his best friend Abel, which has become his inti-

2 This envy, in its turn, is the outward mani-

mate reality.
festation of a desperate desire to be more; it is the fountain
from which Joaquin's creative energy springs, and Unamuno will
emphasize the creative value of this passion throughout the
novel.3

The contrast between Augusto Perez, the protagonist
of Unamuno's previous novel published only three years prior
to Abel_§anchez, and Joaquin Monegro is truly remarkable.
Augusto's salient characteristics are his constant equivoca-
tion and vacillation and the fuzzy vagueness which causes him
to be constantly concerned with whether or not, at any given
moment, he really exists and which makes Unamuno's frequent
use of the metaphor niebla and its variants most appropriate
in his case. On the other hand, Joaquin's personality is
almost frighteningly vivid and can be accurately described
in a single word--envy--his cold and crystal clear hatred of
Abel. The very center of Joaquin's being, like the center of
Dante's Inferno, is made of ice. And here again Unamuno's
choice of metaphor is very felicitous, for only ice has the
cold, hard and clear quality that so well represents the mon-
strous passion that dominates and becomes the primary sub-

stance of Joaquin's being:

senti como si el alma toda se me helase. Y el hielo
me apretaba el corazon. Eran como llamas de hielo.

98

Me costaba respirar. El odio a Helena, y, sobre todo,

a Abel, porque era odio, odio frio cuyas raices me

llenaban el animo, se me habia empedernido. No era

una mala planta, era un témpano que se me habia cla-

vado en el alma; era, mas bien, mi alma toda congela-

da en aquel odio. Y un hielo tan cristalino, que lo

veia todo a través con una claridad perfecta. (699)

Joaquin's envy of Abel had been growing since their

childhood, but the moment finally comes when it dominates his
entire being and he is "born into the inferno" of his life.
When he learns his friend and Helena, the beautiful but cruel
woman who rejects him in favor of Abel, plan to be married
he begins to hate him with all his soul "y a proponerme a la
vez ocultar ese odio, abonarlo, criarlo, cuidarlo en lo re-
condito de las entrafias de mi alma." (697) Joaquin, unlike
Augusto Perez, does not need to go out in search of a passion
by which he can affirm and clarify his being, for he already
possesses that passion in his envy of Abel. This is why
Joaquin does not give the impression of needing Helena and
her love as proof of his existence as Augusto does with Euge-
nia."P In fact, by throwing Helena and Abel alone together
and insisting that they speak to each other with the familiar
tfi, Joaquin himself has created the situation in which his
envy will grow and become crystalized. Under the circumstances
he must surely have guessed what the result might be.5 But
like Augusto, he seems to have chosen a part for himself, in
this case the part of Gain, the archetype of the envious fra-
tricide; and he will play it out to the end, carefully culti-
vating the hatred he feels for Abel. He will constantly add

fuel to the fires of this passion, it being easier, as Unamuno

99

says, "al fuego hallar combustible que al combustible fuego."
(ST, 280)

Joaquin has now become what Kierkegaard called the
"demoniac" despairer,6 who, determined to be himself and hav-
ing stumbled upon some fundamental defect in himself, directs
his whole passion precisely upon this torment, "which at last
becomes a demonic rage."

Even if at this point God in heaven and all his angels
were to offer to help him out of it -—no, now he does-
n't want it, now it is too late, he once would have
given everything to be rid of this torment but was
made to wait, now it's all past, now he would rather
rage against everything, he, the one man in the whole
of existence who is the most unjustly treated, to whom
it is especially important to have his torment at hand,
important that no one should take it from him-- for 7
thus he can convince himself that he is in the right.
All Unamuno's monsters of Will may be said to be "demoniac"
in this respect--for having concentrated all their energy
upon a single facet of their being.

In this powerful story, obviously based upon the bib-
lical story of Cain and Abel,8 Joaquin's envy is presented as
neither typical nor petty. Abel himself, knowing that his
friend is being eaten up inside by this passion, recognizes
that this Cain-like envy is not that of the ordinary man:

"La envidia de Cain," he says, "era algo mas grande." (721)

And Unamuno too, in his prologue to the second edition, says
much the same thing: "al fin la envidia que yo traté de mos-
trar en el alma de mi Joaquin Monegro es una envidia trégica,
una envidia que se defiende, una envidia que podria llamarse

angelica." He even admits to a certain admiration for Joa-

quin: "he sentido la grandeza de la pasion de mi Joaquin

lOO

Monegro y cuan superior es, moralmente, a todos los Abeles.
No es Cain lo malo; lo malo son los cainitas. Y los abelitas."
(686)9

Fortunately, Unamuno clarifies the nature of this type
of envy in his essay Del sentimiento tragico, where he talks
of "esa tremenda lucha por singularizarse, por sobrevivir de
algun modo en la memoria de los otros y los venideros, esa
lucha mil veces mas terrible que la lucha por la vida." (140)

Tremenda pasion esa de que nuestra memoria sobre-

viva por encima del olvido de los demas si es posible.
De ella arranca la envidia, a la que se debe, segun e1
relato biblico, e1 crimen que abrio la historia humana:
e1 asesinato de Abel por su hermano Cain. No fue lucha
por pan, fue lucha por sobrevivir en Dios, en la memoria
divina. La envidia es mil veces mas terrible que el
hambre, porque es hambre espiritual. (142)

It is this spiritual hunger, this struggle to immor-
talize oneself in the divine memory, that is the root of the
"tremendous passion" of Joaquin Monegro. Even on his death-
bed he will express concern that God will forget him. (758)
Consequently, no success is great enough to satiate him; his
Will-to-Be demands superiority, and he reveals this need in
his Confe§i6n where he writes: "sofiaba en superar a todos los
demas." (713) It is a yearning for renown and a thirst for
recognition and glory that are, as Unamuno says in the Kid;
de Don Quijote y Sancho, "en el fondo, e1 miedo a oscurecerse,
a desaparecer, a dejar de ser . . . el terror a la nada." (193)

In the biblical version of the story God, for some
unclear and seemingly unjust reason, gives all his favor to

Abel and rejects the sacrificial offering of Cain. Abel is

hated and envied then because he enjoys the recognition of

 

101

God and a "closeness" to God that is denied to Gain. However,
the manner in which Unamuno's novel unfolds would indicate

that there is something more, that Joaquin covets more than

just recognition and immortality but also the divine attri-
butes themselves: power over men, and the power to create and

to immortalize. Abel Sanchez, because of his winning person-
ality and his skill and fame as a painter, possesses these
god-like qualities, and it is this that Joaquin envies in him.10

Abel and Joaquin had been raised together from early
childhood and it was soon apparent in their games and friend-
ships that though Joaquin, the more willfull of the two, seemed
to dominate and initiate everything, it was Abel who, appear-
ing to yield, always got his way in the end, who was admired
and followed by their mutual friends. (689) Furthermore, the
worst of it was that while Joaquin had to struggle in order to
distinguish himself Abel's skill and fame came to him effort-
lessly and almost unconsciously. The injustice of it infuriates
Joaquin.

Abel has a natural artistic talent and becomes a
painter, winning fame and glory and immortalizing the subjects
he paints with his creative skill. Joaquin, on the other hand,
becomes a medical doctor, and a very successful one, but he
continues to feel himself inferior to his friend and he is
always very defensive in regard to his profession, insisting
that the practice of medicine is also an art, even a beautiful
one that requires poetic inspiration. Most of Joaquin's envy
in this respect centers on the fact that though both the doc-

'tor and the artist can, in a sense, give life, only the artist

1' £111: A Ilnll‘: ll Ill II I:

102

is a creator and only he has the capability of immortalizing
his subjects; whereas the doctor must be content with the
ability, in some cases, merely to prolong life briefly. It
is clear that Joaquin is desperately conscious of this, even
obsessed with it. The best example is found in Chapter VIII:

Ocurri6me un caso que me sacudi6 las entranas. Asis-
tia a una pobre senora, enferma de algun riesgo, pero
no caso desesperado, a la que el habia hecho un retrato
magnifico, uno de sus mejores retratos, de los que han
quedado como definitivos de entre los que ha pintado,

y aquel retrato era lo primero que se me venia a los
ojos y al odio asi que entraba en la casa de la enferma.
Estaba viva en el retrato, mas viva que en el lecho de
la carne y hueso sufrientes. Y e1 retrato parecia de-
cirme: 'iMira, 61 me ha dado vida para siempre. A ver
si tu me alargas esta otra de aqui abajo.‘ Y junto a
la pobre enferma, auscultandola, tomandole e1 pulso,

no veia sino a la otra, a la retratada. Estuve torpe,
torpisimo, y la pobre enferma se me muri6; la deje mo-
rir, mas bien por mi torpeza, por mi criminal distrac-
ci6n. Senti horror de m1 m1smo, de mi miseria.

A los pocos dias de muerta 1a senora aquella tuve
que ir a su casa a ver alli otro enfermo, y entre dis-
puesto a no mirar e1 retrato. Pero inutil, porque era
e1, e1 retrato, el que me miraba, aunque yo no le mi-
rase, y me atraia 1a mirada. . . . Y a1 salir me decia:

'aYo 1a dejé morir y 61 la resucita. (704- 05)

Joaquin's need for a wife soon becomes apparent to

him, and he tells Helena that he does not expect someone to
love him--in his disgust for himself he feels that would be
too much to hope for--but at least someone who would not de-
ceive him, and above all, would not mock or belittle him.
He also realizes, however, that to be loved is not really the
problem: "no es lo peor no ser querido, no poder ser querido;
lo peor es no poder querer." (702) His inability to love is
the real difficulty, and at the end he will confess that had
he loved his wife that love would have redeemed him, cured

his envy and "saved" him. In any case, what Joaquin is truly

103

looking for is a mother figure in whose arms he can escape
from his obsession, the icy dragon that is devouring him:

Dedic689 Joaquin, para salvarse, requiriendo amparo a
su pasi6n, a buscar mujer, los brazos fraternales d9
una esposa en que defenderse de aquel odio que sentia,
un regazo en que esconder la cabeza como un nino que
siente terror a1 coco, para no ver los ojos infernales
del drag6n de hielo. (702)

Some time after his marriage to Antonia he hears that
Helena is pregnant and he takes even this as an affront to
himself:
6Ves? 3Hasta es mas hombre que tu. El, el, que con
su arte resucita e inmortaliza a los que tu dejas m9-
rir por tu torpeza, 61 tendra pronto un hijo, traera
un nuevo viviente, una obra suya de carne y sangre y

hueso al mundo, mientras tu... Tu acaso no seas capaz
de ello. iEs mas hombre que tu. (706)

The only remedy for this new torment is to have a child of
his own. But when Abel has a son and he a daughter, Joaquin
again feels he has come out second best. Later, both these
children will become willing victims of his hatred, tools he
manipulates in his struggle to outshine his rival.

It does not take Antonia long to discover her husband's
terrible secret. She was aware that he suffered every time he
went to Abel's house and she suspected at first that he was in
love with Helena. But finally Joaquin reveals the truth to
her:

--;He1ena, no! iEs Abel! . . . tengo celos de
Abel; 1e odio, 1e odio, 1e odio. . . . Ellos se casa—
ron por rebajarme, por humillarme, or denigrarme,
ellos se casaron para burlarse de m1, ellos se casa-
ron contra mi.

Y e1 pobre hombre r9mpi6 en unos sollozos que 1e
ahogaban e1 pecho, cortandole e1 respiro. Se creia
morir. . . .

--;Pobre hijo mio. —-exclam6 ella abrazandole.

Y 1e tom6 en su regazo como a un nino enfermo,

10h

acari9iandole. Y 1e decia: . . . --Trabaja tu y
tendras fama y gloria, porque no vales menos que
el. (707-08)

Antonia advises him to leave his practice, to move to
another city, and to dedicate himself to experimental science
by which he might win fame and glory: "y seras mas que 61."
But Joaquin does not choose to do this, though it seems the
most logical way to alleviate his envy. This should be no
surprise, however, because everything he does tends rather to
feed than to cure his passion. The inevitable conclusion is
that he does not really want to change; and he himself gives
the reason why in Chapter XXVIII where a poor disinherited
Aragonese, who frequently borrows money from him, tells him
he wishes he were someone else. Joaquin is astounded, because
he cannot comprehend how any man could desire not to be him-
self. His response is important if he is to be fully under-
stood:

! --He aqui una cosa que no comprendo bien, amigo
m1o; no comprendo que nadie se disponga a dar la vida
por poder ser otro, ni siquiera comprendo que nadie
quiera ser otro. Ser otro es dejar de ser uno, de ser
el que es.

--Sin duda.

--Y eso es dejar de existir. (7A1)

Since Joaquin is convinced that his entire essence,
his soul, is his envy of Abel, it is clear that to lose that
passion would be the end of him--he would cease to be who he
is. He would become what Kierkegaard called the "immediate
man," embodying the lowest form of despair whiCh is the "des-
pair at willing to be another than himself, wishing for a new

11

self." Julian Marias describes it well:

105

[Joaquin] siente a su odio como su prOpia realidad,

como un momento ontol6gico que lo constituye; Unamuno

ve claramente que no se trata de un sentimiento, sino

de una determinaci6n del ser; Joaquin es odioso, y por

aquel conato de perseverar en el ser de que Spinoza

hablaba, adhiere a su ser de odiador. . . . 12

This furious envy has become his reality and his gai-

§gg gfétgg, his very Self, and the consequence is that he
does everything possible to cultivate, promote, assert and
immortalize that Self that he can. He does not desire to be
Abel, or to be like him, but to surpass him and to dominate
socially, artistically and intellectually. He cannot accept
defeat in any area. Typically, he is not even interested in
Abel as a person; this is why he is described so superficial—
ly in Joaquin's memoirs, because he has been reduced to the
role of that against which the life of Joaquin takes on mean-
ing.13 He is merely the measure against which Joaquin evalu-
ates himself, and the object of an envy and hatred so fierce
that Joaquin believes it alone will be enough to immortalize
him as it did the biblical Cain with whom he identifies. He
does not really suffer from an inferiority complex, though it
may sometimes appear otherwise; quite the contrary, he feels
himself far superior to the mediocre beings around him. "Mi
vida," he tells his daughter, "ha sido un arder continuo, pero
no la habria cambiado por la de otro. He odiado como nadie,
como ningun otro ha sabido odiar." (796) He simply feels,
like Cain, the injustice of being rejected while the superfi-
cial, inconstant Abel wins recognition and fame with ease.14

In order to assure that the enormity of his passion

is made known to the world he writes his Confesi6n:

106

Esta confesi6n se decia dirigida a su hija, pero tan

penetrado estaba e1 del profundo valor tragiC9 de su

vida, que acariciaba la esperanza de que un dia su

hija o sus nietos la dieran a1 mundo, para que este

s9 sobrecogiera de admiraci6n y de espanto ante aquel

héroe de la angustia tenebrosa que paso sin que le

conocieran en todo su fondo los que 9on e1 convivie-

ron. Porque Joaquin se creia un espiritu de excep-

ci6n, y un alma senalado a1 nacer por Dios con la

senal de los grandes predestinados. (721)
But just in case this Confesi6n is not enough to guarantee his
everlasting renown, he has two other works in preparation; one
by his adoring son-in-law and protégé Abelin, and another en-
titled Memorias de un médico viejo: "que seria 1a puerta de
entrada de su nombre en el pante6n de los ingenios inmortales
de su pueblo y casta." He reveals, however, that there is
also another purpose in the creation of this latter work, for
here he intends to paint the portrait of Abel: "y su retrato
valdria por todos los que Abel pintara." (747) This would be
the portrait that would immortalize Abel more than any of his
own paintings. In this way, Joaquin believes, he will not
only defeat and surpass Abel, but will become his creator,
reducing him to a creature of his own making:

T9 pondré para siempre en el rollo, y n9 seras Abel

Sanchez, no, sino el nombre que yo te de. Y 9uando

se hable de ti 9omo pintor de tus cuadros diran las

gentes: "zAh, si, el de J9aquin Monegro'" Porque

seras de este modo mio, mio, y viviras lo que mi obra

viva, y tu nombre ira por los suelos, por el fango, a

rastras del mio. . . . (747)

The future, immortal Abel Sanchez will thus be Joaquin
Monegro's creature and consequently inferior to him. With
this thought in mind Joaquin begins to feel disdain and com-
passion for Abel and to view him as a "model" and as a victim.

The truth is, however, everyone with whom Joaquin comes into

107

intimate contact is used by him as an instrument of his pas-
sion. He himself recognizes this and expresses it on a number
of occasions.15 For example, Abel's son, Abelin, is studying
medicine and will become an admiring disciple of Joaquin, who
is very aware of the use to which he might be put: "iEste,
éste sera mi obra! Mio y no de su padre. Acabaré venerandome
y comprendiendo que yo valgo mucho mas que su padre. Y al
cabo se lo quitaré, si, ase lo quitaré! El me quit6 Helena,

)16

yo les quitaré e1 hijo. Que sera mio." (734 He will even
marry his daughter Joaquina to him in order to bring him en-
tirely into his own immediate family: "Ahora os casaréis," he
tells her, "y viviréis conmigo; si, viviréis conmigo, y haré
de tu marido, de mi nuevo hijo, un gran médico, un artista de
la Medicina, todo un artista que pueda igualar siquiera 1a
gloria de su padre." (743) So Joaquin will become like other
great teachers that we have seen in these works, and will see
again, some of whom take the children of others unto themselves
and through a process of indoctrination create them in the
image of themselves or of their ideal, but always for the pur-
pose of fulfilling their own intimate needs.l7

Yet another child will be born into this family, the

son of Abelin and Joaquina.18

The child will be cared for by
his maternal grandmother who, instinctively aware of the dan-
ger that threatens him (like Marina in Amorypedagogig), will
often hold him protectively to her breast and whisper: "Duerme,

hijo mio, duerme, que cuanto mas duermas mejor. Asi creceras

sano y fuerte. . . . iDios quiera que no rifian en ti dos

108

sangres!" (752)19 And on those frequent occasions when Joa-
quin and Abel have one of their bitter discussions in the pre-
sence of the baby she will come and take him away as if to
defend him from his two grandfathers, saying to him: "3N0 seas
modelo de pintor, no seas enfermo de médico!" (753)

In spite of all Joaquin's efforts Abel wins the child
over little by little until it is obvious that he is the pre-
ferred grandfather, and this, naturally, is a great blow to
Joaquin. However, when he finally goes to Abel in desperation
and accuses him of taking his grandchild from him and tells
him to go far away, Abel throws the unbearable truth in his
face:

--Y si e1 nino n9 te quiere 09mo tu quieres ser

querido, con exclusi6n de los demas o mas que a ellos,
es que pres1ente e1 peligro, es que teme...

--;Y que teme? --pregunt6 Joaquin, palideciendo.

--El contagio de tu mala sangre. (756)

Joaquin reacts violently and attempts to strangle Abel,

and though he immediately regains control of himself, Abel
suddenly clutches his breast and dies of a heart attack. The
child has witnessed this scene and Joaquin turns to him and
says, in words Cain might have used with God: "iMuerto, si!
Y le he matado yo, yo; ha matado a Abel Cain, tu abuelo Cain.
Matame ahora si quieres. Me queria robarte; queria quitarme
tu carifio. Y me 10 ha quitado. Pero él tuvo la culpa 61."
(757)20

With the object of his envy dead, and so too the pas-

sion that had become the very essence of his being, Joaquin

falls into a profound melancholy and finally, debilitated and

109

bed-ridden by an obscure sickness, and feeling himself about
to die, he calls all his family together and in a last climac-
tic scene he confesses the truth to them. He asks why he has
been so envious in life, and answers the question himself:
"Porque he vivido odiéndome." And he admits also that he had
not loved his wife: "Si te hubiera querido," he tells her,
"me habria curado. No te he querido. . . . Pude quererte,
debi quererte, que habria sido mi salvaci6n, y no quise."
(759) The reason is not difficult to guess. He did not love
others because he did not love himself, and we can only love
others to the extent that we are able to love ourselves.21
Or maybe it would be more correct to say that his was gg_§mgg
propio enfermizo, as Unamuno calls envy in his Almeria speech
(IX, 110), that is to say, rooted in pride and presumption
(soberbia) rather than in that love for oneself that ultimate-
ly leads to compassion for others.22

There can be no doubt that Joaquin is a sick man, suf-
fering from a sickness that is his hyper-consciousness of
Self. However, "esa enfermedad es el manantial de toda salud
poderosa." as Unamuno says in Del sentimiento tragggg. (133)
It is the result of Kierkegaardian dread and despair, which
makes him much more admirable in Unamuno's view than the su--
perficial Abel.

Nietzsche, too, claims to admire these "sick" men who
are ruled by some great passion, and one of his affirmations
in The Will to Power is even very similar to what Unamuno has

said: "The dominating passion . . . brings with it the suprem-

est form of health." (III. 778. p. 408) And he goes on to

110

add that a multiplicity of passions within one breast is very
unhealthy and leads to inner ruin, whereas that supremest form
of health to which he refers is only possible when one single
passion finally becomes master.23 He summarizes his ideas on
the passions by saying that it is the "domination of the pas-
sions, not their weakening, or extirpation," that is necessary:

--The greater the dominating power of a will, the

more freedom may the passions be allowed.

The "great man" is great owing to the free play

and scope of his desires and to the yet greater power

that knows how to press these magnificent monsters

into service. (IV, 933, p. 492)

Joaquin Monegro, in fact, comes close to fulfilling
this description of Nietzsche's "great man," who "wants not
[a] 'sympathetic' heart, but servants, tools," and who, in
his intercourse with other men "is always intent on making
something out of them," (IV, 962, p. 505) that is, using them

for his own ends. This will be even more true of the heroes

and heroines of later novels.

Interesting examples of the internalization of this
Cain and Abel conflict are found in the three short stories,
"El que se enterr6" (La Naci6n, Buenos Aires: January 1, 1908)
and "Tulio Montalban y Julio Macedo" (La Novela Corta, Madrid:
V, no. 260, December 11, 1920), both of which were later ex-
panded into full-length plays, and in "Artemio, heautontimo-
roumenos" (Nuevo Mundo, Madrid: March 29, 1918). In these
works we have cases of what might most accurately be called
schizophrenia or split-personality, but with the added dimen-

sion that the two Selves are aware of each other and violently

111

antagonistic, each Self struggling to overcome and dominate
or destroy the other.

These stories all deal with the theme of the doppel—
gahger that so impressed Unamuno in Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.
It is an expression of what Unamuno called the "problem of
personality" which, in his later years, became almost an ob-

24

session with him. He is not here concerned so much with
the fraternal struggle between men, which was at least in part
a reflection of his concern with the problem of Spain in her
history, as with the internal antagonism and struggle within
each man and with the idea that each man creates himself not
only in relation to other men but also in relation to his oth-
er Self (or Selves).25 He is making reference to these two
opposing forces within the nature of every man, to what might
be called the angelic and demonic forces, in the prologue to
Eres novelas ejemp1a§es when he says that each man carries in
himself the seven virtues and the seven Opposing capital vices
"y saca de si mismo lo mismo a1 tirano que a1 esclavo, a1 cri-
minal que al santo, a Cain que a Abel." (976) "El que se en-
terr6" is perhaps the most concise example in his fiction of
this particular type of dualism.

Emilio, the protagonist of the story, suddenly falls
"sick with terror": "Sentia a todas horas la presencia invisi-
ble de la muerte, pero de la verdadera muerte, es decir, del
anonadamiento." This consciousness of death and nothingness
beyond causes him to "suffer his existence" and, as is frequent-

ly the case with Unamuno's heroes, results in an anxiousness

to escape from his fear into the unconsciousness of sleep:

112

"DeSpierto," he says, "ansiaba porque llegase la hora de acos-
tarme a dormir, y una vez en la cama me sobrecogia la congoja
de que el suefio se aduefiara de mi para siempre." (818) He
even considers suicide as a remedy.

At the moment this terror reaches its climax he sud-
denly finds himself face to face with himself, or rather, with
his other Self--g1 9339. His fear turns into desperate resig-
nation and he loses consciousness. When he comes to himself,
he is not in himself, but has become the Other, and he sees
that the Self he was is dead. He had witnessed his own death,
and his soul had been cleansed of its former terror, but he
was left with an abysmal sadness. Everything continues the
same as before, except the "tone and timbre" of things are
different. And none of this can be explained away as a bad
dream or a halucination because the body of himself buried in
the garden gives material proof that it all really happened.
His intense terror of death, it seems, has caused him to be-
come the other resigned Self within him, but the terrible
price exacted has been the destruction of the first Self.26

This early example of the "problem of personality"
seems to be in considerable part an outgrowth of the crisis
Unamuno suffered ten years earlier when he too experienced
that same unbearable terror. But many years later, as indi-
cated above, the theme will make a strong reappearance, though
the nature of the confrontation between the Selves will be
somewhat different. In his essay C6mo se hace una novg1g
(Hendaya: June, 1927), for example, he will refer to the feared

Self, the Other, as his leyenda or novela:

113

3Mi leyenda' , 3mi novela. Es decir, la leyenda,
1a nOV91a que de mi, Miguel de Unamuno, a1 que llama-
mos asi, hemos hecho conjuntament9 los otros y yo, mis
amigos y mis enemigos, y mi yo amigo y mi yo enemigo.
Y he aqui por qué no puedo mirarme un rato a1 espejo,
porque a1 punto se me van los ojos tras de mis ojos,
tras su retrato, y desde que miro a mi mirada me siento
vaciarme de mi mismo, p9rder mi historia, mi leyenda,
mi novela, volver a la inconciencia, al pa9ado, a la
nada. . . . El Unamuno de mi leyenda, de mi nOV9la, el
que hemgs hecho juntos mi yo amigo y mi yo enemigo y
los demas, mis amigos y mis enemigos, este Unamuno me
da vida y muert9, me 9rea y me 9destruye, me sostiene y
me ahoga. Es mi agonia. gSeré como me creo o como se
me cree? 27
The hero of the story "Tulio Montalban y Julio Macedo"
also suffers this internal struggle to the death with his oth-
er, legendary, Self. It is the story of Tulio Montalban, who
loses his beloved wife of a year at the age of nineteen and
who, in order to relieve his sorrow, becomes a freedom fighter
and eventually the liberator of his country. At the moment
of success and of greatest fame, however, he fabricates the
story of his own death in order to attempt to return to the
‘man he was before the leyenda was born, and he changes his
name to Julio Macedo.28
Julio wants to return to his primitive Self, to go
back to a past and happier time; and on a distant island he
discovers a woman who resembles his dead wife, even to having
the same name, Elvira. She, however, has been raised to ve—
nerate history, and she has fallen hopelessly in love with
the legendary Tulio Montalban whose biography she constantly
rereads and carries with her. He, at least in the beginning,
sees her as his hOpe of returning to what he had lost, and he

tells her: "usted ira conociéndome; usted ira sintiendo quién

114

es, 0 mejor, quién va a ser Julio Macedo; usted me ira hacien-
do..." (956) Julio believes in the possibility of creating
a Self. He creates Julio in order to do away with the legen-
dary Tulio, for example, but he needs the participation of
Elvira in order to fully realize his goal of return to the
original Self. She refuses to cooperate, though, sensing in
him "un alma de presa, un espiritu de dominio," (956) and re-
cognizing, perhaps, that he represents a danger to her Tulio.
It is important to note that it is the experience of
the death of his wife that first caused Tulio to become some-
one else. It might be supposed that the original Tulio lived
in a world of bliss and unawareness of the tragic sense of
life. His desire to return to that original Self, then, in-
volves a return to the unconscious, childlike, state in which
death does not exist. He expresses this longing, in fact, in
the dialog that follows:
--6Es que le gustaria vo1ver a la ninez?
--6A9 la n1nez? 3Mas alla, mucho mas alla....
--6C6mo mas alla?
--3Si, mas alla de la ninez, mas alla del naci-
miento.
--3No lo comprendo.
--Si, me gustaria volver a1 seno materno, a su
oscuridad y su silencio y su quietud...
--3Diga, pues, a la muerte!
--No, a la muerte no; 980 no es la muerte. Me
gustaria "desnacer", no morir. ..
--Y 9por 980...
--Si, por eso. 3Un amor asi, como el que busco
me valdria lo mismo. (957)
This same longing is expressed again later when Julio
describes his wife and what would have been if she had not

died: "Mi pobre Elvira s6lo anhelaba pasar inadvertida, y yo, '

como ya lo he dicho, hacer de mi hogar un claustro materno y

115

vivir en 61 como si no viviese. 3Porque le tengo miedo a la

vida, urlmiedo loco!" (963) The Self he wishes to dispose of,

then, is the Self that lives in the painful awareness of death.
Part of Julio's tragedy is that of the actor in his-

tory, the personajg or 1eyenda who suddenly discovers that he

 

is not himself and who struggles to return: "Crei poder sacu—
dirme del personaje y encontrar bajo 61 al hombre primitivo_
y original." (962) He desperately tries to rid himself of
this other, dominating and tyranical Self that has taken over
his life; and when he discovers that this new Elvira loves
only the romantic legend of Tulio Montalban, he confesses to
her:

No puedo soport9r que lo que debi6 ser mio, lo que

seria m1 paz, mi vid9, me lo robe... ese. .. 9se del

libro... ese que crei dejar muerto. Vine aca, a esta

isl9, bus09ndo la muerte o algo peor que ella; te co-

noci, senti r9sucitar a nueva vida, a una vida de ais-

lamiento, son6 en un hogar que fuese, te lo repito,

como un claustro m9terno cerrado a1 mundo, y he vuelto

a encontrarme con 61... (959)

She, however, is not able to give up her vision and
love the man of flesh and bone; for what she really wants is
not the man but the name, to go down in history herself along-
side this legendary hero.29 History for her, as for her fa-
ther, is more real than life itself. So, because of her,
Julio is again brought face to face with his enemy Self, and
this time it is Tulio who will be the victor.

