La Regenta by Leopoldo Alas

First published: 1884, 2 volumes (English translation, 1984)

Type of work: Psychological realism

Time of work: The late 1870’s

Locale: Vetusta, a fictional city in Spain

Principal Characters:

• Ana Ozores, a respectable woman of the cultured middle class in Vetusta
• Victor Quintanar, her husband
• Alvaro Mesias, the man with whom Ana has a brief love affair
• Fermin de Pas, a priest, Ana’s confessor
• Petra, a servant in the home of Victor and Ana
• Frigilis (Frillity), a close friend of Victor

The Novel

La Regenta (the magistrate’s wife) is the history of three years in the life of Vetusta, a small city in northwestern Spain, the fictional counterpart of Leopoldo Alas’ native Oviedo. The narrative begins with an event that will become the focus of the novel. Ana Ozores, a beautiful, cultured woman married to the ex-magistrate of the city, Victor Quintanar, makes her confession to Fermin de Pas, the priest who has just been assigned to her as spiritual guide. Ana reveals her frustration with her husband, who cannot give her a child, and her attraction to Alvaro Mesias, a handsome bachelor who has a reputation in the city as a ladies’ man.

As the novel progresses, Ana develops a dependence on Fermin as her savior from her sexual frustration and her unfulfilled longing for a child. Fermin tries to help Ana control her desires, which conflict with her strong sense of duty and responsibility to her husband. In the process of performing his priestly duties, however, Fermin falls in love with her. Victor spends his evenings in his bedroom, reciting passages from seventeenth century Spanish plays, imagining himself in the role of the betrayed husband who avenges his honor by killing his wife and her lover. Alvaro, meanwhile, becomes aware of Ana’s attraction to him and pursues her, at first discreetly, then more openly.

The members of the prominent social circle in which Victor and Ana move become aware of the competitive struggle for Ana’s attention waged by Fermin and Alvaro. As they begin to take sides, the impending crisis of Ana’s downfall becomes a topic of general conversation, and Ana finally succumbs to Alvaro’s advances. Victor, still unaware of his wife’s infidelity, fires Ana’s maid, Petra, because he is afraid that she will reveal that he has flirted with her. To get revenge, Petra tells Fermin that Ana is having an affair with Alvaro. In a fit of jealousy, Fermin persuades Petra to set Victor’s alarm clock ahead an hour so that he will wake up for his daily hunting trip in time to see Alvaro leaving Ana’s bedroom.

When Victor realizes that, like the heroes of the Spanish dramas, he has been deceived, he challenges Alvaro to a duel. In spite of Frigilis’ attempts to get Alvaro to leave town, thus averting a tragedy, the duel takes place and Victor is killed. Alvaro flees Vetusta, leaving Ana widowed and disgraced, banished from society by the Vetustans and from the Church by Fermin.

The Characters

The first half of this seven-hundred-page novel, which covers only the first three days of the story’s three years, is devoted to the presentation of the four central characters and a portrayal of Vetusta and its inhabitants. Although the narrator’s point of view is omniscient, the characterization of Ana Ozores, Fermin de Pas, Alvaro Mesias, and Victor Quitanar is developed almost entirely through the characters’ self-awareness, through their own perspectives on their existence.

In the first volume of the novel, Ana reflects on her childhood, a time when she had the energy to resist the influence of the cold, unfeeling, capricious people who took care of her. Now, trapped in the same kind of environment, she fears that she is no longer able to survive. She longs for the fulfillment of love and for the experience of bearing a child, longings that intensify her attraction to Alvaro, in spite of her strict belief in morality and marital fidelity. Ana also develops an intense attraction to Fermin as her spiritual counselor. Her inner conflict grows as she is torn between her sensual desires and her self-image as a devout, pious sister of the Church, devoted to her husband.

Fermin de Pas also reflects on his youth and his close relationship to his mother, who sacrificed her own happiness to help him fulfill his strong ambitions in the Church. His sudden awareness of his attraction to Ana creates in him a moral and political dilemma. He must guide Ana through her moral crisis and, at the same time, suppress his sexual feelings for her if he is to succeed in his quest for recognition in the city as a significant spiritual guide. Thus, the possibility of Ana’s adultery takes on a dual meaning for him. Ana’s infidelity would represent Fermin’s failure as a priest, and it would also signify his inability, as a man, to keep her faithful to the frustrating relationship with him that his religious vows impose.

Alvaro and Victor are portrayed primarily through their self-identification with literary characters. Alvaro cultivates the opinion that the citizens of Vetusta have of him, that he is a dashing, heroic Don Juan figure. Aware of the legend that has grown up around him, he plays the role with an intense cynicism, thinking that it will help him get what he wants. Victor, on the other hand, is unaware of the extent to which his life has begun to parallel that of the characters in the honor plays of the Golden Age dramatist Pedro Calderon de la Barca. Night after night, he acts out the roles and imagines how he himself would act if his wife were unfaithful to him. Yet, when he sees Alvaro leaving his wife’s bedroom as he stands in the plaza, shotgun in hand, he is unable to act. He realizes that the drama of honor is pure fiction, that the reality of the situation is not heroic, but ugly and humiliating.

Critical Context

Although Leopoldo Alas published a number of short stories and one short novel, he produced only one major work of fiction, La Regenta. His principal contribution to the literary scene of the late nineteenth century, other than La Regenta, was as a critic. For many years, “Clarin” (the pseudonym used by Alas in his literary criticism) was the most respected, and the most feared, commentator on the literary and social scene in Spain. His reputation was such that he was able to destroy the prestige of a writer through a single unfavorable review, and he spent his career satirizing the mediocrity and pretensions of those who considered themselves members of the elite class.

Alas’ attitude in his critical writing is reflected in his treatment of the society of Vetusta in La Regenta. Ignorance, mediocrity, stupidity, and dishonesty are rampant in Spanish society, and they should be exposed and destroyed. The function of criticism is to refine society, separating the truly excellent from the pretentious and inferior.

Bibliography

Durand, Frank. “Characterization in La Regenta: Point of View and Theme,” in Bulletin of Hispanic Studies. XLI (1964), pp. 86-100.

Durand, Frank. “Leopoldo Alas, ‘Clarin’: Consistency of Outlook as Critic and Novelist,” in Romanic Review. XLI (February, 1965), pp. 37-49.

Durand, Frank. “Structural Unity in Leopoldo Alas’ La Regenta,” in Hispanic Review. XXXI (October, 1963), pp. 324-335.

Rutherford, John. Introduction to La Regenta, 1984. Translated by John Rutherford.

Schyfter, Sara E. “‘La loca, la tonta, la literata’: Woman’s Destiny in Clarin’s La Regenta,” in Theory and Practice of Feminist Literary Criticism, 1982. Edited by Gabriela Mora and Karen S. Van Hooft.

Valis, Noel M. The Decadent Vision in Leopolda Alas, 1981