Julio will kill himself because he has been defeated
in his battle to return to his original being, defeated be-

cause Elvira was not willing to love the real man, with a real

love. Like many other Unamunesque characters Elvira will not

116

allow herself to feel; she is pure thought, and therefore she
is unwilling to surrender herself to the kind of love that

30

would have saved Julio. Besides, she is afraid of losing
her ideal man, her Tulio, the one she has created in her dreams
and in her mind; and he understands all this as he makes clear
in one final interview with her:

te vi y senti resucitar al que fui antes de mi his-

toria, de esa fatidica 9hist9ria. . . . 3[pero tu]

eres del otro, no de mi! Tu eres del nombre. Te vi,

sentime resucitar, te busque y me encontre con que el

otro, el que crei9 haber matado, te habia vuelto e1

seso. Me encontré con el de ese libro fatal. Y tu,

que amabas con la cabeza, intelectualm9nte, a Tulio

Montalban, no podias amar con el coraz6n, apasionada-

mente, carnalmente si quieres, a un naufrago sin nom-

bre. Todo tu emp9no fue conocer mi pasado, cuando yo

venia huyendo de 61.3Y ni me 9conociste3 Prueba de
que era tu cabeza, no tu coraz6n, e1 enamorado. (962— 63)

Unamuno's concern, late in life and after his reputa-
tion was well established, with this idea that the legend
might blot out the real man, might seem to represent an in-
teresting turnabout. In several of his works it is seen that
to become famous by whatever means is a desirable and sought-
after way of attaining some measure of immortality. We have,
among other examples, Fulgencio Entrambosmares' reference to
Herostratus, and Apolodoro's and Joaquin's frustrated efforts
to achieve renown. This struggle to live on in the minds and
memories of others can even become a violent and destructive
battle, as revealed in the description given of it in "La
locura del Dr. Montarco": Dr. Montarco responds to the accusa-
tion of pride by saying that "el hombre que trata de sobrepo-

nerse a los demés es que busca salvarse; el que procura hundir

117

en el olvido los nombres ajenos es que quiere se conserve e1
suyo en la memoria de las gentes." In order to illustrate
what he means he uses the metaphor of the water bottle employ-
ed to kill flies:

Las pobres [m9scas] tratan de salvarse, y como para
ello 9no hay mas remedio qu9 encaramarse sobre otras

y asi navegar sobre un cadaver en aquell9s estancadas
aguas de muert9, es una lucha feroz a cual se sobre-
pone a las demas. Lo que menos piensan es 9en hundir
a la otra, sino en sobrenadar9ellas. Y asi es la
lucha por la fama mil veces mas terrible que la lucha
por el pan. (I, 1131)

However, once this fame is acquired, it seems, comes
the realization that this newly created being is not the real
one, but the leyenda made jointly by others and by oneself and
born with this realization is the desire to return to the peace
and obscurity of the original Self. This concern is seen in

the story just discussed, but another, excellent, example is in

the tale entitled "Una visita al viejo poeta, which was writ-

ten very early in Unamuno's career, being first published in
Lg_1lustra916n Espafiola y Amgr1gana in Madrid on September 8,
1889. It is the story of an old poet who has fled from his

fame in order to rediscover his true intimate Self. He explains
his reasoning to a young interviewer saying:

--3Mi nombre3 6Para qué he de sacrificar mi alma
a mi nombre? 6Prolongarlo en el ruido de la fama?
3No3 Lo qu9 quiero es asentar en el silencio de la
eternidad mi alma. Porque, fijese, joven, en que
muchos sacrifican e1 alma a1 nombre, la realidad a la
sombra. No, no quiero que mi personalidad, eso que
llaman personalidad los literatos, ahogue a mi persona
(y al decirlo se tocaba el pecho). Yo, yo, yo, este
yo intra9mi9ible..., no qu1ero sacrificarlo a la idea
que de mi mismo tengo, a mi mismo convertido en ideal
abstracto, a ese yo cerebral que nos esclaviza...

--Es que9 el yo que usted llama concreto...

--Es e1 unico verdadero; el otro es una sombra, es

118

el reflejo que de nosotros mismos nos devuelve el
mundo, que nos rodea por sus mil eSpejos..., nuestros
semejantes. 6Ha pensado usted alguna vez joven, en

la tremenda batalla entre nuestro intimo ser, el que

de las profundas entranas nos arranca, el que nos en-
tona el canto de pureza de la ninez lejan9, y ese otro
ser advenedizo y sobrepuesto, que no es mas que la idea
que de nosotros los demas se forman, idea que se nos
impone y al fin nos ahoga? (II, 518-19)

This fear that the intimate Self might be smothered
by 91_nombre seems to be a constant concern for Unamuno through—
out his life. It will reappear forty-one years later in "Tulio
Montalban y Julio Macedo" and again in the essay-novel C6mo se
hace una nove19, written in 1927. This latter work, deeply
rooted in the problem of "the Other," was of special signifi-
cance for Unamuno. He called it "91 mas entrafiado y dolorido
relato que me haya brotado del hond6n del alma."31
At the time this work was written Unamuno was living

in self-imposed exile in protest to the Primo de Rivera dicta-
torship, and he was very much aware of playing a role, of his
creation of a public image, a political and historical Self
that at the time made him a cause célébre throughout Europe
and America. But he began to fear that this leyenda he had
created was swallowing up his original intimate Self.

6No estaré acaso a punto de sacrificar mi yo intimo,

divino, e1 9que soy en Dios, el que debo ser, al otro,

a1 yo hist6rico, a1 que se mueve en su historia y con

su historia? 6Por que obstinarme en no volver a en-

trar en Espana? 6N0 estoy en V9na de hacerme mi le-

yenda, la que me entierra, ademas de la que los otros,

amigos y enemigos, me hacen? Es que si no me hago mi

leyenda me muero del todo. Y si me la hago, tambien.

(VIII, 745)

Armando Zubizarreta has done an extensive study of

this work (Unamuno en9§u nivola, Madrid: Taurus, 1960) in the

119

belief that "es obra clave de la vida, pensamiento y expresi6n
de Unamuno." (320) He speaks at some length about the meta-
phor of the "theater of life" which is develOped in C6mo se
hace una nove19: "E1 hombre se hace no s6lo en relaci6n con
los demas en el teatro de la vida, sino también en el escena-
rio de su conciencia, en las relaciones entre sus distintos
yos." (147) Zubizarreta sees it all as the expression of a
new ontology, one that considers man as a being who makes him-
self, who conquers his own essence, becoming the creator and
creation of himself. Unamuno is not rejecting, he believes,
the "yo" of his own creation, but the "yo" that is being im-
posed upon him from outside: "un yo que el mundo nos ha hecho,
o que nos hemos hecho esclavizandonos a 61." (156)

This essay is built around the barest essentials of
a plot, giving it the appearance of a short story--thus the
ambiguity, not infrequent in Unamuno's works, as to its appro-
priate genre. The protagonist here, U. Jugo de la Raza (clear-
ly Unamuno himself), begins to read a novel and to identify
with its leading character. When he comes to the passage that
reads: "Cuando e1 lector llegue a1 fin de esta dolorosa histo-
ria se morira conmigo," (735) he is terrified and flees, vow—
ing never to finish the novel. He is unable to resist, how-
ever, and though he suffers great torment he continues reading.

This terrible confrontation with a fictional character
whose destiny is inseparably joined with one's own represents,
in all probability, both the objectification of one's leyenda,

or external public Self, and the painful coming to awareness

120

of the inescapable fact of impending death. However, what
Unamuno seems most interested in here is the various levels
of creation and recreation involved in the making of a novel
--and we must keep in mind that the way he uses novela is of
special significance. He clarifies this at the end when he
explains what his purpose has been: "e1 novelista que cuenta
c6mo se hace una novela cuenta c6mo se hace un novelista, 0
sea c6mo se hace un hombre." (764) A man "makes" himself in
his gprgg; in this respect he is his own creator, but he is
also recreated by every man who views or reads his Qppgg.
Thus, in C6mo se hace una nove19, both the reader of the work,
if he truly understands and feels what is happening, and its
author Unamuno, are intimately involved in a process of crea-
tion and recreation.32
U. Jugo de la Raza, however, is not involved in this
process, because this novel of his life is not being created
by him, but being imposed upon him from outside. It is not
so much death that he fears; he must have known, as all men
do, that one day he would die. What is so frightening to him
is to suddenly become aware that he will be the slavish vic-
tim of an absurd and inhuman fate over which he exercises no
control whatsoever. This is the real tragedy, and the only
escape from it, in Unamuno's view, is to become creatively in-
volved in one's own destiny. Only the "authentic" and crea-
tive man can "make" the novel of his life, rather than be the
victim of it, as Unamuno affirmed in his prologue to Tres no-

velas ejemplares.33 In the case of "poor" Jugo, the author

says:

121

dio con 91 libro agorero y se puso a devorarlo y se
ensimism6 en 61, convirti6se en un puro contemplador,
en un 9mero lector, lo que es algo9 absurdo e inhumano;
padecia la novela, pero no la hacia. Y yo quiero
contarte, lector, como se hace una novela, c6mo haces
y has de hacer tu mismo tu propia novela. E1 hombre
de dentro, e1 intra-hombre, cuando se hace lector,
contemplador, si es viviente ha de hacerse lector,
contemplador del personaje a quien va, a la vez que
leyendo, haciendo, creando, contemplador de su pro-
pia obra. (761)

Unamuno is presenting in this essay the problem of
the man who has suddenly been made aware of his imminent death
through the reading of the "novel" of his life, and who must
resolve the difficult problem with which he is confronted: "de
acabar de leer la novela que se habia convertido en su vida y
morir en acabandola, o renunciar a leerla y vivir, vivir, y,
por consiguiente, morirse también. Una u otra muerte, en la
historia o fuera de la historia." (748) His first reaction is
to reject it all, to flee from the consciousness of death to
the peace of non—awareness and belief which characterized his
childhood:
Mi Jugo 9e dejaria a1 cabo del libro, renunciaria
a1 11bro fatidico, a concluir de leerlo. En sus co-
rrerias por los mundos de Dios para escapar de la
fatidica lectura iria a dar a su ti9rra natal, a la
de su ninez, y en ella se encontraria con su ninez
m1sma, con 9u ninez eterna, con aquella edad en que

aun no sabra leer, en que todavi9 no era hombre de
libro. Y en esa ninez encontraria su hombre interior,

e1 999 anthropos. (758) 34

In the end, however, U. Jugo de la Raza, like Unamuno himself,
is unable to abandon the novel of his life; though terrified,
he cannot resist the contemplation of the tragedy of his ap-
proaching death.

Unamuno leaves the story of Jugo unfinished. But he

122

concludes his essay by suggesting that the man who desires to
be more than just the reader of the novel of his life should
become the author as well. In other words, the mere reader,
or spectator, has no real being of his own, he is either al-
ready dead or will lose sight of himself, forget himself,
which is a way of dying ahead of time. (752) Only the man
who is the author of his own Self is truly alive. And so
again Unamuno has returned to his basic thought that the in-
timate and true reality of a man is what he desires to be,
the Self he creates out of his Will-to-Be, in the same way

Alonso el Bueno created his immortal Don Quixote.

The third story in which the internalization of the
Cain and Abel theme is seen is "Artemio, heautontimoroumenos."
In this particular case, however, the two antagonistic Selves
balance each other out and leave the man neutralized. In his
description of Artemio the author says: "Ninguno de sus dos
yos consigui6 dominar del todo al otro, y acabaron por fundir-
se en un solo yo, en que lo angélico se perdi6 en lo demoniaco.
Fue cobarde para el bien y cobarde para el mal. La lucha entre
su ambici6n y su orgullo se resolvi6 en la destrucci6n de ambos,
uno por otro." (879) Artemio devoured, and was devoured by,
himself; and the author suggests that the explanation lies in
Self envy: "5N0 cabra que un hombre llegue a envidiarse a si
mismo, o a una parte de 61, uno de sus yos a otra de sus partes,
a su otro yo? 5N0 podra un hombre emponzofiarse mordiéndose a

I O 0
s1 m1smo, en un ataque de rab1a, a falta de otro hombre a mano

123

en quien poder ensafiarse desahogando su mordaz rabia?" (877)
If Artemio had had an Abel upon whom to direct his passionate

envy perhaps he would have been another Joaquin Monegro.

The last and one of the most fascinating versions of
this sometimes aggressive and danger-fraught confrontation be-
tween the Selves occurs in La‘novela de Don Sandalio, jugador
de ajedreg (1930). The story consists of a series of letters
written by.a virulently antisocial man to his friend Felipe.
This man likens himself to the solitary Robinson Crusoe, and
he is obviously much impressed, since he makes repeated refer-
ence to it, by the scene in that work in which Crusoe is "thun-
derstruck" upon suddenly discovering the imprint of a naked
human foot in the sand of what he had thought to be a deserted
island. "También yo, como Robinson," he says, "he encontrado
la huella de un pie desnudo de alma de hombre, en la arena de
la playa de mi soledad; mas no he quedado fulminado ni aterrado,
sino que esa huella me atrae." (1165)

This appears to be one of Unamuno's metaphors for the
discovery of the Other within oneself.35 It is followed by a
second metaphor that is even more revealing of the concepts at
work beneath the story of Don Sandalio:

Me he hecho amigo de un viejo roble. aSi 1e vie-

ras. Felipe, si le vieras. iQue heroe. Debe de ser
muy viejo ya. Esta en parte muerto. iFijate bien,
muerto en parte., no muerto del todo. Lleva una pro-
funda herida que 1e deja ver las entranas al descu-
bierto. Y esas entranas estan vacias. Esta ensenando
e1 coraz6n. Pero sabemos, por muy someras nociones de

botanica, que su verdadero corazon no es ese; que la
savia circula entre la albura del leno y la corteza.

124

aPero c6mo me impresiona esa ancha herida con sus re-
dondeados rebordes! El aire entra por ella y orea el
interior del roble, donde, si sobreviene una tormenta,
puede refugiarse un peregrino, y donde podria albergar-
se un anacoreta 0 un Di6genes de la selva. Pero la
savia corre entre la corteza y el leno y da jugo de
vida a las hojas que verdecen al sol. Verdecen hasta
que, amarillas y ahornagadas, se arremolinan en el sue-
lo, y podridas, al pie del viejo heroe del bosque, entre
los fuertes brazos de su raigambre, van a formar e1
mantillo de abono que alimentara a las nuevas hojas de
la venidera primavera. iY si vieras que brazos los de
su raigambre que hunde sus miles de dedos bajo tierra.
Unos brazos que agarran a la tierra como sus ramas al-
tas agarran a1 cielo. (1160)

The author of these letters is clearly very impressed
by this ancient and suffering oak. In fact, it is a powerful
symbol and has the deepest significance for him, as will be
further revealed at the end of the story.36

Like other characters to be seen in these novels and
stories the narrator is rather a spectator than an actor in
life. Like Pachico, for instance, he prefers to observe the
actions and games of others and to keep a careful distance
between them and himself.37 He shows interest only in Don
Sandalio, but it is an interest that quickly becomes an obses-
sion, and he soon admits to himself that he needs Don Sandalio:
"que sin Don Sandalio no puedo ya vivir." (1164) He becomes
progressively more possessive in respect to him: "Este mi Don
Sandalio, no el que juega a1 ajedrez en el Casino, sino el
otro, el que 61 me ha metido en el hond6n del alma, el mio."
(1166) He refuses to hear anything about the life of Don San-
dalio and flees from anyone who attempts to speak of him.

Like Elvira in "Tulio Montalban y Julio Macedo" he prefers his

own pure and uncontaminated invention: "Tengo que mantener

125

puro, incontaminado," he says, "a mi Don Sandalio, a1 mio.
. . . No, no, no quiero saber historias. gHistorias? Cuando
las necesito, me las inventaré." (1167)38

It turns out that Don Sandalio has also been quite
taken with the narrator, and though they hardly say anything
to each other and know absolutely nothing of each other's per-
sonal lives, it seems Don Sandalio has spoken frequently of
the narrator to his family and has led them to understand they
are intimate friends. When the narrator learns this he is
shocked: "asi apenas me oy6 cuatro palabrasfi," he says, ";Como
no fuera que me invent6 como yo me dedicaba a inventarlo!
gHaria conmigo algo de lo que yo hacia con 61?" (1175) He im-
mediately recognizes that there is a danger in all this: "me
di casi a temblar pensando si en fuerza de pensar en mi Don
Sandalio no me habia éste sustituido y padecia yo de una doble
personalidad." (1167) This is the first indication of a pos-
sibility which Unamuno will reveal more fully at the end of
the novel.

The narrator suffers a minor crisis when Don Sandalio
is put into jail, but when he learns that he has died there--
"aquel hombre se me habia muerto a mi"--, his reaction is re-
markable:

Y yo, huyendo de los comentarios, he huido del Casino,

yendome al monte. Iba como sonambulo; no sabia lo que

me pasaba. Y he llegado al roble, a mi viejo roble, y

como empezaba a lloviznar me he refugiado en sus abier-
tas entranas. Me he metido alli, acurrucado, como es-

taria Di6genes en su tonel, en la ancha herida, y me

he puesto a... sonar... (1175)

The narrator seeks refuge from the storm, and from the

126

fact of Don Sandalio's death, in the ancient oak. This, of
course, is an act rich in symbolism. The dreamlike state of
the narrator, and his return to what in Freudian terms would
be the refuge of the maternal womb in order to escape from

the unpleasant and unbearable fact of death, has all been seen
many times before in Unamuno's works.39

Throughout the story numerous references are made to
life, death, and eternity; and finally, in the penultimate
letter, the narrator reveals that he is directing this work
to those creative men and women who prefer to dream the novel
of their own lives, who are concerned with the problem of per-
sonality. He realizes, though, that this is a problem that
does not occur to the majority of men for whom life is no mys-
tery, who die "sin darse de ello cuenta," and who lack intimate
awareness of being.

Among the most telling clues as to what may really be
happening is the narrator's repeated reference to the great
impression made on him upon viewing himself reflected infinite-
1y while sitting between two opaque mirrors: "me veia varias
veces reproducido, cuanto mas 1ejos mas brumoso, perdiéndome
en lejanias como de triste ensuefio." (1177) He advises his
friend Felipe to remember what Pindaro said: "aHazte el que
eresl"; and when his friend asks him to write a novel about
Don Sandalio the narrator tells him to write it himself, and
if he lacks the necessary details, to sit between facing mir-

rors and begin to dream and to dialog with himself: "Y tu mis—

mo mientras asi le suefies y con 61 dialogues te haras novelista.

127

Hazte, pues, Felipe mio, novelista y no tendras que pedir no-
velas ajenas." (1181) Finally, in the epilogue, Unamuno says
he suspects the narrator, Don Sandalio, and Felipe to all be
figures in a gallery of mirrors; that is, that Don Sandalio
has put himself outside himself in order to write his autobi-
ography. Futhermore, this should not surprise us, he says,
since it is well known that every author's fictional creations
are really only recreations of himself: "Todo poeta, todo cre-
ador, todo novelador --novelar es crear--, al crear personajes
se esta creando a si mismo." (1183) This is true, moreover,

40

even of God who created man in His own image.

In Tres novelas ejemplaresy un prélogo (1920), the
three short stories that follow the very important prologue
which reveals the key to Unamuno's thoughts on reality and
being are all closely related in several ways that have nor-
mally been overlooked by Unamuno scholars. The similarities
between the first two stories, "Dos madres" and "E1 marqués
de Lumbria," are relatively obvious, since they both have a
strong-willed female protagonist who uses a man as the instru-
ment to fulfill her most intimate desire. What most critics
have chosen to overlook, however, is that this is also true
of the third story, "Nada menos que todo un hombre" (the only
one of the three whose date of composition is known: April,
1916).

Julia, the beautiful female protagonist, usually

thought of as the victim of this story, is not the weak-willed

128

character she is most frequently portrayed as being. In the
beginning she is locked in a struggle with a scheming and un-
principled father for whom she is the trump card he intends

to play in order to rescue his endangered fortune. But she is
not about to be used in such a way. She rebels against her
father's authority and seeks first one ngvig and then another
in an attempt to convince them to run off with her: "quiero
ser robada2 3R6bame2," she tells them. However, when her
first boyfriend fails to show up after agreeing to her demands
to be carried off, it is her pride, of which she has more than
a healthy share, that is hurt: "gY decia quererme2 No, no me
queria a mi; queria mi hermosura, (Y ni esto2 Lo que queria
es jactarse ante toda Renada de que yo, Julia Yafiez, inada
menos que yo2, le habia aceptado por novio." (1010) She soon
finds another noxig, Pedro, who is a young man "de mas recio

coraz6n, and proposes the escape to him also. But when he
asks her what they will do after they have run off together
and she answers "commit suicide," his reaction is understand-
ably incredulous:

--;Tu estas loca, Julia2

--Loca, si; loca de desesperaci6n. . . . Y si tu
estuvieses loco, loco de amor por mi, te suicidarias
conmigo.

--Pero advierte, Julia, que tu quieres que este
loco de amor por ti para suicidarme contigo, y no
dices que te suicidaras conmigo por estar loca de amor
por mi, sino loca de asco a tu padre y a tu casa. iNo
es lo mismo2 (1011)

This is what Julia desires, not to love but to be lov-
ed by someone so desperately and completely that he will kill

himself as proof of his passion. This desire could not be

129

more forcefully or more clearly stated. The rest of this
story deals with how she achieves this end, ironically, with
what appears to be the most unlikely of men, the strong-willed
Alejandro G6mez.]+1
The opinions of those who have dealings with Alejandro
are succintly summarized: "Los que le trataban tenianle por
hombre ambicioso y de vastos proyectos, muy voluntarioso, y
muy tozudo, y muy reconcentrado." (1012) But he carefully
hides from everyone both his past and his intimate Self, and
we are permitted only an external View of him. He is extreme-
ly proud of being a self-made man, of being able to acquire
everything he desires, and this pride is strikingly revealed
in the impressive way he pronounces the pronoun "I": "En esta
afirmaci6n se ponia el hombre todo." (1012) His outstanding
characteristic is his success in dominating others. When he
meets the beautiful Julia, for example, he tells her she too
will be his; and she accepts him, partly to escape the house—
hold of her father, partly because of the enormous contrast
between this powerful and willful man and the weakness of her
two previous suitors, but also because of a mysterious "otra
que llevaba dentro y la tiranizaba." (1014) He is, as the
epithet indicates, every inch a man; and he takes immediate
possession of Julia, telling her: "Seras mia, Julia, seras
mia... iY me querras2 5Vas a no quererme a mi? aA mi? iPues
no faltaba mas2" (1014) Furthermore, he wants her not as his
mistress but as his wife: "iLa ley sancionara mi voluntad2

:0 mi voluntad la ley2" (1015)

130

This constant affirmation of his "yo" and the repeated
imposition of his Will on others is an obsession with Alejan—
dro. He is obviously a very powerful and willful man, and
this is the reason he has so often been interpreted as an ex-
ample of the Nietzschean superman, who, in the end, kills him—
self because he comes out second best in a confrontation with
death. The truth is, however, that the theme of this story
is not the invincibility of death, but rather the struggle
for power and dominance. As such, it is more the story of
Julia than of Alejandro, because she, not he, is the one with
the problem to resolve and the obstacles to overcome.

Alejandro comes into the story as a well defined and
already formed individual, and he has only to defend the so-
cial image that he has created. She, on the other hand, is
the one who must find his weak spot and attack him if she is
to realize her desire. She is the agressor, though it may
appear otherwise, and he is On the defensive in this struggle
for power between them. Alejandro‘s one real concern, in fact,
seems to be the protection of the intimate Self he so care-
fully hides from the world; for, in spite of the outer defenses
he has formed around himself, the image of the unconquerable
Alejandro G6mez that he wears like a shell, he is very vulner-
able within. He is too obsessed with being "every inch a man,"
and this is his flaw, a tragic flaw as it turns out. Unamuno
speaks about this in his essay "Paz en la guerra" (Ahora,
Madrid: April 25, 1933):

;N0 has oido, lector, querer elogiar a alguien
diciendo de el que es un hombre de una sola pieza?

131

Y creen los que asi dicen que es lo mismo que decir
de el que es un hombre entero y verdadero, "nada menos
que todo un hombre". Pues bien, ano2, un hombre de
una sola pieza no puede ser un hombre entero y verda-
dero, porque un hombre entero y verdadero se compone
de muchas, de infinitas piezas. Un hombre de una sola
pieza no es un hombre entero, sino un hombre partido

. . un pedazo de hombre. (VIII, 1193) 42

The external image Alejandro has created for himself
is that of the very strong, self-contained, but cold and heart—
less man, and his constant vocal affirmation of that image has
everyone convinced it is true. His past is a complete mystery
and he claims to have no family except the one he has made for
himself. His power over others, though, is more due to the
power of his great wealth than to his strength of Will, a
wealth he uses to manipulate and control all those around him.
Julia, however, is interested not in his wealth, but in pene-
trating the hard protective shell he has built around his emo-
tions. Her first hint of success occurs at the asylum when,
for one brief moment, Alejandro lets his guard down and we
catch a glimpse of the inner man:

--Y ahora -—anadi6 1a pobre mujer abrazando a su
marido y hablandole a1 oido--, ahora, Alejandro, dime
¢me quieres?

Y entonces vi6 en Alejandro, su p9bre mujer, por
primera vez, algo que nunca antes en 61 viera; 1e des-
cubri6 un fondo del alma terrible y hermética que el
hombre de la fortuna guardaba celosamente sellado.

Fue como si un relampago de luz tempestuosa alumbrase
por un momento el lago negro, tenebroso de aquella
alma, haciendose relucir su sobrehaz. Y fue que vi6
asomar dos lagrimas en los ojos frios y cortantes como
navajas de aquel hombre. Y estall6:

--;Pues no he de quererte, hija mia, pues no he
de quererte2 iCon toda e1 alma, y con toda la sangre,
y con todas las entranas; mas que a mi mismo2 Al prin—
c1pio, cuando nos casamos, n9. ¢Per9 ahora? aAhora
si2 Ciegamente. Soy tuyo mas que tu mia.

Y besandola con una furia animal, febril, encendido,
como loco, balbuceaba:

132

--iJulia2’ iJulia2 zMi diosa2 iMi todo2
Ella creyo volverse loca al ver desnuda e1 alma
de su marido.

--Ahora quisiera morirme, Alejandro --murmur6 al
oido, reclinando la cabeza sobre su hombro. (1030-
31) 43
Now that she has cracked that outer shell and revealed the
vulnerable man within it is only a matter of time until he is
at her mercy.

The simple truth is, Alejandro is not as strong as he
seems. The constant need he feels to demonstrate his strength
to himself and to others is, in fact, a sign of his weakness.
He is not "every inch a man" in Unamuno's own definition, for
whom the complete man is the man of flesh and bone, composed
of both reason and sentiment; and Alejandro, quite obviously,
has a horror of any demonstration of sentiment. He is unbal-
anced in this respect. But it has already been seen, with un-
usual frequency, that this fear of the instincts and sentiments,
and of love in particular, is one of the outstanding traits
common in a large number of Unamuno's heroes and heroines, and
that when they suffer a sense of frustration and failure it
can usually be traced back to this defect or lack in their per-
sonality. This is brought out most conspicuously in the cases
of Avito Carrascal and, as will be shown, of Aunt Tula.

Alejandro is very much like Avito Carrascal, Avito
carried to the extreme, in fact. For like Avito, he has a
horror of the instinctual passions, such as love. Both feel,
apparently, the fear of the loss of their being in falling in

44

love. They fear it because this, they realize, is the weak

spot in their defenses; but they will both ultimately be unable

133

to resist the force of this passion and they will be overcome
and undone by it. Like Avito too, Alejandro sets out to create
an Apollonian superman, though not in his son but in himself;
and he is largely successful in this endeavor, until Julia
comes along. He has created for himself a very precarious
existence, an existence ready to come crashing down at the
slightest hint of emotional weakness-—which is exactly what
happens when he is forced to admit his passionate love for his
wife.

The lesson to be learned in all this is that one must
take care in one's estimation of those who appear outwardly
to be meek, submissive, and subjected to the Will of another.
There are weapons and forms of attack so subtle that they are
not immediately obvious, as Unamuno explains in Del sent1miento
tragico: "aY hay tantos modos de dominar2 A las veces hasta
pasivamente, a1 parecer al menos, se cumple con esta ley de
vida. . . . Ser vencido, o, por lo menos, aparecer vencido, es
muchas veces vencer." (983)u5 The weapons Julia employs to
conquer and possess Alejandro are submission and the transfig-
uring power of love. He will become hers, the new man she has
created, who is unable to live without her and who is willing
to make the ultimate sacrifice for her, giving proof of the
totalness of his love and dependence upon her. In the end it
is she who conquers and he who must admit that he is "zNada
mas que tu hombre..., el que tu me has hecho2" (1035)

Alejandro will commit suicide as a result of his con-

frontation with a power stronger than his own, but it is not

134

46 It is

the power of death as most critics have affirmed.
rather Julia's power over him, the power of the all-consuming
love she has inspired in him. He is no longer his own man

and he can no longer live without the object of his love, the
passion that has come to define his entire being, just as Joa-
quin is unable to live without the object of his hatred. 0n
the other hand, he is unlike Joaquin because he is "saved"
from his obsession with fame and with his social image through
love for his wife. Or, to put it another way, Alejandro's
love becomes stronger than his passion to be "every inch a
man," whereas love is never able to dominate Joaquin's pas-
sionate envy of Abel. Alejandro tells Julia he belongs total-
ly to her, and his suicide is proof of it, and the fulfillment

also of Julia's most intimate desire which was clearly reveal-

ed in the beginning of the story.

"El marqués de Lumbria" again deals with fraternal
rivalry, or, in this instance "sororal" rivalry, and with the
struggle for dominance. This is an especially interesting
story because it not only reunites many of the motifs already
seen in earlier works but introduces some new facets of them
that will culminate in the novel La tia Tula. The two sisters,
Carolina and Luisa, are the only offspring of the Marquis of
Lumbria, who himself is the last of the male line of a proud
and ancient noble family. This circumstance is the espina
dolorosisima in the life of the Marquis, for he has been frus-

trated in his need to project himself and his family tradition

135

into the future by his failure to produce a male heir to the

title. It is this passionate obsession that will serve as

47

the central motivating force in this story.
The description of the ancestral manor and of the life-

less and sterile atmosphere in which this family lives is yet

another example of the symbolization of physical details that

has been seen in Paz en la guerra and Don Sandalio, and will

be seen again in Laptia Tu19 and San Manue1Bueno.L"8

A pesar de hallarse habitada, casi siempre permanecia
con las ventanas y los balcones ue daban a1 mund9 ce-
rrados. . . . porque e1 excelentlsimo senor marques de
Lumbria, don Rodrigo Suarez de Tejada, tenia h9rror a
la luz del sol y al aire libre. . . . El marques tem-
blaba ante posibles contagios de enfermedades plebeyas.
Eran tan sucios los de Lorenza y su comarca...

Por 1a trasera dab9 la casona a1 enorme tajo escar-
pad9 que dominaba a1 rio. . . . Y en un balc6n puesto
alli, a 1a umbria, libre del sol y de sus moscas, solia
el marques ponerse a leer mientras le arrullaba e1 ru-
mor del rio, que grunia en el congosto de su cauce
. . . asi como el marques temi9 a1 sol, 1a marquesa
temia 91 ruido, y mientras aquél se iba en las tardes
de estio a leer en el balc6n en sombra, entre yedra,
a1 son de1 canto secular del rio, la senora se quedaba
en el sal6n delantero a echar 1a siesta sobre una vieja
butaca de raso a la que no habia tocado el sol, y al
arrullo del silencio de la plaza de la Catedral. . . .

La vida del marqués trascurria tan mon6tona y coti—
d1ana, tan consuetudinaria y ritual como el grun1r del
rio en lo hondo del tajo, o como los Oficios liturgicos
del cabildo de la Catedral. (998- 99)

The protective walls of the ancestral manor that shuts
them away from contamination with the outside world, the ivy
that covers the manor as it does the maternal oak of Don San-
dalio, the horror of sunlight, the silence, the barely con-
scious somnolence of Dofia Vicenta which is similar to that of
Marina in Amor y pgdagogig, the Marquis' habit of reading on

the shadowy balcony overlooking the river whose lullaby-like

136

murmur sings him to sleep, and finally, the monotonous ritual
of the Marquis' daily life that is reminiscent of the "intra-
historic" existence of Pedro Antonio in Paz en la guerra, are
all characteristics of that negative pole, the contemplative

mode that so often surfaces in Unamuno's fiction.

In the first part of the story considerable attention
is given to the quarreling and rivalry between the two sisters,
and to the fact that Luisa is the gggundona and Carolina the
first-born or maygrazga who, had she been male, would have
inherited the title of marquis. They are very different tem-
peramentally, Carolina being much like her father and more ob-
servant of family tradition: "odiaba a1 sol, como su padre, y
se mantenia rigida y observante de las tradiciones de la casa."
(999) Luisa, on the other hand, appears more lighthearted and
out-going. She likes to see what is happening in the street,
and to be seen; she even grows flowers on the balcony of her
room to have an excuse to show herself.~ The Marquis believes
these habits to be terribly plebeian, but it is Carolina who
guesses the real reason Luisa is this way; she is looking for
an appropriate suitor, a thing the proud Carolina would not
think of lowering herself to do. In fact, it will be Luisa
who introduces new life into this family, for it does not take
long for her plan to bear fruit:

Trist9n Ibanez del Gamona1,de una familia linajuda
tambien y de la9 mas tradicionales de la ciud9d de
Lorenza, se fij6 en 1a hija segunda del marques de
Lumbria, a la que vi6 sonreir, con ojos como de vio-
1eta y boca como de geranio, por entre las flores del
b9lc6n de su dormitorio. Y ello fue que, al pasar un

dia Tristan por la calleja, se le vino encima el agua
del riego que rebosaba de los tiestos, y al exclamar

137

Luisa: "30h, perdone, Tristan2", este sinti6 como si
la voz doliente de una princesa presa en un castillo
encantado 1e llamara a su socorro. (999)

Under the circumstances Tristan is allowed entrance
into the manor in order to pursue his courtship of Luisa, a
fact that increases the violence of the quarreling between
the two sisters. However, the Marquis, who is typical of
Spanish nobility in being highly sensitive in regard to family
honor and public opinion, allows Tristan to be with Luisa only
when Carolina is also present: "En esto era vigilantisimo e1
padre. No le importaba, en cambio, que alguna vez recibiera
a solas Carolina a1 que debia ser su cufiado, pues asi 1e in-
struiria mejor en las tradiciones y costumbres de la casa."
(1000) Later we learn that Carolina uses this opportunity to
seduce Tristan, but that her father's principles become an ob-
stacle, for the time being, to the complete realization of her
purpose.

Tristan is appropriately and, at the same time, ironi—
cally named. Like Don Juan of the story "Dos madres" he bears
the name of a legendary lover. But he is no more to these two
sisters and their father than a pawn, a necessary instrument
they manipulate in order to acquire what they all most desire,
the child that will be the new Marquis of Lumbria. In this
house, among them, the sad Tristan "parecia un reo y a la vez
un sirviente." (1001) "Soy como una dependencia de la casa,
casi un mueble," he would tell himself. (1002) In fact, after
his marriage to Luisa it becomes obvious that her only real

interest in him in the first place was to give her the male

138

heir to the title. When that end is accomplished her life
begins to slip away, and when she feels herself about to die
she is unconcerned with his future but thinks only of her sis-
ter and of her son, who she always refers to as 91_margués:

"Cuida del marques. iSacrificate a1 marques," she tells him.

And then she deals him the cruelest blow of all: "'iAh, y a
ella dile que la perdono2' 'gY a mi?', gimi6 Tristan. 'gA
ti? 3T6 no necesitas ser perdonado2'" (1002) These words fall

like a terrible sentence on the poor man, and the reason is
because he has exercised no free will in the matter at all,

but was merely a pawn in the struggle between the two sisters.
Since he was no more than an instrument, Luisa is saying to him,
there is no need for him to be pardoned.

Shortly before the marriage Carolina had been taken
out of the house by her father in order, he told everyone, to
recuperate from an illness. She does not return until after
her sister's death, and then it is as the new wife of Tristan.
This was all, of course, the subject of much speculation on
the part of the townspeople. Significantly, the first things
she does upon returning to the manor is to remove the mourning
cloth from the coat of arms at the entrance to the manor so
that the sun can shine on it, and to cut down the ivy that
covers the building. Later she will Open all the balconies to
let the sun pour in. This is surely an act of rebellion and
revenge against her now dead father, and a sign also of her
agonic struggle to accomplish her ends against the negative

forces of darkness, tradition and sleep which, until her

139

awakening, characterized her life in the manor

The young marquis, her sister's son, insists on call-
ing her tia in spite of her objections because he instinctive-
1y sees her not as a new mother but as an enemy. And Tristan
is utterly dominated by her. He is literally held prisoner in
the manor, only leaving it when accompanied by her; and when
in the evening guests arrive to play tresillo (they do not dare
to refuse her invitations), she even sits next to him and
guides his moves. When she has a daughter by him she shows no
interest at all in her and is unmoved when the baby dies. She
too is only concerned with being the mother of the next marquis,
as is soon made evident.

Some years afterward Carolina brings a boy named Pedro
into the manor who she claims is an orphaned cousin. He is
regarded, especially by Luisa's son, as 91,9339, g1 intruso;
and the two boys, both being of arrogant temperament, look
upon each other as enemies. When one day the boys come run—
ning into the room after one of their quarrels and Pedrito has
a bloody nose, Carolina reacts violently: "salt6 como una leona
hacia él, gritando: 'zHijo mio2 iHijo mio2' Y luego, volvién-
dose al marquesito, 1e escupi6 esta palabra: '3Cain2'" (1004)
Then the truth comes out. Pedrito is her son, and Tristan's,
and the true Marquis of Lumbria: "el marques es éste, este y
no tu; este, que naci6 antes que t6, y de mi, que era la mayo-
razga, y de tu padre, si, de tu padre." (1004-05) She then
indicates that her father, so not to stain the family name,
had not permitted her to marry Tristan, but had sent her away

to have her child.

140

Carolina makes it all public, and everyone wonders at
her entereza varon_i__1.49 In the end, she is in complete con-
trol: Tristan is her humiliated prisoner, her son will be the
new marquis, and no one dares deny her wishes. And when Tris-
tan suggests that he shares some of the responsibility for
their "indiscretion," she is quick to point out to him, as her
sister had already done, that it was entirely her doing:

no quieras envanecerte de lo que pas6 y que el peniten-
ciario llama nuestro pecado, y mi padre, el marques, la
mancha d9 nuestro escudo. gNuestro pecado? 3E1 tuyo,
no Tristan; e1 tuyo, n02 aFui yo quien te seduje2 3Yo2
Ella, la de los geranios, la que te reg6 el sombrero,

el sombrero, y n9 la cabeza, con el agua de sus ti9st09,
ella te tr9jo aca, a la casona. Pero quien te gan6 fui
y9. iRecuérdalo! Yo quise ser la madre del marques.
S610 que no contaba con el otro. Y el otro era fuerte,
mas fuerte que yo. Quise que te rebelaras, y tu no su-
piste, no pudiste rebelarte... (1006)

Carolina deeply felt it to be her right, since she was
the mayorazga, to be the mother of the next marquis. This is
what she most desired and she created the situation and mani—
pulated others in such a way that she was able to realize that
desire. The only one strong enough to temporarily frustrate
her plan was her father, who, she earlier suggested, had com-
promised both his daughters to fulfill his own desperate de-
sire to pass his title on to a grandson. He was stronger than
Carolina and was also very jealous of the social esteem in
which the family was held. Consequently, when the family honor
was threatened by the actions of Carolina, he sacrificed her
to his principles, forcing Tristan to marry Luisa as was ori-

ginally planned, and sending the older sister away to have her

illegitimate child in secret. But in the end Carolina realizes

:‘llilllilllilil .

141

50

her goal and, at the same time, has her revenge on her father.
Her son, and not the child he had chosen, will be the new
Marquis of Lumbria. It is all revealed in her final words to
Tristan:
Tu despertaste mi carne y C9n ella mi org9llo de ma-
yorazga. Como nadie se podia dirigir a mi sino en
forma y por medio de mi padre..: como yo n9 iba a aso-
marme, como mi hermana, al b9lcon, a sonreir a la calle
..., como aqui no entraban mas hombres q9e patanes de
campo o esos del tres1llo, patanes también de coro...
Y cuando entraste aqui te hice sentir que la mujer era
yo, yo, y no mi hermana. . . . Y eres el hombre caido.
. . . tu naciste para que y9 fuese la madre del marques
de Lumbria, de don Pedro Ibanez del Gamonal y Suarez de
Tejada. De quien haré un hombre. Y le mandare. . . .
No te aflijas --y al decir esto 1e puso la mano sobre
la cabeza--, no te acongojes, Tristan, mi hombr9... Y
mira ahi, mira e1 retrato de mi padre, y dime tu, que
le vi9te morir, ue diria si viese a su otro nieto, a1
marques... (100 -07)

In reality Carolina's greatest obstacles have been her
father's fanatic preoccupation with honor and with that aris-
tocratic concern with purity which in this case is displayed
in the Marquis' fear that something impure or contaminating
might be introduced into the manor. Though Carolina at first
shares this concern she is forced to overcome it because of
her sister's impending marriage to Tristan. She is successful
in seducing him away from Luisa and becoming pregnant, but by
this reenactment of the "original sin" she has rebelled against
her father's principles and, not being strong enough to win out
over his objections, she is sent away from the manor. When he
and Luisa are both dead, though, she can return triumphant and
make her son, the child born in sin, the new marquis. As a
sign of this triumph she has the old stone coat-of—arms removed

and replaced by one made of bronze and bearing a blood red stain,

142

symbolic of the impure act that made her success possible:
mandaré labrar un escudo nuevo, de bronce, y no de
piedra. Porque he hecho quitar el de piedra para po-
ner en su lugar otro de bronce. Y en el una mancha
roja, de rojo de sangre, de sangre roja, de sangre
roja como la que su hermano, su1medio hermano, tu
otro h1jo, el hijo de la traici6n y del pecado, 1e
arranc6 de la cara, roja como mi sangre, como la S9n-
gre que tambien me hiciste sa9grar tu. . . . Pondr9
en el escudo de bronce1un rubi, y el r9bi chispeara
a1 sol. Pues oqué creiais, que no habia sangre, san-
gre roja, roja y no azul, en esta casa? (1007)
In some respects this story represents an inversion of what
will happen with Aunt Tula, who is never able to overcome her
own obsession with purity and who deeply regrets it in the

end.

Again in "Dos madres" we see a strong woman, in fact
two strong women, who manipulate and destroy a man whose Will
has been ursurped by them in their struggle to realize what
they desire. It is based on the biblical stories of Rachel
and of the two mothers who both claimed the same child in the
court of Solomon; but in this case the "child," the ironically
named don Juan, is torn apart and finally cast aside by them
when his purpose has been served. Empty, used, and in complete
despair, he will kill himself--the only act he performs in the
story that is his own.

The stronger of the two women, Raquel, is the most
cold-blooded and designing of all Unamuno's heroines. Her
power over don Juan is absolute; she is the succubus who has
bewitched and possessed him: "Los ojos y las manos de Raquel

apaciguaban y adormecian todos sus apetitos. . . . Y en don

143

Juan habia muerto, con el deseo, la voluntad." (978) She is
his duefia y senora: "tu eres mio, michino, y . . . mio, mio
s6lo, todo lo tuyo." (980) He is not so much in love with her
as "absorbedfl'"submerged," and "lost" in her. He feels him-
self irresistably drawn along by her, and he often thinks how
sweet it would be to rest eternally, clothed in earth, after
being killed by such a woman.

Though they are lovers, it is apparent that their re-
lationship is not a normal one. There is a hint at just what
it is that gives her this power over him when he says that he
had never known his mother. It is his need for the regazo 99
madre and her need for a child that brings them together, and
she uses this weakness in him to dominate him. She does, in
fact, frequently call him "hijo mio," stressing the possessive,
and treats him as if he were her child: "Le hizo sentarse sobre
las firmes piernas de ella, [y] se lo apechug6 como a un nino."
(980)

Volvi6 a cgjerle Raquel como otras vece9 maternal-
ment9, 1e sent6 sobre su9 piernas, le abraz6, 1e ape—
chug6 contra su seno ester11, con sus pechos, henchidos
de roja sangre que no logr6 hacerse blanca leche, y
hundiendo 9u cabeza sobre la cabeza del hombre, cubrién-
d91e los oidos con su1desgrenada c9bellera suelta, llo—
r6 entre hip09 sobre el. Y le de9ia: 1

--;Hijo mio, hijo mi9, h1jo mio2 ... No te robe yo;
me robaste t9 e1 alma, tu, tu. Y me r9baste e1 cuerpo
oo- .HijO 11110.... hijo 11110.... hijo 11110:... Te Vi
perdido, perdido, perdido. Te vi buscando lo q9e no
se encuentra... Y yo buscaba un hijo... Y creia en-
contrarlo en ti. (986- 87)

Raquel's single obsessive torment is her sterility.

Above all things she wants a child of her own, and she makes

it quite clear she is capable even of murder to achieve that

144

end. Hell, she says, is in the center of a sterile womb.53
But when Juan suggests that her sister would be happy to let
them raise one of her children, or that they adopt a child,
she rejects the idea because the child would not be truly her
own. Besides, she has already devised her own plan. Since
she is not physically able to have a child by her man, the
closest she can come to fulfilling her desire is by arranging
for a surrogate--she will have her child, by her man, in the
womb of another woman. "T6 puedes darme un hijo," she says
to Juan, "6C6mo? Engendrandolo en otra mujer, hijo tuyo, y
entregandomelo luego. iY quiéralo ella o no lo quiera, que
lo quiero yo y basta." (979) The woman she chooses for this
task is the other femme fatalg of the story, Berta Lapeira,
who herself will exercise a powerful influence over Juan.
Great emphasis is put on the fact that don Juan has
ceased to be his own man since his union with Raquel. His
Will has been robbed by her and he has become merely an instru-
ment of her desire, an example of Unamuno's n9 guerer. And
tragically, he is acutely aware of what has happened to him:
--Pero dime, Quelina, dime --y al de9irlo le ll9ra-
ba la v0Z--, 6por qué te enamoraste de mi? 6P9r que
me arrebataste? 6Por que me has sorbido el tuetano de
la voluntad? 6Por qué me has dejado como un pelele?
6Por que no me dejaste en la vida que llevaba?.
-- 5A estas horas estarias, despues de arruinado,
muerto de miseria y de podredumbre.
--;Mejor, Raquel, mejor. Muerto, si; muerto de
miseria y de podredumbre. 6N0 es esto miseria? 6N0

es podredumbre? 6Es que soy mio?... 6Es que soy yo?
... 6Por que me has robado el cuerpo y el alma? (986)

Raquel treats him in the most humiliating way and

feels no need to be bound by the restrictions of the laws of

145

man and of the Church. She is not at all concerned about the

opinions others might have of her and she refuses to marry

Juan: "--6Casarte conmigo? iPero eso, mi gatito, no tiene
sentido}... 6Para qué? 6A qué conduce que nos casemos segun
la Iglesia y el Derecho Civil? . . . 6Casarnos? aBien casados

estamos!" (978) She is dominated by a blind inner compulsion
which drives her to employ every means within her power to
fulfill her desire. She is demoniacally possessed by her ob—
session to have a child, and the result is that she is totally
unconcerned about the welfare of others.

In a particularly revealing exchange Juan says to her:

-—Me vas a matar, Raquel...

--Qui9n sabe... Pero antes dame el hijo... 6L0
oyes? Ahi esta la angelical Berta Lapeira. aAngeli-
cal' Ja... ja... a...

--;Y tu, demon1aca. --grit6 el hombre poniéndose

de pie y costandole tenerse asi.

--El demon1o tambi9n es un angel, michino...

--Pero un angel caido... (981)
In an earlier discussion of this metaphor of the fallen angel
it was seen that according to Unamuno this angel fell out of
pride and ambition, for desiring to be more: and these are,
in fact, the qualities that characterize Raquel.5u

For Berta, too, don Juan is nothing more than an in-
strument, one she will use to become what she wants to be, to
become like her idol Raquel. She sees that Juan is the means
by which she can reach Raquel and so she herself proposes that
he marry her, telling him that she can give him the Will he
lacks, a Will to struggle against the overwhelming power of

Raquel. But to herself she says:

"Arrancarle ese hombre y ver c6mo es el hombre de ella,
el hombre que ha hecho ella, el que se 1e ha rendido

146

en cuerpo y 9lma. .. 3L0 que le habra ensenado. ..
iLo que sabra mi pobre Juan.... Y 61 me hara como
ella. ..

De quien estaba Berta erdidamente enamorada era
de Raquel. Raquel era su 1dolo. (983)

However, Berta herself is subject to Raquel's spell.
Raquel is her model and she imitates her in everything, in
dress, hairstyle, gestures, and attitude: "Berta estudiaba en
Raquel la manera de ganarse a su marido, y a la vez la manera
de ganarse a si misma, de ser ella, de ser mujer. Y asi se
dejaba absorber por la duefia de Juan." (989) Juan is right
when he tells Raquel that Berta has also fallen under her
power: "esta prendada de ti, que la subyugas..." (988)

Juan is trapped between these two highly volitive
women. He is the Will-less victim of their struggle to realize
their goals, and they are tearing him apart and will destroy
him in the end. Though he understands what is happening to him
he is unable to resist, and he feels himself drawn ever closer
to a terrifying and limitless abyss:

E1 pobre Juan, 9ya sin don, temblaba entre las dos
mujeres, 9ntre su angel y su demonio redentores. De-
tras de si tenia a Raqu91, y delante a B9rta, y ambas
1e empujab9n. 6Ha9ia d6nde? El presentia que hacia
su perdici6n. Habiase de perder en 9llas. Entre una
y otra 1e estaban d9sgarrando. Sentiase como aquel
n1no que ante S9lom69 se disputaba9 las dos madres,
s6lo 9que no sabia cual de ellas, si Ra uel o Berta, 1e
queria entero para la otra y cual quer1a partirlo a
muerte. Los ojos azules y claros de Berta, la doncella,
como un mar sin fond9 y sin orillas, le llam9ban a1
ab1smo, y detras de e1, 0 mejor en torno de el, envol-
viéndole, los ojos negros y tenebrosos de Raquel, 1a
v1uda, como una noche sin fondo y sin estrellas, empu-
jabanle al mismo abismo. (983)

Raquel's great obsession to have a child of her own

is at least partly the result of a feeling that she is unful-

filled as a woman until she has become a mother. This is a

147

need seen almost without exception in Unamuno's women. Even
the women who never marry or remain virgin will find some way
of achieving a measure of motherhood. Raquel reveals what she
thinks in this matter when she projects her own need on to
Juan, telling him: "iY voy a hacerte hombre: yo voy a hacerte
padre." (986) But Juan has no real interest in paternity, and
as soon becomes clear, it will not be his salvation. Besides,
Raquel's desire goes a bit beyond simply having a child, for
she also seems concerned with reproducing herself, with creat-
ing a new being in her own image.55 Among the indications we
have of this secret desire is her demand that the baby girl be
called Raquel. (993)

Raquel becomes the godmother of the child (she is, in
fact, its spiritual mother) and she installs herself in the
household as if she were the mistress of it. She separates
the baby from its biological mother as much as possible, hir-
ing a wet nurse over whom she has control: and she often holds
the child, kissing her con frenegi, and, most significantly
of all, singing to her strange lullabies in an unknown tongue:

Y se hizo un silencio e9peso en torno de aquellas

canciones de cuna que parecian venir de un mundo lejano,
muy leja9o, perdido e9 la bruma de los ensuenos. Y
Juan, oyéndolas, sentia sueno, per9 suen9 de mor1r, y
un terror loco 1e 1lenaba el coraz6n vacio. 6Que era
todo aquello? 6Qué significaba todo aquello? (994)

When Berta asks her what songs she is singing, Raquel
answers: "30h, recuerdos de mi infanciaf..." (994) She is pass-
ing memories on to her child, creating a new Raquel by instill-
ing in her the tradition, the 19trahistor19, that was Raquel's

birthright.56

148

Eventually the moment comes when Berta too realizes
she has been used by Raquel: "Al fin vi6 claro en la sima en
que cayera: a1 fin vi6 a quién y a qué habia sido sacrificada."
(994) Though her nature is similar to Raquel's, she frankly
does not have her depth: "Habia en la viuda abismos a que ella,
Berta, no lograba llegar. Ni 10 intentaba, pues 9610 el aso-
marse a ellos 1e daba vértigo." (994) However, she is still
determined to win Juan from her:
Lo que sinti6 entonces Bert9 fué encendérsele en
el pecho una deV9radora compasi6n de su hombre, de su
pobre Juan. Tom9bale en sus brazos fla009 como para
ampararle de algun enemigo oculto, de algun terrible
peligro, y apoyando su cabeza sudorosa y desgrenada
sobre el hombro de su marido, lloraba, lloraba, llora-
ba, 9mientras su pecho, agitado por convulsos sollozos,
latia sobre el pecho acongojado del pobre don Juan.
Y 0090 una de estas veces la espOS9 madre gimie9e ”aHi-
jo mio...! iHijo mio...! zHijo mio...'", qued6se
luego com9 muerta de terror a1 ver la congoja de muerte
que crisp6, enja1begandola la cara de su Juan. . .
Berta adivin6 todo el tormento de su hombre. Y se
propuso irlo ganando, ahijandolo, rescatandoselo. Aun-
que para ello hubiese que abandonar y que entregar a
la hija. Queria su hombre. iSu hombre. (995)
But Berta clearly only wants Juan because he belongs to Raquel,

and she has learned now that the way to possess a man like

Juan is ahije’mdolo.57

The poor tormented Juan is being torn apart by these
two rivals, by the mujer madre and the esposa madre. He knows
that for Raquel he was no more than an instrument, a means to
her end: "De satisfacer un furioso hambre de maternidad." (995)
Now, however, he (and Berta too) has served his purpose and
Raquel provides an excellent demonstration of Unamuno's state—
ment in Del sentimiento tragico that there is something tragi-

cally and basically destructive about love: "El amor es una

149

lucha, y especies de animales hay . . . en que la hembra devo-
ra a1 macho luego que éste 1a hubo fecundado." (188) She will
now polish off her victory in the most humiliating fashion.
First she tells Juan: "dedicate més a tu Berta, . . . hijo mio."
(995) and then she allows Berta to discover her and Juan in an
embrace so that she can tell her:
--Te he v1sto, Berta --y reca1c6 el te—-: 39 he
visto que venias.

Y poniendo su mano, c090 un yugo, sobre el cuello
de Juan, de quien se ap9rt6 un poco entonces, prosi-

gui6: . . . Estaba diciéndole que se te entregue y que
S9 te entregue sin reservas. Te lo cedo. Pues que a
mi me ha hecho ya madre. . . . (996)

This is a shocking discovery for Berta, to suddenly
find out that it was the child and not Juan that Raquel wanted
all along. Now he is no longer needed by Berta either, and
she tells Raquel: "T6malo y acaba de matarlo. aPero dame a mi
hija, devuelveme a mi hija'" But it is too late, Raquel will
keep the child, and so she responds finally with the truth:
"3Y0 soy aqui la madre de verdad, yo!" (996) As for Juan, this
is the final humiliation he will endure. He has been left
drained of Will and desire, used and then thrown aside by these

two women. He will flee from them and kill himself.

In Abel Sanchez, qggfhistggia de pasi6n certain ideas
concerning the creation and affirmation of the Self that are
in Unamuno's works almost from the beginning are reaching ma-
turity. The heroes and heroines of succeeding novels will no
longer struggle simply to be against the mists of non-being

like Augusto Pérez, nor will they surrender to unconscious

150

instinct as Avito Carrascal does, nor to submergence into the
totality of existence with its consequent loss of personality
as does Pachico Zabalbide. Like Don Quixote they have created
a well-defined role for themselves and thgy know who they are.
Their purpose now is to affirm that being, to distinguish them-
selves so as to stand out of and above the crowd, to be recog-
nized as unique, and to preserve the integrity of their origi-
nal, intimate, personality. Now they are threatened, not by
the mists but by the Other, from without and from within, who
might defeat and even destroy them.

The Will-to-Be of these creative men and women is re-
vealed in various ways. In Joaquin it is the desire to out-
shine his rival Abel, in Julio Macedo it is the desire to re-
turn to his original Self, in the narrator of Don Sandalio it
is the desire to guard the Self he has created from external
contamination, in Julia Yafiez it is the desire to prove that
she can be loved for herself and not simply for her beauty,
and so totally that her lover cannot live without her, in Ca-
rolina it is the desire to be the mother of the next Marquis
of Lumbria, and for the sterile Raquel it is the desire for
motherhood. They are morbidly and completely absorbed in them-
selves, 99§imismados and ego-centered, and they concentrate
all their energies on a single facet of their being, on the
single passion that has become their obsession and by means of
which they achieve that crystal-clear self definition. They
cultivate, promote and defend that passion, creating situations

and manipulating others, because it has become their intimate

151

reality: and they are so absorbed and possessed by it that its
sudden loss would leave them without purpose in their lives.
This is what happens, in fact, to Joaquin Monegro, who falls
sick and dies, and to Alejandro G6mez. who kills himself, when
they are left without the objects of the passions that had come
to define their being. These men and women are the fictional
manifestations of Unamuno's statement that "la creaci6n de nues—
tra verdad vital -—verdad es lo que nos hace vivir--, es el m6—
todo de la pasi6n. La pasi6n afirma, y la prueba de su afirma-
ci6n estriba en la fuerza con que es afirmada. No necesita
otras pruebas."58
In each case there is an obstacle which they must over-
come in order to reach their goal. For Joaquin it is Abel, for
Julio Elvira, for the narrator of Don Sandalig his socios 991
Casino, for Julia Alejandro, for Carolina her father and sister,
and for Raquel her own sterility and Berta Lapeira. They strug—
gle not only to overcome the hostile circumstances in which they
live but also the "others" that impede their progress. But it
is only in relation to this struggle with the rival Other that
the Self has being and meaning, and it is because of this need
for struggle that the Cain and Abel and Jacob and Esau stories
have been chosen by Unamuno as particularly appropriate meta-
phors. External forces, however, are not the only ones to be
feared. The internalization of this fraternal struggle is also
common in Unamuno's works and involves the presentation of a
type of schizoid personality in which two Selves, the angelic

and demonic Selves, battle for dominance.

152.

Their defensive need to keep their Self pure and un-
contaminated, that is, to remain Self-possessed, makes these
individuals fearful of all others, and therefore unable to
love, And this disorder in their ability to love others,
which leaves them both isolated and frustrated, is one of two
constants we see almost without fail in these novels and sto-
ries. The other is that powerful attraction of the peace of
the negative "maternal" or material force that offers an es-
cape from their anxiety and struggle.

The characters usually regarded as Unamuno's great
"monsters of volition" make their appearance in ires novelgg
ejegplares. These novels are similar in presenting in each
case the struggle between two very strong personalities, one
of which will prove dominant in the end. They are alike also
in being the most concise examples of the creative individual
in Unamuno's fiction: individuals whose powerful Will to ful—
fill some fundamental and intimate need results in their mani-
pulation of situations and of others, without thought for the
humiliation, suffering and tragedy they might cause.

An element that stands out especially vividly in these
three novels and in the novel of Don Sandalio, but that is
typical also of most of these creative men and women, is their
jealous possessiveness toward their gbggg, as the emphasis they
put on the possessive adjective indicates. This may partly be
an expression of concern for the purity of their creations,
but more importantly, it is also an expression of a desire to

affirm and enlarge their own being. It was Avito Carrascal

153

who said that there is only one step from the possessive 91
to the personal 9. (AP, 335) In other words, everything that
can be encompassed by the possessive 91, in a certain sense,
is within the limits of one's being. For example, when Unamu—
no's characters refer to another with the emphatic 999, 9i9,
999, what they mean is that they have total possession and

can make use of the other as a tool that is the extension of
themselves. Since what is totally 9999 is myself or a tool
that is the extension of myself, the greater the area encom-
passed by what is 9999, the greater also is my being. In the
next chapter we will study two very successful individuals who
manage to enlarge their sphere of influence and control to
include relatively large groups, a family in one case and an

entire town in another.

FOOTNOTES

lNietzsche, The Will to Power, IV, 900, p. 479.

2Three years after its publication, in his prologue
to La tia Tula, Unamuno will remark on his development of so
unpleasant a sentiment:

En mi9novela Abel Sanchez intenté e9carbar en
ciertos sotanos y escondrijos del corazon, en ciertas
C9tacumbas del alma, adonde no gustan descender los
mas de los mortales. Creen que en esas catacumbas hay
muertos, a los que lo mejor es no visitar, y esos muer-
t09, sin embargo, nos gobiernan. Es la herencia de
Cain. (1043)

3Geoffrey R1bbans in "The Development of Unamuno' s no-
vels Amor r9 pedagogia and Niebla," pp. 269 85, also considers
this novel as one of a group in which the author is less in-
terested in the development of the person9lity than in the
affir9ation of one already formed. This is the reason why
Joaquin' s character seems predetermined, especially in compar-
ison with August9 Perez, and why the protagonists of the novels
being discussed in this chapter appear somehow wooden--they
exibit little or no development of character.

F. Fernandez Turienzo, Unamuno, ansia de Dios y crea—
ci6n literaria (Madrid: Ediciones Alcala, 1966), sees Joaquin
as the embodiment of the passion to be more (pp. 171- -73), and
describes this passion as a creative force.

“As was the case with Augusto, though, Joaquin too
feels her betrayal and rejection of him to be a belittlement
of his worth, particularly in relation to Abel: "en la reso-
luci6n de Helena," he says, "entraba por mucho el hacerme ra-
biar y sufrir, e1 darme dentera, el rebajarme a Abel." (699)

5Ahrcel Thomas, in a Ph.D. dissertation entitled "Tra-

gic Heroes in the Works of Miguel de Unamuno: Studies in Patho-
logical Disintegration" (University of Virginia, 1968), calls
this a "custom9ry Unamunesque transversion" "We find that not
only did Joaquin initiate the intimacy between Abel and Helena

. but later he saves Abel' s life in a near- -fatal illness,
so that he is truly the 'author' of Abel. Continuing this line
of tranSV9rsion, we find Joaquin becoming 'father' of Abel' s
son. . . " (231)

154

155

6In The Sickness Unto Death, written in 1899, Kierke-
gaard says: "The demoniac despair is the most potentiated form
of the despair which despairingly wills to be itself. . . .
with hatred for existence it wills to be itself, to be itself
in terms of its misery." (Fear and Trembling and The Sickness
Unto Death, p. 207)

7Ibid.. pp. 205-06.

8The characteristic picture Unamuno gives of envy in
his articles and essays, usually as applied specifically to
the Spaniard, does not entirely correspond to the case of Joa-
quin, as José Emilio Gonzalez has noted in his study of the
novel, "Joaquin Monegro, Unamuno y Abel Sanchez," in La Torre,
X, no. x1 (1962), 85- -109, because the envy of Joaquin Monegro
is not the result of idle belligerance, nor spiritual laziness,
nor does he have a superficial soul.

Unamuno discusses the Cain myth at length in his essay
"Soledad," and a general study on the Cain and Abel story in
Unamuno has been done by Paul Ilie, "The Cain Myth," in Unamu-
no: an Existential View of Self and Societ (Madison: The Uni-
versity of Wisconsin Press, 1967f: pp. 237-5 See also Ilie' s
article "Unamuno, Gorky, and the Cain Myth: 5Toward a Theory of
Personality," in Hispanic Review, XXIX (1961), 310- 23; and the
study by Carlos Claveria, "Sobre el tema de Cain en la obra de
Unamuno," in Temas de Unamuno, 2nd ed. (Madrid: Editorial Gre-
dos. 1970). pp 97-130-

Unamuno' s envy is the subject of an article by Michael
D. McGaha, "Abel Sanchez y la envidia de Unamuno," in Cuader-
nos de la Catedra Miguel de Unamuno, XXI (1971), 91- 102, and
in the same publication XXII (1972?, 127- -47, Christopher H.
Cobb also explains the elaboration of the novel as a result of
the personal manias and complexes of Unamuno and of the histo-
rical reality of Spain, in an article entitled "Sobre 1a ela-
boracion de Abel Sanchez.

9It sould be no surprise that Unamuno would feel this
way. For him it is suffering and struggle, and the passionate
ambition to be more, that make the man. The greater this suf-
fering and struggle and ambition, the greater also the man.
What he cannot forgive or admire are those "crepuscular," in-
consequential individuals who pass through life without feel-
ing it deeply, in a sort of unconscious haze, and feeling only
the most petty of passions. Abel is one of these men. His
successes have come to him effortlessly, without willing them.
He does not even "win" Helena from Joaquin, but is seduced and
manipulated by her, as he himself admits.

10Shortly after his daughter is born Joaquin makes a
revealing reference to envy as the "original sin," apparently
regarding the envy of God' s knowledge and power as the motiva-
tion behind Adam's decision to taste the forbidden fruit; and
a sin, therefore, that man has inherited. Later, when he reads
Lord Byron's Cain and of how Luzbel aspired to be God, he asks

156

himself: "y yo, desde muy nino, 5no aspiré a anular a los de-
mas?" (712)

llEhe Sickness Unto Death, p. 186.

12Marias, p. 107.

13J.E. Gonzalez, p. 95.

lLAJoaquin tells his daughter:

he sentido mas que los otros la suprema injusticia
del mundo y de los favores de la fortuna. . . 5Por
que preferian a1 ligero, a1 inconstante, a1 ego1sta?
Todos, todos me amargaron la vida. Y comprend1 ue
el mundo es naturalmente (ingusto y que yo no hab1a
nacido entre los mios.

15He says, for example:

5Pero llegue yo a querer de veras a mi Antonia?
aAh., si hubiera sido capaz de quererla me habr1a
salvado. Era para mi otro instrumento de venganza.
Queriala para madre de un hijo 0 de una hija que me
vengara. Aunque pensé, necio de mi, que una vez pa-
dre se me curaria aquello. 5Mas acaso no me casé sino
para hacer odiosos como yo, para transmitir mi odio,
para inmortalizarlo? (712- 13)

Y empezo a querer a su hija con toda la fuerza de

su pasion y por ella la madre. "Sera mi vengadora",
se dijo primero . . . Sera mi purificadora.' (713)
16

One of Unamuno' s tenets, expressed in Del sentimiento
tragico and realized more than once in his fiction, is that
"e1 hijo nace siempre en protesta contra el padre." (175) Thus
Abe11n will rebel against his father and favor Joaqu1n, while
Abelin' s own son will favor his paternal grandfather. Unamuno
develops this idea in the play El pasado que vuelve (1910).

l7Ignacio's Uncle Pascual, Avito Carrascal and Fulgen-
cio Entrambosmares, and the maestros of Villasola and of Carras-
queda are all examples of these great teachers, but perhaps the
most outstanding of them all will be Gertrudis of La tia Tula.
It is interesting that many of these men and women, like Joaqu1n,
will also engage in match-making in an effort to realize their
desire--Raquel in "Dos madres" and Tula are striking examples.

18It is Joaquin who must decide the child's name, a
decision that causes him some difficulty:

Abel es su abuelo, pero Abel es tambien su padre, mi
yerno, mi hijo, que ya es mio, un Abel mio, que he
hecho yo. 5Y que mas da que se 11ame Abel si él, e1

157

otro, su otro abuelo, no sera Abel ni nadie 1e cono-
cera por tal, sino sera como yo 1e 11ame en las Memo-
rLas, con el nombre con que yo lo marque en la frente
con —fuego? (752)

Abel himself, however, is against the use of his name, the name
of a victim, he says, and so the child is called Joaquin.

19What Antonia fears, it seems, is the internalization
in the grandchild of the Cain-Abel conflict. This will, in
fact, be the theme of several of Unamuno's other works.

Antonia is the mother figure in this novel, and as is
so often the case in the works of Unamuno she is the embodiment
of those forces that offer peace, security, and protection from
the painful awareness of the tragic sense of life.

20The grandchild is here in the interesting position
of playing the role that in the Cain and Abel story is reserved
for God.

21Earlier Joaquin had said: "Senor, Senor. iTu me di-
jiste: ama a tu pr6jimo como a ti mismo. Y yo no amo a1 pr6-
jimo, no puedo amarle, porque no me amo, no se amarme, no puedo
amarme a mi mismo." (728) And in the play La esfinge (1898)
?elipeusays: "Si no sabes amarte, 5c6mo has de amar a los demas?"

V, 15

Rollo May also discusses this need to love oneself in

order to be able to love others. (Lgve and Will, p. 6

22In this speech he makes a statement about envy that
seems particularly apprOpriate in respect to Joaquin: "lo que
se odia con odio de envidia no es la inteligencia precisamente,
sino mas bien lo que llamaremos es iritu, la potencia mental
activa y creadora. . . " (IX, 110

Julian Marias w6nders what the origin of this self-
hatred and of his inability to love others might be:

5cual es la raiz de ese odio de si propio y de los
demas? Todo odio es envidia, d1ce Unamuno; pero en-
tonces, e1 odio a si mismo, 5qué sentido tiene? No
seria dificil descubrir en el una raiz de soberbia,

de odio a la limitaci6n. a la finitud, a la necesidad
no aceptada de morir; en el fondo, se podria hablar

de una satanica envidia de DLos, un odium Dei, la 1n-
version rigurosa de la caridad. Y de esta— inversion
de la caridad en su sentido primario de amor Dei fluye
inevitablemente 1a destruccion de la caridad como amor
a1 pr6jimo. (Miguel de Unamuno, p. 109)

23One must understand that the same objections
can be made to the passions as are made to sickness:
nonetheless--we cannot do without sickness, and even
less without the passions. We need the abnormal, we
give life a tremendous choc by these great sicknesses.
(The Will to Power, III. 778, p. 408)

158

2LPMartin Nozick, Miguel de Unamuno (New York: Twayne,

1971). P-132-

In an auto- criticism of the drama El Otro (Madrid: In-
dice Literario I, 1933) Unamuno says: "El Otro, me ha brotado
de la obsesion . . . del misterio . . . de la personalidad,
del sentimiento congojoso de nuestra identidad y continuidad
individual y personal." (V, 653)

25José Sanchez- Ruiz, "Dimensi6n mundial y social del
ser, se un Unamuno," Cuadernos de la Catedra LMiguel de Unamuno,
XII (l9 2), p. 53, notes that "el hombre se hace persona, a
traves del comercio con los otros hombres. . . ." This neces-
sary relationship between the Self and others is the theme of
Sanchez- Ruiz' article.

26Eleanor Krane Paucker has done a comparative study
between this story and Kierkegaardian dread in "Kierkegaardian
Dread and Despair in Unamuno' 3 El ue se enterr6," Cuadernos
de la Catedra Miguel de Unamuno XVI- XVII (1966—67), 75- ~91.
What she has to say in regard to what has happened to Emilio
is extremely interesting:

 

The Sickness Unto Death, the only work before Freud
devoted exclusively to the problem of anxiety, has
been the source of much comment by existential psycho—
analysts who have found much that is useful in his
analysis of anxiety, depression and despair. They un-
derline Kierkegaard' 8 understanding, both in Sickness
and in The Concept of Dread, of inner conflict and the
loss of self and his recognition of the beginnings of
schiZOphrenia. For them, as for Kierkegaard and for
Unamuno's Emilio, anxiety is "an ontological character-
istic of man... not a peripheral threat which I can
take or leave... it is always a threat to the founda-
tion, the center of my existence. Anxiety is the Ex-
perience of the threat of imminent non-being."-_EShe
is quoting from Existence, eds. Rollo May, Ernest An-
gel, Henri F. Ellenberger (New York: 1959), p. 50]
This threat is not limited to psychotics but is in the
very nature of anxiety; it is an awareness, as Emilio
says, of possible annihilation, nothingness. . . .
Behind the anxiety is a fear of birth or rebirth, seen
from the etymology of the word anxiety itself, for it
refers to choking, narrowness "as though throu h the
straits of being born." [from Existence, p. 51

In a footnote she gives the etymology of congoja: coangustu§<
an ustus or narrow; and then quotes first Emilio: "me sobre-
cogia 1a congoja de que el sueno se aduenara de mi para siem-
pre", and afterward a similar Scene from the play El Otro:

"Empecé a vivir hacia atras, hacia el pasado... y cuando sen-
tia en mis santos labios infantiles e1 gusto de la santa leche
materna... desnaci... Me mori al llegar a1 cuando nacia, a

cuando nacimos."

159

In the psychological crisis of his identity, of his
own authenticity, he has encountered his other self,
the repressed self. It is interesting to see how
close Unamuno is to the world of psychoanalysis, for
in the latter situation, if a patient is confronted
with all of his repressions, there is a momentary il-
lusion of his other self, the person he could have
become. (90-1)

27Obras Completas, ed. Manuel Garcia Blanco, VIII
(Madrid: Escelicer, S.A., 1966), p. 73%. Future page refer-
ences will be included in the text.

Armando Zubizarreta, who has done an extensive study
of this work in Unamuno en su nivola (Madrid: Taurus, 1960),
also believes that this problem of personality originated with
his now famous crisis: "la crisis de 1897 le proporcion6 a
Unamuno la conciencia de que habia muerto para el mundo, de
que estaba mas alla de su descreimiento --de que era otro."

(308)

Unamuno talked on other occasions of the uncomfortable
sensation, even fear, he would experience at times upon seeing
his own reflection in a mirror or pool of water, or upon hear-
ing a reproduction of his own voice. He apparently viewed
these as manifestations of the other Self that might one day
devour him. In the article "Extracciones fotograficas" (Ma-
drid: Nuevo Mundo, October 2#, 192%) is found an especially
interesting example of this obsession. He tells of visiting
an insane asylum in Barcelona where a patient asked him if he
was the "authentic" Unamuno or the one pictured in the news-
papers. The question strikes him as profound and he often
wonders why he so readily responded that he was, indeed, the
"authentic" Unamuno: "aEstaba yo mismo seguro de ello? ¢No
sera el auténtico el otro, el que viene de vez en cuando re-

tratado en los papeles? . . . 6M1 Unamuno, el m1o, sera el
auténtico?" (VIII, 611- 12)
28

As might be expected, in his description of the des-
truction of Tulio Montalban he employs the comparison of the
fraternal struggle between Cain and Abel: "Luchamos como luchan
dos hermanos que sirven causas contrarias, noble pero sanuda-
mente, como acaso lucharon, diga lo que quiera la Biblia, Ca1n
yAbel, y 1e dejé por muerto, como pudo el haberme dejado a

1." (959)

29Elvira's father calls her "la quijotesa" in the play
and she indeed resembles Don Quixote in several ways, her ro-
manticism and obsession with Tulio being a result of too much
reading. She has also created an idealized love object in the
figure of Tulio, with the hope that this love might immortalize
her; and she will refuse to relinquish this dream for reality,
just as Don Quixote does with his Dulcinea.

3OIn this respect she resembles Gertrudis in La tia
Tula.

160

3lIn the prologue (Madrid: March, 1933) to San Manuel
Bueno, martir, p. 1125.

In his "Discurso en el homenaje a Joaqu1n Costa” (Ma-
drid: February 8,1932) Unamuno speaks of the tragedy of the
man "que ve Como el que es se va sintiendo borrado por el que
de el hacen todos los demas. Y es que ya no es suyo; es de
todos los otros, que han hecho de el otro hombre, en el cual
queda enterrado, pero que es el que vive y en el que ha de
vivir siempre." (IX, 408)

32"Nuestra obra es nuestro espiritu," Unamuno informs
his reader, "y mi obra soy yo mismo . . . como tu obra eres
tu, lector." (760) And every work can be considered an auto-
biography because "todas las criaturas son su creador." (732)

33el que siendo sueno de una sombra y teniendo
la conciencia de serlo sufra con ello y quiera serlo
o quiera no serlo, sera un personaje tragico y capaz
de crear y de re- crear en 81 mismo personajes tragi-
cos . . . capaz de ser novelista. . . . (977)

3“In respect to this return to childhood Unamuno quotes
from the Book of Matthew (XVIII, 3) where Christ says: "'En
verdad os digo que si no os volvéis y os hacéis ninos no entra-
réis en el reino de los cielos.‘ 'Si no os volvéis' dice.
Y por eso le hago yo volverse a mi Jugo. " (758) Then, after
describing this longing for peace and unconsciousness as very
similar to the Indian nirvana, he asks: "ges algo distinto de
la oscura vida natal intrauterina, del sueno sin ensuenos. pero
con inconsciente sentir de vida, de antes del nacimiento, pero
después de la concepcion?" (759)

35This novel is, in fact, as Ricardo Gullon demonstrates
in his article "Don Sandalio 0 el juego de los espejos," Papeles
de Son Armadans XXX (1963). 299-325, a more enigmatic and refin—
ed version of the theme of the Other.

36It is yet another expression of that desire for re-
gression to an infantile or even a pre-natal state. James R.
Stevens, "Unamuno' s Don Sandalio: Two Opposed Concepts of Fic-
tion," Romance Notes XI (1969), 266- -71, explains the symbolism
of this tree:

The oak has a deep wound within which the narrator
takes refuge after Don Sandalio's death. For the pagan
of all times this is the tree of life, the symbol of
the universe, for the Christian it is Christ's wounded
side representing solace and redemption, for the Freud-
ian it is the womb to which in infantile regression we
seek to return out of fear of life. . . . it is a re-
fuge from fear. (269)

37The solitary nature of both the narrator and of Don
Sandalio is stressed throughout this story, but this is a

161

characteristic of all Unamuno's creative men and women; they
are all painfully alone, "alienated" to use the term of the
existentialists. They are all closed within themselves, and
avoid, even fear, intimate contact with others. Their sensi-
tivity to their unique individuality makes them fearful of
contamination; however, their very solitude becomes a prison
for them: "todo solitario . . . es un preso, es un encarcela-
do, aunque ande libre." (1173) This, perhaps, is the reason
why only the sort of intimacy that is born of true and compas-
sionate love can free them.

38Sanchez-Ruiz, "Dimensi6n mundial . . .," pp. 37—8,
speaks of the importance of the possessive in these works:

[A través del comercio con el mundo] el hombre se
posesiona del mundo, lo hace suyo, y a81 llega a

posesionarse de s1 mismo . . . mediante 1a posesi6n
de lo que no es el "yo", llegamos a poseer nuestro
”yo : "E1 hombre que no poseyera nada . . . ni se

poseer1a a s1 mismo, es decir, no ser1a hombre" ("La
humanidad y los vivos"). En Amor yppedagogia vuelve
a repetir: "del mi a1 y_ no hay mas que un paso, un
solo paso hay del posesivo a1 personal..." (cap. 3),
y como dice en otro lugar: "Lo m1o precede a1 y_"
("Civilizacion y cultura" ).

In a footnote Sanchez-Ruiz adds: "Todo este analisis unamuniano
de las relaciones entre e1 'yo' y el mundo es muy semejante a1
que M. Heidegger hace en 'Sein und Zeit' . . . .

We have already seen that otherness is a necessary in-
gredient for the Creative Will, because in order to have "con-
sciousness" and to increase one must utilize la materia that
surrounds one in his environment. The tragedy is, however,
that when one creates works, making use of this world around
him, the concentration and "purity" of his own being is diluted
and reduced. The narrator of Don Sandalio attempts to avoid
this contamination and loss. This is why he keeps himself
aloof and isolated from intimate contact with other men and
why he prefers to invent his own "novel" of Don Sandalio: "para
m1 no hay mas historias que las novelas. Y en cuanto a la no-
vela de Don Sandalio, mi jugador de ajedrez, no necesito de
socios del Casino, que vengan a hacérmela." (1167) This is why,
later in the story when Don Sandalio' s son-in—law comes to tell
him what happened to his friend, the narrator becomes very agi-
tated and refuses to listen: "me basta con lo que yo me invento,"
he responds. (1178) He does not want others contributing to
his "novel" because that would represent a loss to himself.

This need to keep the Self one creates pure and uncon-
taminated is very probably related to Unamuno's concern that
his public image was not entirely his own creation but that of
his friends and his enemies as well.

39Interestingly enough, we will find a parallel occur-
ence, which makes even more obvious Unamuno's consciousness

162

of what this old tree signifies, in San Manuel Bueno, martir,
Which was finished only a few months before La novela de Don
Sandalio. There Don Manuel will be buried in a coffin made,
according to his own instructions, from the nogal matriarcal
under which he played as a child. (SM, 1134) Both of these
cases, moreover, are reminiscent of a scene in the prologue

to Nietzsche's Thus Spake Zarathustra in which the protagonist
buries the body of a dead rope dancer in the hollow trunk of
an old tree. (See the edition of The Modern Library by Random
House, Inc., n.d.; Parts 8 and 9, pp. 15-19) When the narra-
tor wonders to himself, in the same letter, how Don Sandalio
could have been put in jail when ”E1 ajedrez [life] tomado asi
como lo tomaba mi Don Sandalio, con religiosidad, 1e pone a
uno mas alla del bien y del mal," (1175) the suspicion that
some Nietzschean influence might be lurking about becomes
stronger.

uoHis very name, Don Sandalio Cuadrado y Redondo, is
an indication of this "desdoblamiento" of the Self.

The narrator has described the image he sees in the
mirror, his objectified Self. One cannot become aware of the
Self without objectifying it, and this splits the Self into
two parts, one spectator and one spectacle. The necessary con-
sequence is a partial loss of identity, which Paul Ilie explains
.by saying: "as soon as consciousness begins to operate reflex-
ively, the loss of self is immediate. Part of the self is ob-
jectified, and this fragment is either alienated or estranged of
the ego." This is an unavoidable side-effect of awareness, but
the only alternative is unconsciousness, which leaves the indi-
vidual imprisoned within himself and unable to grow: "the man
who remains unaware of himself and of others can never be alien-
ated, and will thus preserve his full self . . . the man most
fully himself has no reflective mechanism. However, this condi-
tion keeps the individual sealed within his shell, unable to es-
cape his subjectivity." (Unamuno: An Existential View of Self
and Society, p. 92)

The traumatic result of seeing oneself outside oneself
is demonstrated in all these stories that deal with the Other.
There is a very good example in the play El Otro (1926), which
developed out of the story "El que se enterro," of what this
result might be: "sufri al verme fuera de mi mismo..., no podia
soportar aquel espejo..., no pod1a verme fuera de m1... El ca-
mino ara odiarse es verse fuera de si, verse otro." (V, 679)
Joaqu1n Monegro' 3 self- hatred, too, is the consequence of his
acute awareness and objectification of himself.

ulFrank Durand, "Search for reality in Nada menos que
todo un hombre," Modern Language Notes 84 (1969). 239- -h7,
:notes that both Julia and Alejandro are strong- -willed persons
\Nith well- defined goals, but that they have Opposing perspec-
‘tives: "Whereas Alejandro' 8 interest is in creating [or main-
‘taining] an exterior image of himself--nada menos que todo un
110mbre--which denies all interiority, Julia wants to destroy

163

an exterior image of herself--la hermosura de Renada--by assert-
ing her interiority. " (243) ”As selfish and single-minded as
he, she insists on being recognized and existing according to
her own view of herself." (2#2)

Ahrcel Thomas sees Julia as the "unconstrained embodi-
ment of the negative feminine properties,” and Alejandro "as
the absolute force of positive reason," which is hostile to all
that Julia represents; and their association with each other as
a microcosm of the dual universe which is found embodied in man
—-the juxtaposition of masculinity-positivism and femininity-
negativism. In the end it is her negative force that plays the
decisive role. ("Tragic Heroes...," p. 200)

%21n his "Conferencia en el Circulo de la Union Mercan-
til d9 Malaga," (August 22, 1906) Unamuno says:

Hay gentes que con marcad1sima individualidad
carecen casi en absoluto de personalidad propia.
Llamo individualidad a lo que podr1a decirse el con-
tinente, y personalidad al contenido espiritual.
Hombres hay que se separan de los demas muy fuerte-
mente, viven como encerrados dentro de una ostra,
corteza o caparazon recio, pero estando vac1os por
dentro, y otros, por el contrario, que no separandose
de los demas, sino por leve membrana . . . estan lle-
nos de un riqulsimo y variado contenido. (IX, 193)

El hombre de individualidad absorbente . . . es una
individualidad vacia, pobre en personalidad; es un
continente recio y duro como el de una tinaja de cas-
co muy grueso, pero que no contiene sino la misma agua
que las demas tinajas . . . [es] en cuanto al esp1ritu
como los cangrejos en cuanto al cuerpo, dermato- -esque-
leticos, que tienen los huesos fuera y la carne dentro.
("Sobre un libro de memorias," III, ll#9- 50)

uBIn the prologue to these novels Unamuno gives the
following advice:

A un hombre de verdad se le descubre, se le crea,
en un momento, en una frase, en un grito. . . . no te
dediques a observar exterioridades de los que contigo
conviven, sino tratalos, exc1talos si puedes, quierelos
sobre todo y espera a que un d1a--acaso nunca--saquen
a luz y desnuda el alma de su alma, el que quieren ser,
en un grito, en un acto, en una frase, y entonces toma
ese momento, metelo en ti y deja que como un germen se
te desarrolle en el ersonaje de verdad, en el que es
de veras real. (9758

This is more or less what Julia does with Alejandro. We have
seen that what she wants is someone to love her for herself,
passionately and completely, to the point of willingness to
sacrifice all, even life itself, for her. She wants nothing
less than complete and absolute possession.

q ‘I i l I!" ‘ ill 1 '1'! l 1‘ li‘ II I II I

164

uuRollo May discusses this fear on page 83 of Love and
Will. See also pages 79 and 80.

“5Unamuno clarifies what he means by dominar saying:

Y es que al decir dominar, no quiero decir como el
tigre. Tambien domina el zorro por la astucia, y la
liebre huyendo, y la v1bora por su veneno, y el mos-
quito por su pequenez, y el calamar por su tinta, con
que oscurece el ambito y huye. . . . Y no consiste la
nobleza o la innobleza en las armas de que se use, pues
cada espe9ie, y hasta cada individuo, tiene las suyas,
sino en como se las use y, sobre todo, en el fin para
que uno las esgrima. (ST, 983)

This sounds very much like Nietzsche, who also speaks of dis-
guised forms of the will to power, among which is what he calls
"enrollment": "so as to satisfy the will to power in a larger
whole: submission, making oneself indispensable and useful to
those in power: love, as a secret path to the heart of the more
powzrg9l--so as to dominate him." (The Will to Power, III, 774,
p O

Ricardo Gull6n recognizes this power of love in his
article "La voluntad de dominio en 'la madre' unamuniana,"
Asomante XVII, no. 4 (1962), 41- 59, where he says: "Am9r, en-
trega, abnegaci6n son modos sutiles de reclamar atenci6n exclu-
yente, absoluto poder directivo sobre los otros.” (43)

46It should be remembered that this is not Alejandro's
first confrontation with death. We are told that he was mar-
ried before and that that wife died also.

47Blanco Aguinaga describes this form of the need to
prolong oneself in time in the following way: "La voluntad de
continuar un modo de existencia, un linaje, es la forma que
aqui toma la voluntad de perseverar en la conciencia y de afir-
marla sin cesar. . . ." ("Aspectos dialecticos. . . .,"p . 62)

uaAgnes Moncy, "La creaci6n del ersonaje en las nove-
las de Unamuno," La Torre XI, xlii (1963), 145- 88, notes this
symbolization of physical details and says: "Sugiere lo muerto
del ambiente observando que todos los miembros de la familia,

excepto Luisa, odian la luz y los ruidos. . . . En este ambien—
te va a introducir la vida, es p9r la ventana abierta al balc6n

porfigonde Luisa . . . ve a Tristan, el futuro padre del marques."
15

49There is a consistent tendency in Unamuno's works for
the creative women to be regarded as mujeres varoniles and for
the creative men to be varones maternales, as if this fertile
mixture of the masculine with the feminine were necessary for
an act of creation. Ahrcel Thomas also comments on the mascu-
linity of most of Unamuno's strong women characters and the
femininity of his male characters. filn the case where such a

 

165

pattern does not apply," he says, "we find an unconvincingly
weak femininity as in Julia Yanez . . . or an exaggerated and
unreal masculinity, as in the case of Alejandro Gomez." ("Tra—
gic Heroes. . . .," p. 198)

Soln her doctoral dissertation, "The Will-to—be as a
Theme in the Novels of Unamuno" (University of Florida, 1966),
JUdith Spurlock notes a short story in which the Will of an-
other protagonist expresses itself in direct opposition to the
Will of the father:

"Ram6n Nonnato, Suicida" [in Espejo de la Muerte, II,
pp. 442- 45] recounts the life of the man of the title
. . . born of a dying mother to a ruthless father who
victimizes his debtors and who forces the boy to study
law so as to have a gratuitous lawyer, Ram6n' s Will- to-
be is directed towards one obsessive goal: destroying
the evil his father had 9reated by repaying those upon
whom he had preyed. Ram6n' s Will- to- be drives him to
live destructively, to destroy what had been the es-
sence of his father's life and, in that way, to assert
his own individuality--to prove that he is more than

a mere puppet manipulated by his father's will. And,
since he himself has actually been included in that
essence, as an instrument of his father's evil, his
suicide is necessary for the complete fulfillment of
his desire. Thus, strangely enough, his Will-to-be
must be expressed as a Will-not-to—be. After his
father's death, he dedicates his life and the fortune
he inherits to accomplishing this ideal, and, upon the
sale of the last piece of property, a sale which sig-
nifies the climax of his drive, he shoots himself and
dies clutching the picture of his mother, whose con-
trast to his father has been the guiding beacon of his
task. (85)

530f her sterility Ricardo Gull6n says:

ser infecundo, incapaz de crear, era pena insoportable
para quien quer1a ser reflejo de Dios, y por lo tanto
participe del don precioso y unico de forjar seres en
cuyo sueno vivir, en cuyo sueno prolongar la vida.

. . . En la teolog1a unamuniana e1 infierno esta cier-
tamente en el hombre y no fuera de el: no en los abis-
mos del globo terraqueo, sino en los del alma. Es
fuego --60 hielo? , pues hielo es metafora adecuada
para expresar 1a incapacidad creadora, lo paralitico,
lo muerto-- capaz de crecer y devorar, como hace con
Raquel, presa y brasa, nutrida de su llama y abrasando

en ella a1 otro, a los otros. ("La voluntad. . . .,"
p. 44)
54

Later, Berta's ambitiousness will also be underlined
with the same metaphor: "a la angelical Berta, un angelito

166

caido le susurr6 en el silencio de la noche y del sueno a1
oido del corazon: '[Raquel] Te teme...'" (982)

551n this respect there is a very significant and high-
ly emotional scene that takes place when Juan announces to
Raquel that Berta is pregnant. Upon hearing the news Raquel
murmurs in a dreamy voice:

--;Al fin te tengo, Juan.

Y 1e cogi6 y le apret9 a su cuerpo, palpitante, fre-
neticamente, y 19 bes6 en los ojos y en la boca, y

le apartaba de s1 para tenerle a corto tr9cho, C9n

las palmas de la mano en las meiillas de el, mirandole
a los ojos, mirandose en las ninas de ellos, pequenita,
y luego volv1a a besarle. Miraba 90n ahinco su propio
retrato minusculo, en los ojos de 61, y luego, como

loca, murmurando con voz ronca: "zdéjame que me bese'",
1e cubri6 los ojos de besos y Juan cre1a enloquecer.
(991)

56This phenomenon, this need these creative women feel
to pass on both their personal and family tradition, is some-
thing Unamuno explores at more length in the novel of La t1a
Tula. It is what he calls filialidad or, in the case of Tula,
sororidad--"perpetuidad hacia el pasado." (Como se hace una
novela, p. 758)

 

57In Vida de Don Quixotegy Sancho Unamuno says: "Todo
amor de mu'er es . . . amor de madre; la mujer prohija a quien
ama." (210) There are numerous examples of this in his fiction.

58"Sobre 1a eurOpeizaci6n," III. P- 937-

CHAPTER IV
THE CREATION OF THE COMMUNITY IN LA TIA TULA
AND SAN MANUELBUENoiMARTIR

In this final chapter we will be taking a look at two
protagonists who are the highest examples of the creative man
in Unamuno's works. Aunt Tula and Don Manuel, in their strug-
gle to affirm and to prolong their being in time, will each
manipulate, encompass and give form to an entire community
onto which they effectively imprint their personalities and
through which the essence of their being will survive their
physical deaths. Though he has rejected surrender and resig—
nation to the forces of intrahistoria Unamuno returns, in
these two novels, to his original idea of the incorporation
of the individual spirit into the spirit of the society in

which one lives.

Some noteworthy similarities to both Aunt Tula and Don
Manuel are to be seen in the protagonist of an early short story
entitled Una historia de amgg (November, 1911). The hero and
heroine, Ricardo and Liduvina, have been courting for some five
years but with little display of any deeply felt love. Liduvina
has continued the relationship in the desperate h0pe that their
lukewarm affection will turn into a great passion; however, she

herself is inhibited in her need to love by a secret disdain

167

168

for men: "en lo hondo de su coraz6n, despreciaba al hombre."
(1217) She knows Ricardo has been contemplating an elopement,
and she is planning to accept his proposal, but not so much
for love as to escape from an unpleasant homelife and because
of a certain competitive egoism that compels her to prove her-
self more daring than a man:

Que tenga valor, que deje de ser hombre, que me pro-

ponga Clara y red9ndamente la fuga, y la aceptare;

la aceptaré y sera cojido en el lazo en que pretende

art9ramente prenderme, y entonces veremos quien es

aqu1 e1 valiente. . . . entonces sere yo, yo, la

pobre muchacha, 1a nena del 9as6n, yo, la infeliz

Liduvina, seré yo quien le dé lecciones de intrepi-

dez de enamorados. (1217)

Actually, Ricardo feels he is destined for a special
calling in life and he is hoping Liduvina will refuse the elope—
ment and thus give him a blameless way out of the relationship.
But when he makes the pr0posal and Liduvina accepts, he feels
she has been stronger than he and that he has been defeated and
humiliated. In any case, they are both caught in the trap and
must go through with an escape destined from the beginning to
fail. It does not take them long to realize it has been a mis-
take and they return home in disgrace.

The ambitious Ricardo dreams of himself as an apostle,
the prophet of a new age of faith and of heroism, attracting
adoring multitudes of men and women. He takes religious orders
and becomes a monk, but is excessive in everything he does.

Entregabase con un ardor insano a la oraci6n, a la
penitencia, a1 recogimiento y, sobre todo, al estudio.
No, no era natural aquello, parecia mas obra de des-
esperaci6n diab6lica que no de dulce confianza en la
gra9ia de Dios y en los meritos de su Hijo humanado.

DirIase que buscaba ansiosamente . . . arrancar algo
de manos del Todopoderoso. El cielo padece fuerza,

169

dicen las Escrituras; pero las vi91encias de Fray
Ricargo no llevaban sello de unci6n evangelica.
(1225
Sus oraciones eran oraciones de inquietud y de
turbulencia. Pedia a Dios sosiego, 1e ped1a voca—
cion, 1e ped1a también fe. (122)
The other monks look upon him with suspicion and envy.
They think he is trying to distinguish himself. He, in turn,
despises them. His superiors, too, feel he considers himself
better than the rest, and they comment on his special enthusi-
asm for the most unique, extraordinary and rigorous of the

saints. The master of novitiates is probably correct when he

tells the prior of his misgivings concerning Ricardo's vocation:

Este mozo es en el fondo ego1sta. . . . se nos vino
aca un poco por romanticismo y otro poco p9r deseo de
lucirse . . . e1 hacerse fraile es algo as1 como un

desaf1o a1 mundo y como una de las mas romanticas sin—
gularidades. Ademas 1a ambici6n...

--iAmbici9n.

--;Ambici6n, si. Hay puestos, hay honores, hay
glorias que desde aqu1, desde el convento, mejor que
desde otro sitio cualquiera, se alcanzan. Y yo creo
que este mozo tiene puesta su mira muy alto... (1227)

He then suggests Ricardo's true vocation may be theatrical:
"Este, nuestro fray Ricardo, lleva un comediante dentro. S6lo
que espera acabar haciendo papel de protagonista, con una mi-
tra, o quién sabe; acaso suben mas sus suefios..." (1228)
Ricardo gains great popular fame as a preacher, owing

above all to the feeling his listeners have that an inner fire
is only barely held in check by the sobriety and perfection of
his delivery:

Y es que la oratoria de fray Ricardo era seca y ar-

diente como las arenas del desierto espiritual que su

alma, encendida d9 ambici6n y de remordimiento, atra-

vesaba. . . . Sol1a hablar de los problemas llamados

del d1a, de la decadencia de la fe, de la lucha entre
esta y la raz6n, entre la religi6n y la ciencia . . .

170
de la falta de caridad y, sobre todo, de ultratumba.
(1231)

Women in particular are fascinated by him, guessing
that his burning words hold some painful secret, which is es-
pecially noticeable when he talks on his favorite themes. One
is the tragedy of the garden of Eden when Eve tempted Adam,
making him taste of the forbidden fruit of the Tree of Knowl-
edge, for which they were thrown out of the garden of innocence.1
There is almost never consolation in his words, but rather des-
peration and a painful anxiety. His voice cries and his lis-
teners can feel the struggle of an imprisoned soul dislocating
itself in its fight to break its bonds. However, in spite of
his great popularity he is very alone, and feeling his solitude
deeply he thinks: "No sOy sino un egoista . . . un egoista; he
buscado el escenario que mejor se adapta a mis facultades his—
tri6nicas. ;No he pensado mas que en mi!" (1232)

When Liduvina sees she has been abandoned by Ricardo
she determines to retire from the lodazal del mundo and to enter
a convent. At first she considers a teaching order "para incul-
car en las educandas e1 asco y el desprecio que hacia el hombre,
egoista y cobarde, sentia." (1228) In the end, however, she
decides upon a contemplative order where she can withdraw into
herself and await death in seclusion. She soon discovers,
though, that life in the convent is simply a microcosm of the
world outside, one in which the monotony of existence exacer-
bates certain passions in the frustrated and barren nuns. One

particular description of these women is especially touching:

Una vez a1 ano pasaba por la calle a que daban
las rejas del convento una procesi6n de ninos, y en

171

ese dia, las hermanas y las madres --gmadres?. ipobre-
cillas.-- se asomaban a la reJa a verlos pasar, a
echarles flores deshoJadas, que finglan ir a1 santo.

Ten1a cada una en su celda su ninito Jesus, un
lindo muneco a1 que vestIa y desnudaba y adornaba.
Pon1anle flores, 1e besaban, sobre todo a hurtadillas;
alguna lo brezaba sobre sus rodillas como a un nino
de verdad. (1229)

Liduvina watches the ingenuous rivalry between these
barren mothers with a heavy heart, and she thinks how she could
have had a real child, a child of flesh and love; sometimes,
kneeling at the foot of an image of the Virgin, she would pray:
"3Madre, madre! gPor qué no conseguiste del Padre de tu HiJo,
de Nuestro Sefior Todopoderoso, que mi Ricardo me hubiese hecho
madre?" (1230) Then she would drench herself in tears and try
to resign herself to the irrevocable exile of the convent.
Liduvina has now become one of Unamuno's frustrated mothers.2

Finally, Ricardo is able to do what he wants most, to
give a sermon in the convent in which Liduvina is cloistered.
In his talk he speaks of the love that envelops and dominates
us all, and the emotion and ecstasy build to an explosive and
tearful climax. Love, he says, "nos abraza y nos oprime . . .
despierta cuando e1 dolor 1e llama. Porque no se ama de veras
sino después que el coraz6n del amante se remeJi6 en almirez
de angustia con el coraz6n del amado. Es el amor pasi6n cOpar-
ticipada, es compasi6n, es el dolor comfin." (1233) Then he
speaks of how this love is frustrated.

Pero es el egoismo, hermanas y hermanos mics, es

el triste y fiero amor propio el que nos ciega para
no ver a1 Amor que nos abraza y envuelve, para no
sentirle. Queremos robarle algo, no entregarnos por

entero a el, y el Amor nos quiere y nos reclama en-
teros. Queremos que sea El nuestro, que se rinda a

172

nuestros locos deseos, a la rebusca de nuestro per-
sonal brillo, y El, el Amor, e1 Amor encarnado y
humanado. quiere que seamos suyos, suyos por entero
y s6lo suyos. (1234)

He has finally understood that true love must be a
complete surrender. He ends his sermon with a cry of anguish,
and receives an answering cry of love and understanding from
Liduvina. Their frustration and suffering and the mutual re-

alization of their failure has united them in the end in spir-

itual love and compassion.

Although love is the only possibility man has of break-
ing through the radical solitude in which he lives and is in
this respect desirable, the frustration of love often seems to
be the motive behind the creative process in Unamuno's novels
and stories.3 In his essay Vida degpon Quijote y Sancho he
says:

S610 109 amores 9desgraciados son fecundos en frutos
del esp1ritu; s6lo cuando se le cierra a1 amor su
curso natural y corriente es cuando salta en surtidor
a1 cielo- s6lo 1a esterilidad temporal da fecundidad
eterna. . . . 9
Grande es una pasion que rompe por todo y quebran-

ta 1eyes y arrolla preceptos y desencadena torrencial—

mente su caudal perinchido, pero es mas grande aun
cuando, temerosa de enfangarse con las tierras que ha
de arrastrar en su furiosa arremetida, se arremolina
en 31 y se condensa 9y se meta en s1 misma, como que-
riendo tragarse a s1 propia, luchando por deshacerse
en su imposibilidad misma, y revienta hacia adentro
y 9onvierte en inmenso pielago el coraz6n. (DQ, 101-
02

This ensimismamiento, this going into oneself, to which
Unamuno refers above, is the means by which the creative man or
woman manages that concentration of being "desde la cual es po-

sible difundirse en los otros. Y esta difusi6n espiritual es

173

lo que nos hace inmortales . . . en nuestros hiJos, en el es-
piritu de los demas, en nuestra obra."l+ For one reason or
another, the natural course of love is closed to all the crea-
tive men and women, so their need to perpetuate themselves must
find a new outlet; they must perpetuate themselves in their
99399, which are their spiritual children. We find an extraor—
dinary expression of this creative process in the novel La tia
Lula (1921).5

This is the story of two orphaned sisters, Gertrudis,
also called Tula, and Rosa, who like the beautiful flower for
which she is named opens to the world and to love. These two
sisters seem to represent respectively the spirit and the flesh.
They have been raised by their maternal uncle, the priest Pri-
mitivo, whose purpose here is to serve as the link between past
family tradition and the family of the future that Tula and
Rosa will create. The sisters love and are loved by Ramiro;
however, though it is Tula he prefers, she will insist that he
marry Rosa and she will use them as the instruments by which
she establishes the new family.

The prologue to the novel, as is customary in Unamuno,
is very revealing in respect to the ideas at work beneath the
story of Tula. It begins with a paragraph in which Santa Teresa
is speaking of the powerful impression she and her brother re-
ceived upon reading that "suffering and glory are forever."
Then she tells how the repetition of this idea fixed in her
mind "the way of truth," referring it seems to the way to eternal

glory. In hOpes of reaching this goal she and her brother used

174

to play at being hermits in religious seclusion. Later, of
course, this saint will become famous for her writings and for
the foundation of a religious order.

Tula also wishes "to be forever" and she too finds her
way through the foundation of a community, although a domestic
rather than a religious one. This community will survive her,
but she will also survive within it--Just as Don Manuel will
do in his pueblo. Like both Manuel and Teresa, she will be
"canonized" by those who worship her memory, coming to be re-
garded by the family she leaves behind as a household saint.

In the prologue Santa Teresa, who had also lost her
mother, asks the Virgin to be a substitute; and in the novel
Tula will acquire a strong devotion to the Virgin Mother and
will promote her cult in the family she forms. However, this
will be more than a simple religious devotion, because the se-
parate concepts of mother and virgin take on special signifi-
cance for her and come to be an obsession.6

In another portion of the prologue Unamuno declares
the "Teresian and Quixotesque" roots of this novel. What he
means is not difficult to discover. In his essay Vida de Don
Quijote y Sancho he says: ”en cabo de cuenta, aqué buscaban
unos y otros, héroes y santos, sino sobrevivir? Los unos en
la memoria de los hombres, en el seno de Dios los otros. . . .
[e1 ansia de sobrevivir] ha sido el mas entrafiado resorte de
la vida." (157) The saint and the hero Unamuno is using here
as examples of this maxim are Saint Teresa and Don Quixote;

and the truth is that the hero, the saint and Tula do bear

175

some striking similarities, for all of them, in the names of
the embodiment of their ideal, whether it be the Virgin Mother
7

or Dulcinea, want "to be forever," and this leads them to
struggle to leave behind in the world their immortal work,
their 9939.

The key to the relationship between these three figures
is to be found in another prologue, the one that precedes Eggg
novelas eJemplares. There Unamuno speaks of the men and women
who are more real than the others because they are the creators.
"S610 existe lo que obra," he says, and gbggg is the creative
act bywhich these men and women are able to ggglize themselves.
Though these volitive individuals must live in the phenomenolo-
gical and rational world they manage to create within it a reali-
ty of their own, the intimate reality that, for them at least,
is the true one. (974) Thus, knight errantry becomes the true
reality of Alonso e1 Bueno, Just as the world of mystic experi-
ence becomes the true reality of Santa Teresa. Tula also creates
an intimate world of her own, closed off from outside influence
and amenable to her needs, over which she can rule as the "vir-
gin mother." Eventually, these ggggg they have created become
the means by which they immortalize themselves.

Unamuno continues his comparisons, using women from
biblical and classical sources. He presents the example of
Antigone, the daughter and sister of Oedipus, who, in defiance
of the orders of King Creon, honors the dead of her family, g
129 99 lg migma entrafia, by giving her brother Polynices the

rites of burial. For this and for further defying authority

176

by confessing faith in the eternal laws of conscience, those
that reign in the eternal world of the dead, in the world of
immortality (1041), she suffers martyrdom. She relates to the
novel of Aunt Tula because of this discovery of an eternal law
of another world according to which she will live and sacrifice
herself, coming to represent a domestic religion or religious
domesticity and becoming a saint in her own right, Just as Aunt
Tula will do.8
Unamuno then goes on to explain the importance of this.
Civilization, cities, and wars, he says, are created by men;
and man, an "animal civil, urbano, fraternal y . . . fratricida,"
must be purified by domestic action. The masculine can only
prosper upon the feminine, patrias upon matrias and fraternidad
upon sororidad. He illustrates this using a metaphor that,will
be repeated throughout the novel: "habra barbarie de guerras
devastadoras, y otros estragos, mientras sean los zanganos, que
revolotean en torno de la reina para fecundarla y devorar la
miel que no hicieron, los que riJan las colmenas." (1042)9 It
will be seen in her story, in fact, how Tula identifies herself
with the gbgjg and how it will be she who rules the household.
Ramiro, the man in her life, will be reduced to the role of a
drone, the indispensable instrument by means of which she ful-
fills her need to be a "mother" and to prolong not only her own
being, but the ancestral spirit of her family as well.10
Tula manages all this because, like Abisag, she sacri-

fices her carnal motherhood for the "good of the family." The

explanation of her peculiar behavior is suggested by Unamuno

177

in Vida de Don Qgijote y Sancho, where he says that one must
renounce the flesh in order to perpetuate oneself in the spirit.
(99) Of Don Quixote's chaste and idealized love for Dulcinea
he says: "temiste acaso profanarlo confesandolo a la misma que
te lo encendia; temiste tal vez mancharlo primero y después
malgastarlo y perderlo si lo llevabas a su cumplimiento vulgar
y usado." (101) He speaks of it again in lefsentimiento tra-
ico:

en el culto a la virginidad, Jno habré acaso una cier-

ta oscura idea de qu9 e1 perpetuarse en otros estorba

la prOpia perpetuaci6n? . . . es posible que haya quien

para mejor perpetuarse guarde su virginidad. Y para

perpetuar algo mas humano que la carne. (151 and 189)
Since the act of love is seen as "un deJar de ser, total 0 par-
cialmente, lo que se era, un partirse, una muerte parcial,"
(ST, 188) Tula, and other heroes and heroines of these works,
fear not only the impurity of carnal love but a loss of "being”
as well. They are consequently unable to surrender to their
feelings and give themselves to another.

The metaphor that is used to symbolize Tula's experi-
ence with love is that of the ermine which, in order not to
spot its pure white fur, refuses to leap into the quagmire to
save its companion. At the end of her story, however, Tula
will admit that the failure of her life, her sin, caused by
vanity and presumption, was in not surrendering to instinct
and to the needs of the flesh.

In Part I of the novel Tula says a woman has two career

choices, either marriage or the convent, and for her sister she

recommends marriage. For herself, however, neither choice is

178

possible. Though her maternal instincts are strong and she
holds firmly to the belief that "e1 oficio de la mujer es hacer
hombres y muJeres," (1071) this natural drive is obstructed by
her obsession with purity, which causes her to long to isolate
herself from the world and from contaminating influences. So
Tula attempts to satisfy these two contradictory forces within
her by creating a role for herself and an intimate world of

11 She will con-

her own in which she can effectively function.
vert the home of her sister and brother—in-law into a kind of
convent in which she is the Mother Superior and she will raise
the children of others, children she considers her own--with
some Justification since she not only raises them but manipu-
lates their conception.

The maternity for which Tula longs is to have children
of the spirit, not of her flesh: "Gertrudis . . . era toda ma-
ternidad, pero maternidad de espiritu." (1073) Consequently,
everything she does will be directed to one end, the amplifica-
tion of her spiritual motherhood. She is not motivated by any
sense of moral obligation or compassion or love for her nephews
and nieces, but by her own pride and egoism and personal need.
Even though she loves Ramiro and he wants her, she will insist
he marry her sister Rosa and later, when Rosa dies, she will
make him marry the maid Manuela. She establishes herself as
the mistress of Ramiro's home (she is totally unconcerned about
what outsiders might surmise from this unusual situation), and
she will appropriate the children that are the products of the

unions she has arranged for her man, much as Raquel did.

179

Both Ramiro's wives, even her own sister, will be lit-
tle more to Tula than bodies from which children are born to
her. At times she even shows considerable cold—bloodedness in
this respect as, for example, in Part IV where Rosa is in seri-
ous danger during childbirth and Tula thinks only of saving the

baby's life because, she reasons, "quedaban otras madres."

(1051:)12

Ricardo Gull6n, in his article on Unamuno's domineering
women, accurately describes Tula's forceful and authoritarian
character and raises the suspicion, as well, that the maternal
drive she exhibits is the disguise for a possessive Will:

La t1a Tula me parece el personaje unamuniano en
quien mas densa y completamente se desarrollan los
temas de la maternidad espiritual y de la maternidad
como disfraz de la voluntad posesiva. . . . E1 desig-
ni9 de Tula dara f9rma a1 futuro, encauzando la 9situa-
ci6n en la direcci6n ad9cuada para forJarlo segun lo
desea. Todo ocurre segun 10 ha decidido; su poder
alcanza tanto como su voluntad.

Tula hace su vida y la de los otros (se conduce tan
habilmente, haciendoles creer en el desinteres de

sus motivos, que desde fuera su caso parece uno mas,
s6lo excepcional en la conciencia del "deber" cum-
plido), suscita las situaciones, presionando con
guante de seda y fierro inexorable para que los bene-
ficiarios de su desvelo l9 acepten y se lo agradez-
can. . . . la familia sera e1 c1rculo donde eJerci-
tara su instinto predatorio. 13

For Tula the other members of the family are, in fact,
like dolls or puppets, mufiecos, which she manipulates at will.
They readily recognize and accept her authority, an authority
bestowed on her through a powerful inner force, a special in-
telligence that may have been passed down to her from her moth-
er and her grandmother, that apparently includes the vague con-

sciousness of being a vital link in a continuous and unending

180

14

chain. The link must play her role or the eternal family
will die, and Tula, in her own way, will fulfill her duty in
this reSpect.

Tula's repugnance for all she considers impure and un-
clean is demonstrated numerous times. Her contempt for men
and refusal to marry are manifestations of this repugnance,
for she thinks of men as zanganos, necessary for procreation,
but disgusting and brutelike. Of this dislike for men Gull6n
says:

[En el hombre] no ha podido ver mas que a1 bruto dis-
puesto a profanar a1 santuario de su sol9dad virginal.
Huir del var6n, y al mismo tiempo apropiarselo; rete-
nerlo en el alma y consentir (movida por soberbia,
asco y desdén) que aplaqu9 e1 deseo carnal en el cuer-
po de otra, llamada tambien a desempenar la tarea con-
taminada de 9sangre 9y secreciones de gestar y alumbrar
hijos que s6lo seran 9suyos por haber dispuesto para

la vida sus fisiologlas. 15

In her repulsion for all that is instinctive Tula re-
sembles Avito Carrascal of Amor y pedagogia. Like him she
thinks of herself as spirit, light and intellect, and she fears
the dark and unconscious side of life which includes love and
sex; this, in turn, has a great deal to do with the atmosphere

16

she insists on creating in the home for the children. She

wants to raise them in ignorance and far removed from disturb-
ing things, in almost antiseptic surroundings. At one point
she says to Ramiro:

-—Pero ges que puede hab9r para unos ninos, hombre
de Dios, un hogar mejor que este? Tienen hogar, ver-
dadero hogar, con padre y madre, y es un hogar limpio,
castISimo, por todos cuyos rincones pueden andar a
todas horas, un hogar donde nunca hay que cerrarle9
puert9 alguna, un hogar sin misterios. JQuieres mas?

1070

181

But this home Tula has created for the children is artificial,
a product of the fears and manias of Tula herself. Moreover,
something seems to be lacking, and one strongly suspects it is
true love. The fact is, there 999 mysteries and closed doors
in this home in spite of what Tula says.

Tula is terrified by the flesh and rejects it. She
wants to be pure spirit without stain, more than human. When,
toward the end, she talks of 9999 caidas and says on her death-
bed "no tenemos alas, a lo més de gallina...; no somos éngeles
...," (1106) one realizes, as she does also, that her goal was
much too high. Tula has rejected the human within her in a
sublime effort to reach a higher order of being.17 She aimed
at the moon, an unreachable goal, and in doing so she "passed
through the world outside the world." (1100)

An illustration of all this occurs in Part XI where
Tula has decided that a summer vacation in the country would
be a good and wholesome experience for the family. She soon
discovers, however, that the countryside does not give lessons
on purity and, besides, the conduct of the farm animals in
front of her children horrifies her. She concludes that puri-
ty is a thing of the cities and Cloisters where men can better
isolate themselves as in a convent or monastery of recluses.
She even refuses to sit on the ground--since the earth unites
men the idea of contact with it repulses her. She feels, on
the other hand, strongly attracted to the sea which she consi-
ders to be pure, and both she and Ramiro identify the moon with

her. It is distant, unreachable and, as Ramiro points out, it

182

has a mysterious dark side that man never sees.l8 He seems to
be suggesting that there is a Tula that none of them know and,
in fact, in her confession in Part XIX she reveals that the true
Gertrudis is not the one others see, that she is not who she
appears to be. "Por dentro soy otra," she says, "hay dias en
que siento ganas a reunir a sus hijos, a mis hijos . . . y de-
cirles que mi vida ha sido una mentira, una equivocaci6n, un
fracaso..." (1098)

Apparently Tula feels her life to be a lie and a fail-
ure because she has not been true to herself. She has been
playing a role, hiding behind the mask of Aunt Tula. We can
only guess at some of the reasons she created the role: venera-
tion of the Virgin Mother, an obsession with purity and a fear
of men, all partially the result of the ideas inculcated into
her by an emasculated uncle-priest who worshipped the memory
of his mother and sister. She attempted to live according to
her ideal in a world of her creation, but ideal alone is cold
and inhuman, more thought than feeling.l9 On the other hand,
her ideal allowed her to achieve a stature few individuals
reach.

Tula is a terribly tragic figure. This does not stand
out as vividly as in the case of Joaquin Monegro. But her re—
morse and profound sense of the failure of her life, and espe-
cially the two instances when she pathetically bares her dry
and virginal breasts to a hungry baby, more than adequately
underscore her tragedy. She does not allow herself to love

and so she remains painfully alone, though surrounded by her

183

family. This is why, just before Ramiro's death, she confesses
to him that she may have had an inhuman idea of virtue; and why
at the end of her life she too, like Joaquin Monegro, laments

that she had not lived love.20

On her deathbed she advises her
children not to make the same mistake.

It was in their youth that Tula and Rosa were inculcated
with the concepts and ancestral traditions that will govern their
lives. Tula is aware of this and she is aware also that it was

21

don Primitivo who was their tutor, for when he has died she

says to Rosa:

Fue nuestro padre; él nos educ6. . . . El nos llen6 la

vida casi silenciOS9mente, sin decirnos palabras, con

el culto de la Sant1sima Virgen Madre, y con el culto

también de nuestra madre, su hermana, y de nuestra

abuela, su madre. JTe acuerd9s, cuando por las noches

nos hacla rezar e1 rosario, c6mo le 9ambiaba la voz a1

llegar a aquel padrenuestro y avemar1a por el eterno

descanso del alma de nuestra madre, y luego aquellos

otros por el de su madre, nuestra abuela, a la que no

conocimos? En aquel rosario nos daba madre y en aquel

rosario te enseno a serlo. 9

--;Y a ti, Tula, a ti. --exclamo entre sollozos
Rosa. (1057)
Tula, in her turn, will raise her nephews and nieces

in a similar way, in the cult of their dead ancestors. With
that pedagogic mania seen in other creative individuals Tula
has set about "educating" the family she has formed. She knows
how impressionable and malleable the character of a young child
is: "cada cosa de estas que ve u oye un nino es una semilla en
su alma, que luego echa tallo y da fruto." (1069) She is not
only the spirit of the family and the embodiment of its essence
but also the prime mover, conscious of a deeper meaning to ex-

istence, who motivates the less conscious members of the

184

community to the fulfillment of their functions. She nurtures
the common existence of its members present and past, making
all the children live in an intimate communion with their dead

22 She keeps its past alive and assures that it has

parents.
everything necessary for its continued survival. She gives

life to her community and will live on in it with some measure
of immortality. When she dies Unamuno says:

JMuri6 la tia Tula? No, sino que empez6 a vivir

en la familia, e irradiando 9e ella, con una nueva
vida mas entranada y mas vivifica, con la vida eterna
de la familiaridad inmort9l. Ahora era ya p9ra sus
hijos, sus sobrinos, la T19, no mas que l9 T1a, ni
madre ya ni mama, ni aun t19 Tula, sino 8610 la T1a.
Fu9 este nombre de invocaci6n, de verdader9 invoca-
ci6n religiosa, como el canonizamiento doméstic9 de
una santidad 9de hogar. La misma Manolita, su mas
hija, y la mas heredera de su esp1ritu, la d9posita-
ria de su tradici6n, no le llamaba sino la T1a.
(1107)

Of all the children Manolita is the one chosen to carry
on Tula's work, to be the inheritor of her spirit and the depos-
itory of her tradition. It will then be Manolita who has com-
mitted to memory the sayings and deeds, not only of Tula, but
of the ancestors, and through her the eternal spirit of the fam—
ily will continue. She will inherit its soul, which was spirit-
ualized previously in Aunt Tula. (1107-08) Manolita's resem-
blance to Aunt Tula was recognized even before the latter's
death, and Tula was conscious of having created her in her own
image: "la he hecho yo, {es obra mia!" (1103) Manolita herself
is aware of her role:

Desde la muerte de la T1a hablase revelado. Guardaba
todo su saber, todo su espiritu; las mismas frases
recort9das y aceradas, a las veces repetici6n de las

que oy6 a la otra, la misma doctrina, el mismo estilo
y hasta el mismo gesto. . . . Ella guardaba e1 archivo

185

y el tesoro de la otra; ella ten1a 1a llave de los
cajoncitos secretos de la que 9e fué en carne y sangre
. . . ella era la historia domestica; por ella se con-
tinuaba 1a eternid9d espiritual de la familia. 9Ella
hered6 e1 alma de esta, 9spiritualizada en la T1a.

. . . Y todo esto 19 sab1a Manolita, a quien se lo
hab1a ensenado 1a Tia. (1108)

Shortly before Tula's death something very significant
happens. She asks for the doll she used to play with as a child,
and she tells Manolita a story that hints at her own tragedy.

It is the story of a little girl who has lost her doll but cries
so bitterly that she fills with tears the dry well into which
her doll had fallen, and the doll, floating to the surface, can
be retrieved. Tula, like the child in the story, has saved her-
self from frustrated motherhood, but at the cost of bitter suf-
fering; and she too will end up "seca y muerta de haber llorado
tanto..." (1104)

Then a "bad thought" comes to Tula: "El mal pensamiento
era que el susurro diab6lico a119, en el fondo de las entrafias
doloridas con el dolor de la partida, le decia: 'iMufiecos todos!'"
(1105) And it is true. She has been the puppeteer, manipulat-
ing all the members of the family at her Will; but even Tula
herself has been the puppet of her own idea, manipulated by it,

and she has been the tool, moreover, of her family past which

has worked its survival through her.23

In respect to her effectiveness as a "creative" heroine
Tula has been very successful. She has managed both to enlarge
her sphere of influence and to prolong herself in time beyond

her physical death to a greater extent than any of Unamuno's

186

previous characters. But in his next novel, San Manuel Bueno,
martir (Salamanca: November, 1930), the protagonist does not
limit his influence to a single family. The priest Don Manuel
will broaden his spiritual domination to encompass an entire
town.

One of the striking differences between this novel and
most of Unamuno's other stories and novels, with the notable
exception of Paz en la guerra, is the existence of background
description, something he had eliminated after the appearance
of his first novel in preference to concentrating his attention
on the baring of his protagonists' intimate selves. In the
prologue to the novel, written in 1932, he tells how this scen-
ery was inspired by a lake in Sanabria at the foot of the ruins
of a Bernardian convent. The lake is called San Martin de la
Castaneda, and there is a legend told in that area of a Submerg-
ed city, Valverde de Lucerna. The site must have impressed him
profoundly (he first visited it in June, 1930) because, besides
the novel, he wrote several poems about it, one of which begins:

San Martin de la Castaneda,
espejo de soledades,
el lago recoje edades
de~antes del hombre y se queda
sonando en la santa calma
del cielo de las alturas
en que se sume en honduras
de anegarse, ipobre3, e1 alma...
(SM, 1116)

But though this scenery is realistic, the description
of a place that really exists, its single purpose as used in

the novel is symbolic. It becomes clear in the story that the

mountain represents faith and eternal life, the lake death and

187

oblivion, and the town of Valverde de Lucerna at the foot of
the mountain and on the shores of the lake represents the exis—
tential situation of man, caught between the desire to be for-
ever and the certainty of death.24

The novel is written in the form of a biography ”a modo
de confesion" by an intimate friend of Don Manuel, Angela Carba-
llino, one of only two people who came to know his secret.
"Quiero dejar aqui consignado," she says, "todo lo que sé y re-
cuerdo de aquel varén matriarcal que 11en5 toda la mas entranada
vida de mi alma, que fue mi verdadero padre espiritual." (1129)
Angela remembers almost nothing of her real father, since he
died when she was very young and since her mother's memory of
his words and deeds has been erased by those of the priest Don
Manuel, whom she loved and adored as did everyone else in the
town. In fact, this varon matriarcal is the spiritual father
of them all; an intelligent and talented man who has dedicated
himself to his Valverde de Lucerna and, above all, to consoling
the embittered and weary of life, and to aiding them all at the
moment of death.

This man, it is made clear, is a new Emmanuel, a suffer-
ing redeemer who bears the cross, not of Golgotha, but of the
certainty of death and the fear of nothingness beyond. He acts
out of the desperation of this anxiety, being the manifestation
of Unamuno's assertion that "muchos de los mas grandes heroes,
acaso los mayores. han sido desesperados, y por la desesperacion
acabaron sus hazafias." (ST, 186-87) Unamuno will even suggest

at the end of the novel that Christ may have been one of these

188

25

desperate and disbelieving heroes.

This disbelief in eternal life is the secret Don Manuel
hides from his pe0p1e, and it is from this secret that his ob—
session springs. He wants more than anything to save himself
from oblivion in some way; and it is this very struggle to save
himself that keeps him, he tells Lazaro, from killing himself
in desperation. He is the most complete embodiment in Unamuno's
works of the tragic sentiment and, in fact, it is in the essay
Del sentimiento tragico where we find the best explanation of
what it is that motivates him:

Cuando las dudas nos invaden y nublan 1a fe en

la inmortalidad del alma, cobra brio y doloroso em-

puje el ansia de perpetuar el nombre y la fama, de

alcanzar una sombra de inmortalidad siquiera. Y de

aqui esa tremenda lucha por singularizarse, por so-

brevivir de algun modo en la memoria de los otros y

los venideros, esa lucha mil veces mas terrible que

la lucha por la vida, y que da tono, color y caracter

a esta nuestra sociedad, en que la fe medieval en el

alma inmortal desvanece. (140)
Since he cannot believe in divine salvation Don Manuel seeks
an alternative by saving himself in his people, by creating in
them the faith he has lost. He is one of those martyrs of whom
Unamuno speaks who creates faith rather than being created by
it. (ST, 263) It is this effort alone that gives meaning to
his life.

We first become aware of his disbelief because of his
inability to recite along with his congregation the portion of
the Christian Creed that states; ”I believe in the resurrection
of the flesh and in the life everlasting." He is pursued by

his anxiety, and so he keeps as active as possible in order to

avoid it, fleeing from the contemplative life and from idleness,

189

recognizing that g1 pensar 001080 is mortally dangerous to be-
lief and to spiritual health.

Tormented as Don Manuel is by his lack of belief in an
eternal life, it is not surprising that he, like other Unamunes-
que heroes, sometimes demonstrates a desire to return to a pre—
conscious state: "(Que ganas tengo de dormir, dormir, dormir
sin fin, dormir por toda una eternidad y sin sonar}, zolvidando
el sueno'" (1198) Later, Angela will make note of a symbolic
episode in Don Manuel's life that is significant in regard to
this yearning for peace:

Cuando se sec6 aquel magnifico nogal -- "un nogal ma-
triarcal" 1e llamaba--, a cuya sombra hab1a jugado

de nino y con cuyas nueces se habia durante tantos
anos regalado, pidi6 e1 tronco, se lo 11ev6 a su casa
y despues [labr6] en 61 seis tablas, que guardaba a1
pie de su lecho. . . . (113k) 26

At the end of the story Don Manuel will say: "Cuando
me entierren, que sea en una caja hecha con aquellas seis tab-
las que tallé del viejo nogal, ipobrecitoi, a cuya sombra jugué
de nino, cuando empezaba a sonar... gY entonces si que creia
en la vida perdurable'" (1148) So, he will be buried enveloped
in the protective walls of this "maternal" walnut tree, his
death being made symbolically thereby a desnacer and a return
to a time before his consciousness of death and his loss of
faith.

It was earlier noted that in some ways Don Manuel is
just the opposite of Pachico in Paz en la guerra.) Though they
both suffer the tragic sense of life, Pachico eventually manages

to come to terms with life and resigns himself to becoming part

of the intrahistoric flow of existence; but this causes him to

190

go out into the world to fight for truth and social justice
"decidido a provocar en los demas el descontento." (PG, 301)
Don Manuel is, on the other hand, destined to struggle his en-
tire life with the tragic sense of his finiteness and is unable
to find inward peace; yet he dedicates his life to bringing the
peace and contentment he cannot feel to others. He recognizes,
his compassion tells him it is so, that his fellow men instinc-
tively fear death, and so he does what he can to divert their
minds from the thought of death, by encouraging dances, a gen-
eral feeling of contentment and happiness, lots of hard manual
labor, and even the reading of entertaining literature. Any-
thing to keep them from dwelling on the idea of death.

Don Manuel is the only one of Unamuno's heroes who dem-
onstrates that very highest form of love--compassion. But it
is not an entirely unselfish sentiment. His own existential
suffering has made him sensitive to the suffering of others,
and so he dedicates his life to sparing his peOple by hiding
from them the awful truth. Even this compassionate dedication,
however, springs from self love, his ultimate goal being salva-
tion for himself in the collective memory of his people. This
is what he means when he says: "Debo vivir para mi pueblo, mo-
rir para mi pueblo. 5C6mo voy a salvar mi alma si no salvo la
de mi pueblo?" (1135)27

The role Don Manuel has adopted to achieve his end is
that of the saintly man, but the end itself, as he himself
clearly states, is to "save" himself in his people. Just as

a father passes part of himself on to his progeny, and as the

191

domestic saint Aunt Tula passes herself on to her "children,"
so Don Manuel will become the spiritual father of this town,
of his "children," and he will live on in them, in their memo-
ries and in the faith and contentment he has created in them.
This was his true purpose, and the people of the town, Lazaro
and Angela too, are his instruments, the means by which he will
realize his goal.28
Though Don Manuel has dedicated his life to sparing his
people the pain of existential suffering, it is still apparent
that Unamuno has little sympathy for those who are not fully
conscious of their being. The unlearned country folk are delt
with with condescension and Don Manuel has little difficulty
managing them. In fact, the ingenuousness and willingness to
believe blindly of the people of Valverde de Lucerna is aptly
represented here by the poor idiot Blasillo g1 hobo who, though
limited in intelligence, has learned to ape Don Manuel, repeat-
ing his words without understanding their meaning.29 They are
all the passive and receptive objects of Don Manuel's ministra-
tions and, with the exception of Angela and Lazaro, they are
like children-~impoverished spiritually, intellectually, and
in sentiment.30
Angela spends five years away from the town at a board-
ing school and admits to feeling certain spiritual concerns and
anxieties as a result of reading the books in her father's li-
brary, anxieties that increased during her time at school. But

it does not take Don Manuel long to dispel her fears, and she

will continue to believe "like a child of ten."31 Lazaro,

192

however, is a much more difficult challenge for Don Manuel.

He is an outsider, having lived many years in the New World.
Moreover, he is a confirmed progressive, a liberal dedicated

to social betterment, and an admirer of "civilization," which

he sees as the very opposite of the feudal and underdeveloped
rural society of Velverde de Lucerna. He is, in short, the
typical product of the scientific and positivistic thinking of
the turn of the century. He is the one person who might be able
to upset Don Manuel's spiritual dominion over the souls of his
people. When Lazaro learns of the sway Don Manuel has over the
people, including the members of Lézaro's own family, he believes
him to be an example of the dark theocracy in which he supposed
Spain to be immersed: "Y empez6 a borbotar sin descanso todos
los viejos lugares comunes anticlericales y hasta antirreligio-
sos y progresistas que habia traido renovados del Nuevo Mundo."
(1138) He soon realizes, however, that Don Manuel is not like
other priests: "es demasiado inteligente para creer todo lo que
tiene que ensefiar," (1139) he tells Angela.

Lazaro's curiosity soon gets the best of him and he be-
gins to go to Mass to hear Don Manuel's sermons; the priest
spends a great deal of time with him, even to the point of ne-
glecting his other "patients." They take long walks together
along the shores of the lake and to the ancient ivy-covered
ruins of the Cistercian monastery, where martyrs of past times
suffered self-inflicted tortures in their struggle to be deserv-
ing of everlasting life. In the end Lazaro appears won over

by the priest, and serves to confirm Don Manuel's spiritual

193

power over the town. He is "converted" to the faith and re-
ceives the rite of Holy Communion before the eyes of the entire
congregation. However, during the ceremony something takes
place that creates the suspicion that all is not as it seems:

Cuando 11eg6 la vez de mi hermano pude ver que Don

Manuel, tan blanco como la nieve de enero en la mon-

tana y temblando como tiembla e1 lago cuando 1e hos-

tiga e1 cierzo, se 1e acerc6 con la sagrada forma en

la mano, y de tal modo 1e temblaba ésta a1 arrimarla

a la boca de Lazaro que se 1e cay6 1a forma a tiempo

que le daba un vahido. Y fue mi hermano mismo quien

recogi6 1a hostia y se la llev6 a la boca. Y el

pueblo al ver llorar a Don Manuel, llor6 diciéndose

"3C6mo le quiere'" Y entonces, pues era la madrugada,
cant6 un gallo. (1140-41)
This biblical allusion to Peter's denial of Christ is
a symbol of the deceit that is taking place, for Don Manuel has
not even attempted to convert Lazaro but rather has convinced
him that the truth would destroy the people.32 When Lazaro
says to him: "Pero, Don Manuel, la verdad, la verdad ante todo,"
Don Manuel responds in a trembling whispered voice: "aLa verdad?
La verdad, Lazaro, es acaso algo terrible, algo intolerable,
algo mortal; la gente sencilla no podria vivir con ella." (11#2)
"Yo estoy para hacer vivir a las almas de mis filigreses," he
explains, "para hacerles felices, para hacerles que se suefien
inmortales y no para matarles." His motto, inspired in the
famous drama of Calder6n de la Barca, is: "e1 hacer bien, y el
engafiar bien, ni aun en suefios se pierde..." (1108)
During one of their walks on a winter's day Don Manuel

remarks: "aHas visto, Lazaro, misterio mayor que el de la nieve

cayendo en el lago y muriendo en 61 mientras cubre con su toca

a la montafia?" (1195) To last, to remain, like the snow on the

194

mountain is the impossible dream of all men, the dream of life.
This is why Don Manuel's advice to Lazaro is that they should
make every effort to see to it that Valverde de Lucerna dreams
this image of life "como el lago suefia el cielo." When he
learns Lazaro is preaching against certain popular superstitions
he tells him: "Déjalos, pues, mientras se consuelen. Vale mas
que lo crean todo, aun cosas contradictorias entre si, a no que
crean nada. . . . que se consuelen de haber nacido, que vivan

lo mas contentos que puedan en la ilusi6n de que todo esto tiene
una finalidad." (1145) As far as the social question is con-
cerned he rejects any economic betterment (quite contrary to
Pachico's determination to fight for social and economic justice):
"ano crees que del bienestar general surgira mas fuerte el tedio
de la vida? Si, ya sé que uno de esos caudillos de la que lla-
man la revoluci6n social ha dicho que la religi6n es el opio

del pueblo. 0pio... Opio... Opio, si. Démosle cpio, y que
duerma y que suefie." (1146)

This may be one reason why Don Manuel is called a yagén
matriarcal. He is matriarchal because, like many mothers in
Unamuno's fiction, he lulls his children to sleep and to dream
the dream of eternal life. They remain unconscious of the cross
they bear, because he has hidden this Qggg, this frightening
bogeyman called death and oblivion, from them. In this respect
his relationship to his people is similar to that of Marina to
her son when she sings him to sleep with that lullaby that so
intrigued Unamuno:

Duerme, nifio chiquito,
que viene e1 Coco

195

a llevarse a los nifios
que duermen poco...

(AP. 335)
But unlike Marina he does not represent the inert material side
of existence; he is rather the greatest of the creative men, of
those "authentic" suffering souls whose lives are a struggle to
save themselves from total death.

One of the most effective and moving descriptions of
the struggle of the creative man is found in Lézaro's account
of a conversation between himself and the saint:

ayer, paseando a orillas del lago, me dijo: "He aqui
mi tentaci6n mayor" Y como yo 1e interrogase con la
mirada, anadi6: "Mi pobre padre, que muri6 de cerca de
noventa anos, se pas6 la vida, segun me lo confes6 el
mismo, torturado por la tentaci6n del suicidio, que

1e venia no recordaba desde cuando, de naci6n, de01a,
y defendiéndose de ella. Y esa defensa fue su vida.
Para no sucumbir a tal tentaci6n extremaba los cuida-
dos por conservar la vida. Me cont6 escenas terribles.
Me parecia como una locura. Y yo 1a he heredado. zY
c6mo me llama esa agua que con su aparente quietud
--la corriente va por dentro-- espeja a1 cielo. 3M1
vida, Lazaro, es una especie de suicidio continuo, un
combate contra el suicidio, que es igual. . . . Siga—
mos, pues, Lazaro, suicidandonos en nuestra obra y en
nuestro pueblo, "y que suene éste su vida como el lago
suena el cielo. (1144)

The belief and contentment of Valverde de Lucerna,
created and encouraged by Don Manuel, will be his eternal life,
the obra he will leave behind when he has gone. He has strug-
gled desperately toward this end, against the dark forces of
resignation and death. He is successful in becoming the region-
al saint of this place, and he will live on there as long as
his memory and his works remain. But even this life, like the
vida dg_1a fama in Jorge Manrique's famous Coplas, is not im—

perishable in the end. Lazaro does not live long after the

196

death of Don Manuel, and when he knows he is about to die he
says to Angela: "No siento tanto tener que morir . . . como que
conmigo se muere otro pedazo del alma de Don Manuel. Pero lo
demés de 61 vivira contigo. Hasta que un dia hasta los muertos
nos moriremos del todo." (1151)

Don Manuel's legacy is, partially at least, a restate-
ment of the concept of the intrahistoria upon which Unamuno's
first novel was based. Don Manuel has struggled not only to
transcend his individual existence but also to incorporate him-
self into a larger whole. At the end of her memoirs Angela
tells what it was Don Manuel taught: "61 me ensefi6 a vivir, él
nos ensefi6 a vivir, a sentir la vida, a sentir e1 sentido de
la vida, a sumergirnos en el alma de la montafia, en el alma del
lago, en el alma del pueblo de la aldea, a perdernos en ellas
para quedar en ellas. . . . No vivia yo ya en mi, sino que vi-
via en mi pueblo y mi pueblo vivia en mi." (1152) To submerge
oneself into the "soul" of the place and of the peOple is one
assured way of gaining continued existence.33 Don Manuel, how-
ever, did not simply resign himself to this immersion into the
totality of his environment, for this would have meant a loss
of personality; so he has struggled to leave behind something
more of himself, to leave behind an obra of his creation. An-
gela and Lazaro in particular have been won over by him and,
like Manolita in La tia_§§la, they will carry on the gpga of
their adored saint even after his death, they are pedazos of
Don Manuel just as Lazaro says. Angela herself is somewhat

conscious of doing a similar thing in writing this biography,

197

which is as much her story and her brother's as Don Manuel's;
this is why she says: "estoy traspasando a este papel . . . mi
conciencia que en 61 se ha de quedar, quedandome yo sin ella."

(1152)

Unamuno says in the prologue of the three short novels
he intended to be published together, San Manuel Bueno, Don San-
dalio, and El pobre hombre rico, that they are alike and right-
fully together because they all deal with the frightening pro—
blem of personality, that is, with the problem if one is what
he is and will continue to be what he is: "Ese problema, esa
congoja, mejor, de la conciencia de la propia personalidad--
congoja unas veces tragica y otras c6mica-- es el que me ha in-
spirado para casi todos mis personajes de ficci6n." (1122-23)
Was it not, Unamuno asks, this desire to save his personality
"en alas de la fama imperecedera" that guided Don Quixote, the
man who affirmed "zyo sé quién soy!" (1123) He further explains
that there are those who wish to "save" their personality, the
tragic and creative heroes, and there are those who wish simply
to conserve it, the "comic" heroes such as Emeterio Alfonso.
"Don Manuel busca, al ir a morirse, fundir --0 sea salvar--
su personalidad en la de su pueblo . . . y en cuanto al pobre
hombre Emeterio se la quiere reservar, ahorrativamente, para
si mismo, y al fin sirve a los fines de otra personalidad."
(1123) It is not inappropriate that this study end with a look
at the comic sense of life.

Uh pobre hombre rico 0 e1 sentimiento c6mico de la vida

198

(Salamanca: December, 1930) is the story of Emeterio Alfonso
who, a bachelor with no family obligations and a small but se-
cure income, felt no envy or any ambition to become greater,

34

but only a strong sense of self-conservation. He was, in
Unamuno's words, "un joven fundamental y radicalmente ahorra-
tivo . . . era ahorrativo, lo mismo en dinero, en trabajo, en
salud, en pensamiento y en afecto." (1187) Emeterio is the
embodiment of the "instinct of conservation" that Unamuno dis-
cusses with some frequency, especially in Del sentimiento tra-
gico, but always in a negative way and as a symtom of the lack
of the tragic sentiment, the result of laziness caused by the
weight of inert material: "y esa pereza, mientras nos dice que
trata de conservarnos por el ahorro, en realidad no trata sino
de amenguarnos, de anonadarnos."

e1 miserable individuo que vive preso del instinto de

conservaci6n y de los sentidos, no quiere sino conser-

varse, y todo su hipo es que no penetren los demas en

su esfera, que no 1e inquieten, que no le rompan 1a

pereza. . . . Y se achica y se engurruna y perece en

esta avaricia espiritual. . . . cuando, avaro de 81

mismo, se recoje en si, pensando mejor conservarse,

acaba por perderlo todo, y le ocurre lo que a1 que

recibio un solo talento: lo enterr6 para no perderlo

y se qued6 sin 61. (ST, 274)

Emeterio's friend and counselor, Celedonio, a disciple
of the extraordinary Don Fulgencio Entrambosmares who appears
in Amor y pedagogia, teaches him to play chess and other games
that are "entertaining, inoffensive, honest and healthy," such
as charades, rebuses, riddles, crossword puzzles and other sim—
ilar innocent distractions. All interests that might require

real involvement, such as politics, are avoided. Emeterio's

customary weekend entertainment, for example, is to attend the

199

theater, but only to see the gay and superficial works, never
the dramas. Such is the placid and methodical life of the pro-
tagonist of this story, a life from which disturbing influences
are carefully excluded.

Unfortunately, this peaceful existence is soon endan-
gered by a woman, Rosita, the attractive and provocative daugh-
ter of Emeterio's landlady. An exchange between these two women
in regard to him is indicative of the predatory nature typical
of so many of Unamuno's female characters:

";A ver si 1e pescas...:", solia decirle su madre,
Dona Tomasa, y ella, 1a nina: "0 si 1e cazo..."

"6Pero es que es carne o pescado?" "Me parece, madre,
que no es carne ni pescad9, sino rana.‘ " 6Rana? Pues
encandilale, hija, encandilale, 6para qué quieres, si
no, esos ojos?" "Bueno, madre, pero no haga a31 de
encandiladora, que me basto yo sola." "Pues a e110
6eh?. iTacto'" (1188)

When Emeterio tells Celedonio what is happening, his
friend responds: "Dios manda: icreced y multiplicaos!" (1189)
However, the thrifty Emeterio is only concerned with conserving
himself intact and so all his efforts are directed to defending
himself against the téctica envolvente of Rosita. He refuses
to be tempted by this Eve, and after consulting with Celedonio
he decides to flee from her: "aPero lo que ello 1e cost6! zLas
noches de pesadilla que le atorment6 el recuerdo de Rosita!

. . . 6He hecho bien en huir? 6Qué de malo hay en Rosita? 6Por
qué 1e he cobrado miedo?" (1190-91) Though he has separated
himself from the immediate danger he has not won, because his
flesh has been awakened by Rosita and now, for the first time,

he feels a lack of something, a desire: ”Duermo mal y sueno peor

--le decia a Celedonio--, me falta algo, me siento ahogar...

200

--Te falta la tentaci6n, Emeterio, no tienes con quién luchar."
(1191) He is not the same man he was, and as a sign of this
change he keeps the fatal day marked on his calendar. Now he
feels the emptiness of his life: "toda su vida intima se iba
sumiendo en una sima de mortal indiferencia. . . . Y entr6 Eme-
terio en una vida imposible, de profunda soledad interior."
(1194 and 1195)

Now, instead of going to the daily tertulias, he walks
the streets, observing the maternal ministrations of mothers to
their children that remind him of how Rosita used to care for
him. He also takes to following and studying young couples,
and he tells his friend that he would like to be a match-maker.
Celedonio, however, sees beneath this new diversion and responds:
"Si, la cuesti6n es pasar e1 rato, sin adquirir compromisos se-
rios. Y t6 siempre has huido de los compromisos." (1196) He
also sees that this newly expressed interest of Emeterio's re-
veals an unconscious desire to be "creative":

--6No has sentido nunca vocaci6n a1 arte?

--Si, en un tiempo me di6 por modelar. ..

--Ah, si, te gustaba manosear el barro...

--A1go habia de eso...

--Divino oficio el de alfarero, que asi dicen que
hizo Dios a1 primer hombre, como a un puchero...

(1197)

Emeterio, however, never goes beyond being a mere spec-
tator, believing g; 9199 to be more "Spiritual" than real in-
volvement. He even thinks he would like to have become a priest,
so that others would bare their souls to him in the anonymity of
the confessional. And so the years go by, with Emeterio living

like an errant and thrifty shadow, like a mushroom, without a

201

future and now almost without a past: "Ya no sé quién soy," he
tells Celedonio, "Ya no $6 $1 soy... Vivo..." (1198) He be—
gins thinking more and more about the passing of time and about
death, that one day he would produce a "vacancy": "Y ya toda
su preocupaci6n, bajo la sombra nebulosa en que se iba fundien-l
do sus ajados recuerdos, era la vacante." (1198)
Hasta que un dia, de pronto, como en sub1ta reve-
1aci6n providencia1,el corazon se le desve16, 1e di6
un revuelco y sint16 que renacia e1 pasado que pudo
haber sido y no fue, que renacia su ex futuro. (1199)
Suddenly, all his efforts to keep himself on the side-
lines come to an end when a provocative young girl walks by who
exercises an enormous attraction on him: "Esa mirada --se dijo
Emeterio-- me llega del otro mundo..., si, me parece como si me
llegara de mi viejo mundo, de aquel donde me aguarda e1 calen-
dario de antafio." (1199) His subconscious has come into play
and he follows her, only to discover she is Rosita's daughter.
Emeterio then tells Celedonio of the interview he has with R0-
sita, now a widow of forty-six years of age, during which a
comic and revealing play on the word escaparse takes place (ca-
par=to castrate, reduce or diminish):
--Y me cont6 su vida y su viudedad. V9ras, a ver
si recuerdo: "Desde que usted se nos escap6..." --em-
pez6 diciendome--. Y yo: "6Es...caparme?" Y ella:
"Si, desde que se nos es...capo, yo qued6 inconsolable,

porque aquello, recon6zcalo usted, don Emeterio, no
estuvo bien, no, no estuvo nada ni medio bien... Y

a1 fin tuve que casarme. {Qué remedio'" " 6Y su mari-
do?" --1e dije--. "6Quién, Martinez? zPobrecillo.
Un pobre hombre... pobre, que es lo peor...’

--Y ella, Emeterio, pensaba en tanto que un pobr9
hombre rico, como tu, es lo mejor... . . . ya has cai-
do Emeterio . . . ya te ha cazado o pescado. (1200- 01)

202

He has finally been caught by the scheming Rosita, and
he will marry her and provide a dowry for her daughter. How—
ever, he appears quite happy with his new life. On Saturdays
he takes his family to the theater, not to see dramas of course,
but only silly, superficial comedies that will make his wife
and step-daughter laugh. And Celedonio approves: "1a risa lo
purifica todo, . . . s6lo es inmoral el vicio triste, y la vir-
tud triste también. La risa esta indicada para los estrefiidos,
los misantr6picos..."

--Si, Celedonio, si; hay que cultivar e1 senti—
miento c6mico de la vida, diga lo que quiera ese Una-

muno. . . .
--Tienes raz6n en eso, Emeterio, mucha raz6n. Y,
sobre todo, cultivemos . . . e1 sentimiento c6mico de

la vida sin pensar en vacantes. (1206)

In this struggle between men there are victors and there
are victims, the utilizers and the used, but there are also, it
seems, individuals who choose to be the victim, who find pleas-
ure in being the primo, of "playing solitaire in company," as
Celedonio calls it. This subject comes up when Emeterio tells
his friend how he and Rosita spend the evenings playing cards:

--Y te hace trampas, 6no es eso? . . . 6Y a ti

te divierte que te las haga, y te ries, como si te
hicieran cosquillas. . . . Y te dejas enganar? 6Te
d9jas que te 1a pegue? Pues esa es toda la filoso-
fia del sentimiento comico de la vida. De los chis-
tes que se hacen en las comedias a cuenta de los
cornudos nadie S9 rie mas que los cornudos mismos
cuando son filos6ficos, hero1cos. 6Gozar en sentirse

ridiculo? zPlacer divino reirse de los reidores de
unol... (1208)

And Celedonio goes on to say that there is even a higher level
to this comic sentiment, a level which Emeterio has not reached,

which is ”e1 de hacerse espectaculo para que el mundo se

203

divierta..." He finishes with the advice that Emeterio should
continue playing the game, but without risking anything, dis-
interestedly, because the essential point is to be disinter-
ested: "en el desinterés esta el chiste... Y en el chiste esta
la vida..." (1209)

Emeterio bears some interesting similarities to Augusto
Pérez. Like Augusto he never really manages to become an active
participant in life, and he too lacks those strong emotions that
give substance to being, in his case because he takes great
pains to be disinterested and uninvolved; and he too even comes
to doubt his own existence. In both cases it is a woman who
awakens them to a deeper awareness of being, but unlike Augusto
Emeterio at first flees from the experience of love, preferring
to preserve himself intact. He soon comes to feel that he has
lost something, however, that he has lost his 9x—futuro, the
man he would have been, and he suffers the loneliness and the
sterile existence that is the consequence of his avoidance of
emotional involvement. Many years later, though, he manages to
recover that lost Self simply by following a pretty girl that
happens to pass by, much as Augusto followed Eugenia. This time
he surrenders to the tactica envolvente of Rosita and becomes
her willing and contented victim.

A possible explanation of Emeterio's solution to the
problem of life is found in a piece of advice given precisely
to Augusto Pérez by his friend and counselor Victor Goti: "De-
v6rate a ti mismo, y como el placer de devorarte se confundiré

y neutralizara con el dolor de ser devorado, llegaras a la

204

perfecta ecuanimidad de espiritu, a la ataraxia; no seras sino
un mero espectéculo para ti mismo." (N, 662) Emeterio makes

an art out of remaining disinterested, and when he does choose
to become involved it is as the object of the amusement of oth-
ers, the instrument of their pleasure and a mere spectacle for
their enjoyment. He too, though, is an amused spectator, a
willing victim, who is "playing solitaire in company" and re—
gards it all as a game or a comedy. He appears to have been
successful in neutralizing himself and in attaining that spirit-
ual equanimity, free from emotional disturbance and anxiety that
is the state of ataraxia.

In the end Emeterio turns out to be a most interesting
character, and he is even creative in a sense. His creative
energies, however, are directed not to seeking increase and to
overcoming others, nor to transcending and immortalizing himself,
but simply to reaching this perfect state of ataraxia. He occu-
pies a special category within Unamuno's ontology, and Unamuno
has devised a new concept to refer to him: Emeterio is the em-
bodiment of "the comic sentiment," which rests on the avoidance
of the spiritual anxiety and struggle that defines the "authen—

tic" and tragic hero.

Unamuno's novelistic trajectory seems to be set from
the beginning by his concern for the varied ways man can "save"
himself and, at least after the appearance of Paz en la guerra,
for the related "problem of personality." Most of his protago-

nists react to these concerns and problems aggressively and

205

struggle to become more, but in his last novel, Un pobre hombre
£199, Unamuno investigates what he calls the "instinct of con-
servation" which impels the hero of this story to react defen—
sively and to struggle simply to preserve himself.

The relationship between the other three works studied
in this chapter rests on a similarity among the protagonists.
The hero and heroine of Una historia de amor, finished ten years
before La tia Tula and almost twenty years before San Manuel
@3929, possess some personal characteristics that will be devel-
Oped more fully in Tula and Don Manuel. Ricardo's similarity
to Don Manuel is particularly noticeable in his ambition to at—
tract and influence large numbers of men and women and in the
desperate and painful secret of his disbelief, which lies be-
neath his words and causes his listeners to be fascinated by his
sermons. 0n the other hand, Liduvina's aversions, desires, and
frustrations are much like those of Aunt Tula. The difference
between them is that Tula does not resign herself to maternal
frustration but successfully satisfies her conflicting desires
to have children she can consider her own and yet to isolate her-
self from the lodazal 991’mgggg and from impure contact with men,
for whom she too feels a profound contempt. She does this by
creating a home that is her convent and by raising and educating
the children of others in what she considers a wholesome environ-
ment, separated from the outside world and from contaminating in-
fluences.

It is in Tula and in Don Manuel that we see that the

final step of these creative men and women in their struggle to

206

increase and prolong their being is to enlarge their sphere of
influence to an entire community, and to select certain specific
individuals to be their spiritual inheritors and to carry on the
immortalizing 9999 after they have gone. They will continue to
exist within this 9999 that survives them and they will exercise
an influence more far-reaching than earlier heroes and heroines
of these novels. However, though highly successful as creative
individuals, they are also very tragic figures. Their ambition
and creative energy, as almost invariably is the case with these
men and women, spring out of a deep frustration--a fierce mater-
nal instinct blocked by a fear of impurity and a contempt for
men in Tula and frustrated belief in the priest Don Manuel.

In order to satisfy their most intimate needs both Don
Manuel and Tula set out to create "spiritual children," that are
the 99999 they will leave behind when they die; and in the end
they are admirable for their strength of purpose and their suc-
cess--but they are not, perhaps, to be envied. It is not sur-
prising that they are both considered saints by those who knew
them and, in Don Manuel's case, a martyr in the struggle for
spiritual salvation, for their lives have been painful and their
sense of frustration great. But they are the culmination of
Unamuno's novelistic trajectory and their stories represent a
sort of compromise solution between salvation by blind and un-
questioning faith, which is rejected by the intellect, and re-
signed immersion into the intrahistoric flow of existence, which
is rejected by the heart because of the consequent loss of per-

sonality.

FOOTNOTES

1We have already seen that this is an allegory frequently
used by Unamuno as a symbol of man's ambition to be more.

2Liduvina resembles Gertrudis of La tia Tula in several
important respects, but it cannot be said that the latter char-
acter is derived from the former since Unamuno had already begun
the novel of Aunt Tula in 1902.

3The short story "El amor que asalta" (Los Lunes de El
Im9arcial, Madrid: September 16,1912) shows what the result of
the fulfillment of love can be. After a lifelong search for
true love the protagonists of this story find the realization of
their goal in each other and, having "fulfilled" themselves, die.
The frustration of love stimulates the creative energies, it
seems, while the satisfaction of love may lead to the cessation
of desire and even to death.
uAgnes Moncy, "La creaci6n del personaje en las novelas
de Unamuno," p. 181.

5This novel passed through an incubation period of al-
most twenty years. Unamuno mentions the work in several letters
to friends, the first being to the Catalan poet Juan Maragall,
dated November 3, 1902, in which he says:

Ahora ando metido en una nueva novela, La tia,
historia de una joven que rechazando novios se queda
soltera para cuidar a unos sobrinos, hijos de una her-
mana que se le muere. Vive con el cunado, a quien re—
chaza para marido, pues no quiere manchar con el d6bito
conyugal el recinto en que respiran aire de castidad
sus hijos. Satisfecho e1 instinto de maternidad, 6para
qu6 ha de perder su virginidad? Es virgen madre.

Th1s letter is cited by Manuel Garcia Blanco in the "Introduc-
ci6n" of Volume II of the Obras Completas, p. 41, and is also
included in E9istolario entre Miguel de Unamunogy Juan Maragall
(Barcelona: Edimar, S. A., 1951).

6This obsession is the "sickness" that is one of the dis-
tinguishing features of the creative men and women. In Tula' 8
case it is yet another thing she has in common with Santa Teresa.
In the essay "Malhumorismo" (La Naci6n, Buenos Aires: December
25, 1910) Unamuno says: "Acaso no pueda apreciar el verdadero

207

208

valor de la vida sino un enfermo. . [y] Santa Teresa era
histérica." (III, 420- 21) He elaborates on this "sickness"
saying: "El h9mbre sano vive en 9erpetua ilusi6n y en perpetuo
engano, olvidandose de que tendra que morirse un dia. Y el en-
fermo, en cambio, sobre todo cuando es aprensivo, tiene de con—
tinuo ante si e1 morir habemos, y a la luz de esta soberana sen-
tencia ve el mundo tal como es y lo aprecia en su justo valor. "

(420)

7In Del sentimiento tragico he says: "Y la misma reli—
gi6n cristiana de 19s m1sticos --estos caballeros andantes a lo
divino-- 6no culmin6 acaso en el culto a la mujer divinizada, a
la Virgen Madre? . . . ello era el amor a la fuente de la vida,
a la que nos salva de la muerte." (239)

8Ricardo Gull6n sees the prologue to La tia Tula as a
contradiction to the protagonist of the novel, giving examples
of women who behaved very differently. I believe he is not en-
tirely accurate, and that this pr9logue, in fact, reveals to us
what Tula truly represents. Gull6n is cgrrect, however, 1n not-
ing her lack of compassion: "La abnegaci6n de Tula no esta fun-
dada en la piedad, y a su manera lo sugiere quien 1a cre6 cuando
dice: 'no supo ni de Antigona la griega, ni de Abisag la israel-
ita.'" ("La voluntad de dominio. . . .," p.52)

9Gull6n sees this praise of las matrias and la sororidad
as a defen9e of "el hombre- -abeja, creador y activo, frente a los
zanganos lubricos y codiciosos que hacen la guerra. " ("La volun-
tad de dominio. . . .," p.52)

Since la ab eja is motivated by the "essence of the spe-
cies" this metaphor of the bee hive is very apprOpriate as a
representation of that whole complicated idea of the community
and family tradition or ancestral memories that are passed down
from one generation to the next. These may well be "109 muertos
que nos gobiernan" to which Unamuno refers in the prologue.

10Don Juan of "Dos madres," Tristan of "El marqués de Lum-
bria," and Ramiro of the novel La tia Tula are all reduced to
the role of drones who, after having performed their generative
function, cease to be of importance to the female.

llI9 "Las cinco batallas de Unamuno contra la muerte,"
p. 76, José Azaola says of Tula:

Puso . . . todo el 6nfasis en la tragica contradicci6n
existente entre el insatisfecho anhelo de maternidad

y la guarda orgullosa de la integridad virginal, entre
e1 afan de ser madre y el horror a la9 condiciones fi-
siol6gicas de la maternidad, caracteristico d9 una fe-
mineidad educada 9or largos siglos de pedagogia cris-
tiana de exaltacion del pudor y de la castidad.

12Commenting on the ruthlessness of several of Unamuno's
female characters (Raquel, Carolina and Gertrudis) David Foster

209

concludes that "there is no 'good' and there is no 'bad.’ There
is only what is 'justified' by man's attempts to escape destruc-
tion at the hands of the implacable and unyielding universe."
"The 'Belle Dame sans merci' in the Fiction of Miguel de Unamu-
no," ygposium 20 (1966), 326. These women may be morally wrong,
but they are humanly right.

13Gu116n, "La voluntad de dominio. . . .," pp. 51 and 53.
He remarks on the absolute authority Tula exercises over the en-
tire family saying: "El ab9olutismo se presenta con frecuencia
como paternalismo, opor qué no habria de presentarse, llegado el
caso, como maternalismo?" (54)

14We get an idea from where this power originates in a
description of the priest, Uncle Primitivo, who raised the two
orphaned girls:

E1 pobre senor sentia un profundo respeto, mezclado
de admiraci6n, por su sobrina Gertrudis. Tenia e1
S9ntimiento de que la sabiduria iba en su linaje por
via femenina, que su madre habia sid9 la providencia
inteligent9 de la casa en que se cri6, que su hermana
lo hab1a sido en la suya. . . . (1048)

l5Gu116n, "La voluntad de dominio. . . .," p. 57. There
may well be some influence in this novel from Unamuno' s reading
of William James. In his study Miguel de Unamuno y William James,
Hip6lito Fernandez quotes the following selection from: James'
The Varieties of Religious Experience: "La pureza . . . no es
precisamente lo que se necesita; y e9 mejor que una vida se en-
sucie alguna vez, que no pecar de inutil por esforzarse en per-
manecer limpia." (129)

16A good example occurs when Rosa and Ramiro hug and kiss
upon deciding to have another child:

Gertrudis, en tanto, arrollaba a1 nifio, celosa
de que no se percatase —-;inocente!-- de los ardores
de sus padres.

Era como una preocupaci6n e9 1a tia la de ir sus-
tray9ndo a1 nino, ya desde su mas tierna edad de in-
c09ciencia, de conocer, ni 9n las mas leves y remotas
senales, el amor de que habia brotado. Col ole a1
cuello, desde luego, una medalla de la Sant1sima Vir-
gen, de la Madre, con su Nino en brazos. (1056)

17Of Don Quixote's desire to reach the heights Unamuno
said: "Deseas con ansia volar . 9 . y tu d9seo hara que te broten
alas, y la jaula se te ensanchara convirtiéndosete en Universo y
volaras por su firmamento." (DQ, 145) Tula has sacrificed her-
self to the terrible and inhuman precept give9 to man as his su-
pr9m9 norm of conduct that Unamuno discusses in Del sentimiento
tra 1co: "Sed perfectos como vuestro Padre celestial lo es."
{27%) But Unamuno adds that "E1 que no aspire a lo imposible,

 

210

apenas hara nada hacedero que valga la pena."

18The moon, the sea, sunlight, and geometry, are all
things Tula considers pure and consequently holds in high es-
teem. Moreover, the sea is infinite and the moon is associated
with eternity, reflecting an eternal light. See Carlos Claveria
on the significance of the moon in Unamuno: Temas de Unamuno, pp.

162- 63.

l9Tula once tells Ramiro: "t6 crees que yo no soy mas
que pensamiento..." (1085) Since she represses all emotion she
does, in fact, appear to be more thought than feeling.

20In "La voluntad de dominio. . . ." Gull6n interprets
Tula's life saying:

E1 ansia de ser diferente y mejor, de ser como Dios,
es la tentaci6n suprema propuesta a los humanos para
extraviarles en el enajena9iento de la soberbi9. Es
preciso aceptar la ley comun del error y la caida en-
suciandose las manos cuando las circunstancias obli-
guen 9 ello. . . . Su culpa, atan unamuniana., con-
sisti6 en juzgarse diferente, en querer ser diferente,
y, consecuencia natural de sentimiento y deseo, en
mantenerse a distancia de los demas, de los contami-
nados, para conservar las manos limpias. . . . La
tentacion de igualarse a1 Creador, remontandose sobre
las preocupaciones "vulgares", es sobrehumana, luego
inhumana." (59)

21In this respect Uncle Primitivo resembles Uncle Pascual
of Paz en_1a gueggg and other teachers seen in Unamuno's works
who are responsible for the formation of some young person's be-
liefs and character. Unamuno was a firm believer himself that
the ideas madres, those ideas first instilled in a person during
his infancy, were those that formed the "lecho del alma." In
Recuerdos de ninez y de mocedad (1908) he makes it clear he felt
his own character was formed in his childhood, and this id9a is
constantly repeated in his works. Agnes Moncy, "La creaci6n del
personaje...,' 9 148, notes that "Su casa 1e ofrecia un ambien-
te . . . mujeril. Desde los seis anos, cuando muri6 su padre,
Unamuno fue criado por su madre y una tia. Vivi6 con ellas du-
rante los anos mas receptivos." When, in the prologue to La tia
Tula, he records Santa Teresa's words: "era el Senor servido me
quegase en esta ninez imprimido e1 camino de la verdad," (1039)
he is indicating that this will be one of the themes of this no-
vel also.

23See, in relation to Tula, the story "Los hijos espiri-
tuales" (Madrid: La Esfera, October 14,1916) where frustrated
maternal instincts result in the collection of munecos. Life has
no meaning for the female protagonist of this story without

211

children. This need develops into a monstrous and destructive
obsession for her. (II, 858-61: Relatos novelescos)

24The mountain and the lake are perhaps the most ingen-
ious representations of the dualistic universe that pervades all
Unamuno's works. The mountain is the symbol of the vital belief
that raises one toward the longed-for heaven of eternal life.
But it is the lake, blue and deep like the blueness and depth of
his eyes, that tortures Don Manuel, because it is the antivital
representation for him of a future submergence into the dark
night of its waters. The lake is also regarded as the deposi-
tory of the ancestral memories: "91 cementerio de las almas de
nuestros abuelos." (1140) For a discussion of the symbolic func-
tion of water in Unamuno's works see Blanco Aguinaga, El Unamuno
contemplativo, pp. 221-51.

25This disbelieving messiah was suggested to Unamuno, as
he says in the prologue, by a reading of Kierkegaard.

26Santiago Luppoli, "I1 Santo de Fogazzaro y San Manuel
Bueno de Unamuno," Cuadernos de la Catedra Miguel de Unamuno
XVIII (1968), says of this matriarchal tree: "Aquel arbol habia
dado muchos frutos cuando vivo, y sirvi6 para dar luz y calor a
los pobres cuando muerto. Creo que este arbol es el simbolo de
la fe heredada de su madre, viva en la infancia y luego muerta."

(63)

27Gustavo J. Godoy, "Dos martires de la fe segun Dosto-
yevski y Unamuno," Cuadernos de la Catedra Miguel de Unamuno XX
(1970), 38, sees this statement as exactly the same idea Ortega
y Gasset expressed many years earlier (1914) in the famous affir-
mation: "Yo soy yo y mi circunstancia y si no la salvo a ella no
me salvo yo." (in Meditaciones del Quijote)

The apparent dedication of Don Manuel to his people, and
of Tula to her family, should not be taken at face value. Ricar-
do Gu116n makes a statement in regard to Tula that may 9qua11y9
apply to Don Manuel: "Desgonfiemos 9del 'vivire para ti' 9 bajo él
suele ocultarse un 'viviras para mi' , aut9ntica expresion del po-

sesivo. " ("La voluntad de dominio. . . p. 49) Unamuno him-
self says: "el entregarse supone . . . imp09erse. La verdadera
moral religiosa es, en el fondo, agresiva, invasora. . . . la

caridad verdader9 es invasora. y consiste en meter mi espiritu
en los demas espiritus." (ST, 274- 75) "Porque santo es el que
hage e1 bien no por el bien mismo, sino por . . . la eterniza-
ci6n." (ST, 281)

It has already been noted that Unamuno formed a very
high regard for Senancour' s Obermann earl in his life. In a
Master's thesis for Duke University (1958) entitled "Obermann in
the Works of Unamuno," Lucia S. Kegler makes an interesting ob-
servation that would apply not only to Don Manuel but to all Una-
muno's creative men and women:

Obermann demonstrates definitely the desire for impart-
ing life to something before his last hour has come, in

212

order that this something that is a part of him may
remain after he himself ceases to exist . . . "trans-
mettre la vie et la perdre, ce serait dans l'ordre
apparent notre principal office sur la terre." (26-7)

She is quoting from Etienne Pivert de Senancour, Obermann (Paris:
Charpentier et Fasquelle, 1892), p. 432.

28One means to attain some measure of immortality that
Unamuno mentions in Del sentimiento tragico is to perpetuate
oneself in the society in which one lives. (235) Other remarks
applicable to Don Manuel' 3 case found in this essay are:

Y es que hay que espiritualizarlo tod9. Y esto
s9 consigue dando a todos y a todo mi espiritu, que
mas se acrecienta cuanto mas lo reparto. Y dar mi
espiritu es invadir el de los otros y aduenarme de
ellos. (236)

Todos, 9s decir, cada uno, puede y debe proponer-
se dar de si todo cuanto puede dar, 9mas aun de lo que
puede dar, excederse, superarS9 a si mismo, hacerse
insustituible, darse a los demas para recojerse de
ellos. (268)

Y el sentimiento de hacernos insustituibles, de
no 9merecer la muerte, d9 hacer que nuestra aniquila-
ci6n, si es que nos esta reservada, sea una injusticia.
. . . Debe llevarnos a esforzarnos por sellar a los
demas con nuestro sello, por perpetuarnos en ellos y
en sus hijos, dominandoles, por dejar en todo impere-
cedera nuestra cifra. (272)

Y hay que imponerse . . . en mi vaso beben todos,
quiero que9 todos beban de 61; se lo d9y, y mi vaso
cre99, segun el numero de los que en 61 beben. . . .
(27

29Blasillo may also represent Don Manuel's own irrevoca-
bly lost childhood faith.

30Angela's own estimation of the townspeople's intel-
lectual capacity is demonstrated at the end of the novel when
her brother suggests they tell them the truth about Don Manuel.
"Querer exponerles eso,"9 she reSponds, "seria como leer a unos
nin9s de ocho anosmnuuspaginas de Santo Tomas de Aquino... en
latin." (1151) And when Angela asks her brother if the people
of the town really believe, he answers: "Cree sin querer, por
habito, por tradici6n. Y lo que hace falta es no despertarle.
Y que viva en su pobreza de sentimientos para que no adquiera
torfiugas de lujo. gBienaventurados los pobres de espiritu'"
ll 2

213

31Angela, however, will also follow his example, and
Valverde de Lucerna will become her "convent." Her maternal
instincts have been awakened by the suspicion that her Don Ma-
nuel suffers some unmentionable pain, and, like Abisag, she will
forgo having children of her own in order to care for him:

empezaba a ser mujer, sentia en mis entranas el jugo
de la maternidad, y al enC9ntrarme en el confesionar1o
junto al santo var6n, senti como una callada confesi6n
suya en el susurrg sumiso de su voz y recorde c6mo
cuando al clamar 961 en la 1glesia las palabras de Jesu-
cristo: "aDios mio, Dios mio., opor que me has abando-
nado?", su madr9, la de Don Manuel, respondi6 desde el
‘suelo: "iHijo mio'", y oi este grito que desgarraba la
quietud del templo. Y volvi a confesarme con 61 para
consolarle. . . . Empezaba yo a sentir una espe9ie de
afecto maternal hacia mi padre espiritual; queria ali-
viag1e e1 peso de su cruz del nacimiento. (1136- -37 and
113

32Possibly by convincing him of th9 truth of an affirma-
tion made by Unamuno in Del sentimiento tragico: "Todo individuo
que en un pueblo conspira a romper la unidad y la continuidad
espirituales de ese pueblo tiende a destruirlo y a destruirse
como parte de ese pueblo." (115)

33In "Alienation, Psychological and Metaphysical, in
Three 'Nivolas' of Unamuno," J. F. Tull, Jr. says:

I do not believe, with Marin, that the lake represents
"the death and oblivion in which men are interred," but
rather Don Manuel's intuitive aspiration toward subli-
mation--a "suicide," if you will-—of his conscious ego,
imprisoned until now by his alienation, his doubts and
anxieties, into a wider vision of human existence, ma-

nifested . . . in the scene of the shepherdess. The
rest Don Manuel aspires to achieve in his last hours
. . . is not the rest of oblivion with physical death,

but rather the spiritual rest after the individual's
conscious ego sees itself not as an isolated object,
alienated from a foreign and impersonal universe, but
as an integral part of a process which both incorpo-
rates and transcends its individual existence. (31- 2)

Tull believes Don Manuel intuits all this but is unable to inte-
grate himself with his environment as the shepherdess does.

3”Emeterio is an "eunuco espiritual," one of those men
who does not feel the hunger to perpetuate himself. (ST, 169)
Later, Unamuno adds that those who put thought over sentiment
die comically. (ST, 294) In "La locura del doctor Montarco" he
says that it is the instinct of invasion that moves us to create
works, not the instinct of conservation (I, 1131); and in "Mate-
rialismo popular" (La Naci6n, Buenos Aires: March 30,1909) he

214

tells us:

el que vive a la defensiva acaba por ser absorbido y
dominado por los agresivos, por los de instinto domi-
nador. La llamada lucha por la vida s6lo es eficaz
cuando 9s lucha por la predomina9i6n, no por la con-
servaci6n. La esencia del ser 9mas que el conato a
persistir en el ser mism9, segun ensenaba Spinoza,

es el esfuerzo por ser mas, por serlo todo: es el
ap9tito de infinidad y de eternidad. (in Mi reli-
g_on y otros ensayos, III, pp. 366- 67)

CONCLUSION

Unamuno's philOSOphy as revealed in his novels is
based upon a dualistic View of existence, upon the view of
life as a continuum of growth toward ever greater Self-aware—
ness or consciousness. Though it may take divers forms this
growth is ultimately motivated by the "tragic sense," the
anguish and dread of death which is the symbol of man's im-
potence and finiteness. But just as man can grow and become
greater, so too he can become less, for the negative pole of
this continuum of being exercises a powerful attraction on
man, offering him an escape from suffering: the peace, secu-
rity and unconsciousness of the maternal womb. The vital
desire of all men who are conscious of their being, however,
is to be more, to be eternal and infinite; they strive toward
Total Being, embodied in the idea of God, who is "el ideal
de la humanidad, el hombre proyectado al infinito y eterni-
zado en 61." (DQ, 128) Movement in the direction of this
positive pole is creative and involves continuous struggle
and the continuous absorption of "otherness? and enlargement
of being. Whereas the negative pole of this continuum tends
toward conservation and reduction of consciousness, the posi-
tive tends toward perpetuation and increase.

This negative-positive polarity corresponds, in Una—

muno's world view, to the two basic types of men: those in

215

216

whom the inert material forces predominate and those, the
heroes or Self-conscious and creative men, in whom dynamic
spirit predominates--who are characterized by possession of
"una furiosa hambre de ser, un apetito de divinidad." (ST, 114)
The Self—conscious man wants to prove that he is free, that
he is master of all--unfettered by any limits to his being.
What he most fears is that he might be the slavish victim of
an absurd and unjust fate over which he exercises no control
whatsoever. He has the choice of resigning himself to being
a slave to external forces or he may rebel by exerting his
Will--by willing to be or willing not to be--by becoming cre-
atively involved in his own destiny, by "making" the novel of
his life rather than being the victim of it. These Self-con-
scious or "authentic" men and women struggle to be "creators"
(masters) and rebel against being "creatures" (slaves) because
in Unamuno's ontology man is a being who can "make" himself
in his gprag and thus become the creator and the creation of
himself. His supreme example is the immortal Don Quixote who
is a creation of the Will and the desperate and intimate de-
sire for "glory" of Alonso el Bueno.

The key to all the volitive heroes and heroines of
Unamuno's novels is his affirmation that the most intimate,
creative and real thing in a man is what he wills to be: "el
que uno quiere ser, es en 61, en su seno, e1 creador, y es el
real de verdad." (TN, 973) Since Will is synonymous with
appetite for Unamuno the Will-to-Be means the Will-to-Be-
More, to increase and become greater internally by enlarge-

ment of consciousness and externally by means of the struggle

217

to push back the limits of space and time. True satisfaction
for man lies not with surrender to forces outside the Will,
but to the overcoming of obstacles that limit growth. Man's
supreme pleasure, therefore, is in acquisition and increase.
Creative Will reveals itself in several ways. Its
principal expression is seen in the agressive inclination of
Unamuno's protagonists to enlarge and control their sphere
of interactions with other men, in their apparent need to
overwhelm and reshape, to appropriate and dominate; and it
is seen too in their creation of a sharply defined Self which
they cultivate, promote, assert, affirm and defend, and in
the creation of what they desire by the manipulation of situa-
tions and of other men. It is in these respects that Unamuno‘s
Creative Will closely resembles Nietzsche's Will to Power.1
This study has attempted to demonstrate the trajec-
tory this creative struggle takes in Unamuno's novels. In
his first works characters are presented who are trying to
clarify their essential Self, who are still struggling to be
free of forces outside their own consciousness. In later
works, however, protagonists appear who, for the most part,
know who they are and have acute awareness of their unique
inner Self (or Selves as the case might be). Moreover, they
have discovered a formula for the creation of a strong per-
sonality: "Procura vivir en continuo vértigo pasional, domi-
nado por una pasi6n cualquiera. S6lo los apasionados llevan
a cabo obras verdaderamente duraderas y fecundas." (DQ, 58)

They have focused all their being and energy on a single facet,

218

or fundamental "defect" as Kierkegaard called it, of their
personality and have thereby achieved not only a sharply de-
fined image of themselves that they can project upon the
world but also a concentration and intensification of energy
which is the source of their strength. Once this has been
accomplished these individuals are ready to become subject
rather than object and to act upon the world rather than
allow it to act upon them; and they do act upon it, reshaping
and creating an environment amenable to their intimate needs
over which they have full control, and imprinting their unique
being upon the world. It is by means of this intensification
of their being that they are ultimately able to extend the
spacial and temporal boundaries of their Self: "al ganarse

en intensidad se gana en extensi6n también . . . y se gana

en duraci6n." (DQ, 196)

They have now become "Self—contained" and are unin-
fluenced by external forces, but this causes a new torment
for them. Now their need to remain Self-possessed, that is,
to keep their Self free and uncontaminated, makes them un-
willing to surrender to love, which is seen by them either
as "un dejar de ser, total 0 parcialmente, lo que se era, un
partirse, una muerte parcial," (ST, 188) or as a weapon or
tool that may be used to possess and dominate another Self.
This disorder in their ability to love others, to give of
themselves to another, leaves them isolated and bitterly
frustrated. This is the tragic flaw in the struggle of these

. 2
creat1ve men and women.

219

Love is the major creative force in the world and the
surest way to attain some measure of immortality, as Fulgencio
Entrambosmares says, is to have children of the flesh; those
who have no children must reproduce themselves in another way,
in their works, for example, which are their children. Don
Quixote is one of these men and Unamuno says of him: "ya que
no pudiera perpetuarse por ella [Dulcinea] en hijo de carne,
busc6 eternizarse por ella en hazafias del espiritu." (DQ, 98)
Likewise, all the creative men and women of his novels find
love impossible, unproductive or objectionable and most of
them must resort to alternatives; if unable to create children
of the flesh they will create children of the spirit. Some
of them even renounce the flesh in order better to perpetuate
themselves spiritually.3 Many become "teachers" dedicated to
giving form to the raw material provided by others. They are
frequently both childless and celibate, and they often show
both masculine and feminine characteristics: they are varones
matpiarcales or mujeres varoni19g. Others produce their gbra
in another way; but however this creation manifests itself its
purpose is always to fulfill some intimate need and it is al-
most always a clear expression of the fundamental desire of
these individuals to prolong themselves in time and to extend
themselves in space, the desire to be more.

The culmination of this process of growth is seen in
Aunt Tula, who comes to encompass and to dominate an entire
family, and in Don Manuel, whose power extends over an entire

village. These communities into which they have infused their

220

spirit are the nggg they have created, their "spiritual chil-
dren," and the means by which they have become greater and
will immortalize themselves. They possess, or are possessed
by, a profound desire to raise themselves from the inferior
level of mere men, impotent mortal creatures, to the "divine"
level of powerful immortal creators. Though they must ulti-
mately fail in this struggle even their failure appears some-
how sublime because their goals were the highest to which

man can aspire.

FOOTNOTES

lFrank Sedwick, "Unamuno, the Third Self, and Lucha,"
Studies in Philology, LIV (1957), 473, notes:

Unamuno arrives at what is the basic idea of Nietz-
sche's philosophy, action-~the will to power--that
we must grow or succumb. . . . Unamuno failed to re-
cognize his own fundamental philosophy in Nietzsche.
. . . However their ultimates differed, both Unamuno
and Nietzsche had a common point of departure: will
your existence.

2This is a fundamental problem in our day, according
to Rollo May, who sees the blocking of the ways in which we
affect others and are affected by them as the essential dis-
order of both love and Will. (May, p. 30)

3According to Nietzsche chastity is merely the economy
of an artist. (The Will to Power, IV, 800, p. 421)

221

 

BIBLI OGRAPHY

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Abellan, José Luis. "Influencias filos6ficas en Unamuno."
Insula, clxxxi (1962), 11.

The Abingdon Bible Commentary. Eds. Frederick Carl Eiselen,
Edwin Lewis and David G. Downey. New York: Abingdon-
Cokesbury Press, 1929.

Arjona, Doris King. "La Voluntad and Abulia in Contemporary
Span19h Ideology. " _Revue Hispan1que, LXXIV,166 (1928),
573 7

 

 

 

Azaola, José M1guel. "Las cinco batallas de Unamuno contra
la muerte. Cuadernos de la Catedra Miguel de Unamuno,
II (1951). 33-109

Blanco Aguinaga, Carlos. "Aspectos dialécticos de las Tres
novelas ejemplares." Revista de Occidente, VII (19
51-70 a

. E1 Unamuno contem lativo. Mex1co: Publicaciones
de la Nueva Revista de Filolog1a Hispanica, V, 1959.

________ ”Interioridad y exterioridad en Unamuno." Nueva
Revista de Filologia H1spanica, VII (1953), 686-701.

Campbell, Joseph. Masks 9f the GodsL Occ1dental Mythology.
New York: The Viking Press, 1964.

Claveria, Carlos. Temas de Unamuno. 2nd ed. Madrid: Edito-
rial Gredos, 1970.

Cobb, Christopher H. "Sobre la e1aboraci6n de Abel Sanchez."
Cuadernos de la Catedra Miguel de Unamuno, XXII (1972),
127447.

Durand, Frank. "Search for Reality in Nada menos que todo un
hombre." Modern Language Notes, 84 (1969). 239- -47.

Fernandez, Pelayo Hip6lito. M1guel de.gnamuno y William James:
un aralelo pragmatico. Salamanca: Talleres Graficos Li-
brer1a Cervantes, 1961.

Fernandez Turienzo, F. Unamuno, ansia de Dios y creaci6n li-
teraria. Madrid: Ediciones Alcala, 1966}

Foster, David. "The ’Belle Dame sans merci' in the Fiction
of Miguel de Unamuno." Symposium, 20 (1966), 321-28.

222

223

Freud, Sigmund. "Beyond the Pleasure Principle." The Stan-
dard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of 81g-
mund Freud. Translated under the editorship of James
Strachey. London: The Hogarth Press and the Institute of
PsychoAnalysis, 1955. XVIII, 7- -64.

 

"The Ego and the Id. " The Standard Edition of the
Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud. Translated
under the editorship of James Strachey. London: The Ho-
garth Press and the Institute of PsychoAnalysis, 1961.

 

 

 

XIX, l9-27.

Garcia Blanco, Manuel. "Introducci6n." Obras completas de
Miguel de Unamuno. Madrid: Escelicer, S.A., 1967. II,
7-58-

Godoy, Gustavo J. "Dos martires d9 la fe segun Dostoyevski
y Unamuno." Cuadernos de la Catedra Miguel de Unamuno,
XX (1970), 31- ~40.

Gonzalez, José Emilio. "Joaquin Mone ro, Unamuno y Abel San-
chez." La Torre, X, no. xl (1962), 85-109.

Gull6n, Ricardo. "Don Sandalio 0 el juego de los espejos."

Papeles de Son Armadans, XXX (1963), 299-325.

. "La voluntad de dominio en 'la madre' unamuniana."
Asomante, XVII, no. 4 (1962), 41-59.

Ilie, Paul. Unamuno: An Existential Viewfi of Self and Society.
Madison: The University of Wisconsin Press, 1967.

. "Unamuno, Gorky, and the Cain Myth: Toward a Theory
of Personality." Hispanic Review, XXIX (1961), 310-23.

Johnson, W. E. "Vida 9y ser en el pensamiento de Unamuno."
Cuadernos de la Catedra Miguel de Unamuno, VI (1956), 9-

50.

Kegler, Lucia Svetlana. "Obermann in the Works of Unamuno."
M.A. thesis, Duke University, 1958.

Kierkegaard, Soren. Fear and Trembling and The S1aness Unto
Death. Translated b Walter Lowrie. New York: Doubleday
& Company, Inc., 195

Lain Entralgo, Pedro. La generaci6n del noventa y ocho. 7th
ed. Madrid: Espasa-Calpe, S.A., 1970.

Luppoli, Santiago. "I1 Santo de Fogazzaro y San Manuel Bueno
de Unamuno." Cuadernos de la Catedra Miguel de Unamuno,
XVIII (1968), 49- -70.

224

McDaniel, Stanley V. The Philosophy of Nietzsche. New York:
Monarch Press, 1965.

McGaha, Michael D. "£931 Sanchez y la envidia de Unamuno."
Cuadernos de la Catedra Miguel de Unamuno, XXI (1971),
91-102.

Marias, Julian. Miguel de Unamuno. 5th ed. Madrid: Espasa-
Calpe, S.A., 1971.

May, R2110. Love and Will. New York: W. W. Norton, Inc.,
19 9.

Moncy, Agnes. "La creaci6n del personaje en las novelas de
Unamuno." La Torre, XI, no. xlii (1963), 145- 88.

Nietzsche, Friedrich. The Will to Power. Translated by Wal—
teg Kaufman and R. J. Hollingdale. New York: Random House,
19 7

. Thus Spake Zarathustra. Translated by Thomas Common.
New York: Random House, n.d.

Nozick, Martin. Miguel de Unamuno. New York: Twayne, 1971.

Paucker, Eleanor Krane. "Kierkegaardian Dread and Despair in
Unamuno' 8 E1 que se enterr6." Cuadernos de la Catedra
Miguel de Unamuno, XVI- XVII (1966- 67’7'75- -91.

Predmore, Richard D. "Tres cartas inéditas de Unamuno." Cua-
gergos de la Catedra Miguel de Unamuno, XIV-XV (1964-655,
3" 8.

Rauch,6Leo. The Philosophypof Hegel. New York: Monarch Press,
19 5.

Ribbans, Geoffrey. "The Development of Unamuno' s Amor y:peda-
o ia and Niebla." Hispanic Studies in Honour of I. Gon-
zalez_L1ubera. Oxford: Dolphin Book Co., 1956.

Rosen, Stanley. Plato's Symposium. New Haven: Yale University
Press, 1968 .

Salcedo, Emilio. Vida de DonM Miguel. Salamanca: Ediciones
Anaya, S. A., 1970.

Sanchez- Ruiz, Jose. "Dimensi6n mundial y social del ser, se-
gun Unamuno." Cuadernos de la Catedra Miguel de Unamuno,
XII (1962). 31- -74

Sedwick, Frank. "Unamuno, the Third Self, and Lucha." Studies
in Philology, LIV (1957), 464- -79.

225

Sobejano, Gonzalo. Nietzsche en Espana. Madrid: Editorial
Gredos, 1965.

Spurlock, Judith. "The Will- to- be as a Theme in the Novels of
Unamuno." Ph. D. dissertation, University of Florida, 1966.

Stevens, James R. "Unamuno's Don Sandalio: Two Opposed Con-
cepts of Fiction." Romance Notes, XI (1969). 266-71.

Thomas, Ahrcel. "Tragic Heroes in the Works of Miguel de Una-
muno: Studies in Pathological Disintegration." Ph.D. dis-
sertation, University of Virginia, 1968

Tull, John F., Jr. "Alienation, Psychological and Metaphysical,
in Three 'Nivolas' of Unamuno." Humanities Association
Bulletin, 21, no. i (1970), 27- 33.

Unamuno, Miguel de. Obras Completas. 9 vols. Ed. Manuel Gar-
cia Blanco. Madrid: Escelicer, S.A., 1966-71.

Valderrey, Carmen. "E1 problema del amor en los ensayos de
Unamuno." Arbor, 325 (1973), 55-64.

Valdés, Mario J. Death in the Literature of Unamuno. Urbana:
University of Illinois Press, 1964.

Weber, Frances W. "Unamuno's Niebla: From Novel to Dream."
Publications of the Modern Language Association, LXXXVIII,
(19735. 209-18.

Zubizarreta, Armando F. Tras las huellas de Unamuno. Madrid:
Taurus, 1960.

. Unamuno en su Nivola. Madrid: Taurus, 1960.

General References

Abellan, Jose Luis. "Aportaciones de Unamuno y Ortega para
una filosofia espanola. " Cuadernos de la Catedra Miguel
de Unamuno, XIV-XV (196a 65). 11- 18.

. Miguel de Unamuno a la luz de la psicologia. Madrid:
Editorial Tecnos, S. A., 1969.

Alazraki, Jaime. "Motivaci6n e invencién en Niebla de Unamuno."
Romanic Review, LVIII, no. # (1967). 291-53.

226

Anderson, Reed. "The Novels of Miguel de Unamuno: A Study of
Point of View and Narrative Technique." Ph.D. dissertation,
The University of Wisconsin, 1971.

Anderson, Robert Floyd. "A Study of Themes in the Theater of
Unamuno." Ph.D. dissertation, Case Western Reserve Uni-
versity, 1969.

An6nimo. "E1 Unamuno de 1901 a 1903, visto por M. (fragmentos

 

de cartas)." Cuadernos de la Catedra Miguel de Unamuno,
II (1951): 13-31-
Aranguren, Jose Luis L. "Personalidad y religiosidad de Una-

muno." La Torre, IX, no. 35—36 (1961), 239-49.

Azar, Ines. "La estructura novelesca de Como se hace una no-
vela." Modern Language Notes, LXXXV (1970), 184-206.

Baker, Clifford Henry. "Reality in the Works of Unamuno and
Ortega y Gasset: A Comparative Study." Ph.D. dissertation,
The University of Southern California, 1961.

Barcia, José Rubia, and Zeitlin, M. A., eds. Unamuno:_Creator
ang Creation. Berkeley: University of California Press,
19 7.

Basdekis, Demetrios. "Cervantes in Unamuno: Toward a Clarifi—
cation." Romanic Review, LX (1969): 178-85.

. Miguel de Unamuno. New York: Columbia University
Press, 1969.

. Unamuno and Spanish Literature. Berkeley: University
of California Press, 1967.

Batchelor, R. E. Unamuno Novelist: A European Perspective.
Oxford: The Dolphin Book Co., Ltd., 1972.

Benbow, Jerry Lee. "Fictional Manifestations of Multiple Per—
sonality in Selected Works of Miguel de Unamuno." Ph.D.
dissertation, The University of New Mexico, 1970.

Bernardete, M. J; "Personalidad e individualidad en Unamuno."
Revista Hispanica Moderna, no. 1 (193“), 25-39.

 

Berns, Gabriel. "Another Look Through Unamuno's Niebla: Au usto
Perez, 'Agonista-Lector.'" Romance Notes, 11 21969), 2 -29.
Blanco Aguinaga, Carlos. "Unamuno’s Niebla: Existence and the

Game of Fiction." Modern Language Notes, LXXIX, no. 2

Boudreau, Cléophas Wilfred. "Dialectical Elements in the Onto-
logy of Unamuno’s Fiction and Drama." Ph.D. dissertation,
The Johns H0pkins University, 1967.

227

Brooks, Barbara. "Character Portrayal in the Works of Miguel
de Unamuno.” M.A. thesis, University of New Mexico, 1950.
Busch, Carolyn Lipshy. "Women in the Novels of Unamuno."

Ph.D. dissertation, University of Maryland, 1965.

Catalan, Diego Menéndez Pidal."A1debaran, de Unamuno. Cua-
dernos de la Catedra Miguel de Unamuno, IV (1953), 43- -70.

DeCarlo, Andrew. "The image of Man as Portrayed in the Novels
of Miguel de Unamuno." Ph.D. dissertation, Case Western
Reserve University, 1969.

Descouzis, Paul M. "Unamuno, a nueva luz." Hispania, XVLI

(1963). 735-39-

Diaz- Peterson, Rosendo. "Dos novelas de Unamuno: e1 personaje
en busca de s1 mismo.‘ Ph. D. dissertation, University of
Illinois at Urbana- -Champaign, 1974.

Diez, Ricardo. "E1 desarrollo estético de la novela de Unamuno."
Ph.D. dissertation, The City University of New York, 1974.

Earle, Peter G. "E1 evolucionismo en el pensamiento de Unamuno. "
Cuadernos de la Catedra Miguel de Unamuno, XIV- XV (1964- 65),
19- -28.

Ferrater Mora, José. Unamuno. A Philosophy ofglragedy. Trans-
lated by Philip Silver. Berkeley: University of California
Press, 1962.

Ferreres, Rafael. "Un retrato desconocido de Unamuno y una
anécdota." Cuadernos de la Catedra Miguel de Unamuno, IV

(1955). 61- 63-

Foster, David. The Novel as Expressionistic Conceit. Hato
Rey: InterAmerican University Press, 1973.

Fox, Arturo Angel. "La novela de Unamuno y el modo dramatico."
Ph.D. dissertation, University of Minnesota, 1971.

Francoli, Eduardo. "E1 tema de Cainy Abel en Unamuno y Buero
Vallejo." Romance Notes, XIV (1972), 244- 51.

Franco, Andres. E1 teatro de Unamuno. Madrid: Insula, 1971.

Frank, Rachel. "Unamuno: Existentialism and the Spanish Novel. "
Accent, IV, no. 2 (1949), 80- 88.

Franz, Thomas R. :Ancient Rites and the Structure of Unamuno's
Amor y pedagogI ." Romance Notes, XIII (1971), 217-20.

. "E1 sentido de humor y adquisicion de autoconciencia
en Niebla." Cuadernos de la Catedra Miguel de Unamuno,

XXIII (1973). 5- 25

228

. "The Bases of Humor in Three Novels of Unamuno."
Ph.D. dissertation, University of Kansas, 1970.

Garc1a Blanco, Manuel. "Addenda: tesis sobre Unamuno en otras
universidades. Cuadernos de la Catedra Miguel de Unamuno,

VIII (1958). 66- -73

. "Cr6nica unamuniana . . ." Cuadernos depla Catedra
Miguel de Unamuno (1948- ).

. "Tres cartas ineditas de Maragall a Unamuno." Cua-
dernos de la Catedra Miguel de Unamuno, III (1952), 5- 12.

 

Gillet, Joseph E. "The Autonomous Character in Spanish and ‘
European Literature." Hispanic Review, XXIV (1956), 179-
90- 3.
41;.
Glascock, Janice Donnell. "The Héroe Fracasado in the Novels “

 

 

of Unamuno, Baroja and Azor1n."Ph.D. dissertation,
Louisiana State University, 1966.

G6mez-Moriana, Antonio. "Unamuno en su congoja. Cuadernos
de la Catedra Miguel de Unamuno, XIX (1969). 17- -89, xx
(1970). 77- -126.

Gonzalez, José Emilio. "Algunas observaciones sobre tres no-
velas de Unamuno (Paz en la guerra, Amor y pedagogia y
Una historia de amor).' La Torre, IX (1961), 427- 42.

Gull6n, Ricardo. Autobiogpafias de Unamuno. Madrid: Editorial
Gredos, 1964.

. "La novela personal de don Miguel de Unamuno." La
Torre, IX (1961), 93- 115.

Haggard-Villasana, Juan. "A Brief Study of the Novels and
Short Stories of Unamuno." M.A. thesis, University of
Texas, 1932.

Hannan, Dennis G. "Unamuno: La t1a Tula como expresi6n nove-
lesca del ensayo 'Sobre 1a soberbia.'" Romance Noteg,
XII (1971), 296-301.

Hernandez, Miguel Cruz. "La significaci6n de Unamuno (a los
25 anos de su muerte). " Cuadernos de la Catedra Miguel
de Unamuno, XIII (1963), 5-11.

Horowitz, Renee Barbara. "Biblical Archetypes in the Novels
of Unamuno and Hesse." Ph.D. dissertation, University of
Colorado, 1974.

Huertas-Jourda,.José. The Existentialism of Miguel de Unamuno.
Gainesville: University of Florida Press, 1963.

 

229

Inge, M. Thomas. "Unamuno's Correspondence with North Ameri-
cans: A Checklist." Hisgania, LIII (1970), 277-85.

"Unamuno's Reading in American Literature." HisEania,

LIV {1971), 149-54.

Johnson, William D. "La antropologia filosofica de Miguel de
Unamuno: la conciencia y el sentimiento tragico de la vida.
Cuadernos de la Catedra Miguel de Unamuno, XX (1970), 41-761.

Kirsner, R. "The Novel of Unamuno. A Study on Creature Deter-
minism." -Modern Language Journal, XXXVII (1953), 128-29.

Lacy, Allan. Miguel de Unamuno: The Rhetoric of Exigtence.
Paris: Mouton & Co., 1967.

Lathrop, Thomas A. "Greek Origin Names in San Manuel Bueno,
martir." Romance Notes, XI (1970), 505- 06.

Lazaro, Fernando. "El teatro de Unamuno." Cuadernos de la
Catedra Miguel de Unamuno, VII (1956), 7-29.

Levi, Albert William. "The Quixotic Quest for Being." Ethics,
LXVI, no. 2 (1956), 132-36.

Livingstone, Leon. "Interior Duplication and the Problem of
Form in the Modern Spanish Novel. " Publications of the
Modern Language Association, 73 (1958),T393- -QO6.

. "Unamuno and the Aesthetic of the Novel." Hispania,
XXIV (1941), 442-50.

Menéndez Pidal,’R. "Recuerdos referentes a Unamuno." Cuader-
nos de la Catedra Miguel de Unamuno, II (1951), 5-12.

Meyer, Francois. L'Ontologie_ge Miguel de Unamuno. Paris:
Presses Universitaires de France, 1955.

Money, A es. "Un punado de niebla." Insula, nos. 216-17

(196 ), 12,26.

Morales Galan, Carmen. "El tema maternal en la concepcion

 

unamunesca de la mujer." Ph.D. dissertation, The Louisi-
ana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College,
1971.

Morton, Fernando H. "El ideario lingfiistico de Miguel de Una-
muno." Cuadernos de la Catedra Miguel de Unamuno, V (1954),
5'183 0

Olson, Paul R. "The Novelistic Logos in Unamuno' s Amor y peda-

 

gogia." Modern Language Notes, 8# (1969), 248- 68.

230

Ouimette, Victor. Reason Aflame. Unamuno and the Heroic Will.
New Haven: Yale University Press, 1974.

Outumuro, Maria de las Mercedes. "Sentido y perspectiva del

 

personaje autonomo." Cuadernos Hispanoamericanos, 72
(1967). 158-77-
Padin, J. "E1 concepto de 10 real en las ultimas novelas de

Unamuno." Hispania, XI (1928), 418- -23.

Palmer, Donald D. "Unamuno, Freud and the Case of Alonso Qui—
jano." Hispania, LIV (1971), 243-49.

Panico, Marie J. "Unamuno: Doubt or Denial." Hispania, XLVI
(1963): 471-75-

Paris, Carlos. Unamuno, estructura de su mundo intelectual.
Barcelona: Ediciones Peninsula, 1968.

Paucker, Eleanor Krane. Los cuentos de Unamuno, clave de su
obra. Madrid: Ediciones Minotauro, 1963.

. "San Manuel Bueno, martir: A Possible Source in
Epinizh American Literature." HisEania, XXXVII (l95h),
l-lo

. "Unamuno's La venda: Short Story and Drama." His—

Pepperdine, Warren Howard. "0n Lucha por la vida, the Struggle
for Life in Three Plays of Miguel de Unamuno." Ph.D. dis-
sertation, University of Minnesota, 1965.

Putnam, Samuel. "Unamuno y el problema de la personalidad. "
Revista Hispanica Moderna, I(l935), lO3-10.

Reding, Katherine P. The Generation of 1898 in Spain as Seen
Throughtits Fictional Hero. Smith College Studies in
Modern Languages, XVII, nos. 3-u. Northhampton, 1936.

Rossi, Giuseppe Carlo. "Apuntes sobre la bibliograf1a unamu-
niana en Italia y Alemania." Cuadernos de la Catedra Mi-
guel de Unamuno, III (1952), l3- -l8.

Rudd, Margaret Thomas. The Lone Heretic. Austin: University
of Texas Press, 1963. ‘

Ruiz, Mario Edgardo. "An Inquiry into the Metaphysical Process
of Miguel de Unamuno." Ph.D. dissertation, Stanford Univer-
sity, 1967.

Sanchez Barbudo, A. Estudios sobre Unamuno y Machado. Madrid:
Ediciones Guadarrama, 1959.

231

Sedwick, Frank. "Tesis sobre don Miguel de Unamuno y sus obras
en las universidades norteamericanas hasta febrero de 1955. "
Cuadernos de la Catedra Miguel de Unamuno, VIII (1958), 57-

65.

Smither, William J. "'Realismo' and 'Realidad' in the Novels
ofuMiguel de Unamuno." M.A. thesis, University of Kansas,
19 O. '

Summerhill, Stephen James. "The Idea of Literature in Miguel
de Unamuno." Ph.D. dissertation, University of Illinois
at Urbana-Champaign, 1974.

Trapnell, Emily Annette. "Unamuno's Theory and Practice of
the Novel.” M.A. thesis, Duke University, 1953.

Tull, John F., Jr. "La 'neurastenia' de Julia en 'Nada menos

 

que todo un hombre.'" Duquesne Hispanic Review, VIII
(1969). 9-12-

"Una hipotesis sobre el desarrollo espiritual de
Don Manuel en San Manuel Bueno, martir." Duquesne His spa a-

 

 

nic Review, VII (1968), 25- 28.

Tzitsikas, Helene. E1 pensamLento espanol: 1898- 99. Mexico:
Ediciones de Andrea, 1967.

Ugarte, Francisco. "Unamuno y el Quijotismo." Modern Languagg
Journal, XXXV (1951), 18— —23.

Unamuno a los cien afios: estudios ygdiscursos salmantinos en
su I centenario. Salamanca: Universidad de Salamanca,

l§57-

Valdés, Mario J., and Valdés, Maria Elena de. An Unamuno
Source Book: A Cata1ggue of Readings and Acquisitions
With an IntroductoryiEssay on Unamuno's_D1a1ectica1 En-
guiry. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1973.

 

Valdés, Mario J. "Archetype and Re-Creation: A Comparative
Study of William Blake and Miguel de Unamuno." University

of Toronto Quarterly, XL (1971), 58-72.

. "Faith and Despair: A Comparative Study of Narrative
Theme." Hispania, XLIX (1966), 373- 79.

. "La filosofla agonica de Miguel de Unamuno." In
Pensam1ento y letras en la Espana del siglo XX, pp. 543-
57. Eds. German Bleiberg and E. Inman Fox. Nashville:
Vanderbilt University Press, 1966.

. "Twenty-Five Years of Unamuno Criticism." Univer-
sity of Toronto Quarterly, XXXVIII (1969). 207-12.

 

232

Ventosa, E. Rivera de. "La crisis religiosa en Unamuno en su
retiro de Alcala, ano 1897. " Cuadernos de la Catedra Mi-
guel de Unamuno, XVI- XVII (1966—67). 107- -33.

Webber, Ruth House. "Kierkegaard and the Elaboration of Una—
muno’s Niebla." Hispanic Review, XXXII (1964), 118- 3#.

Wood, Cynthia. "The Mother Image in Selected Works of Miguel

de Unamuno." Ph.D. dissertation, University of Virginia,
1975-

Zimic, Lesley Lee. "The Collective Protagonist in the "Histo-
rical Novels of Unamuno, Baroja, and Valle Inclan. Ph. D.

dissertation, Duke University, 1966.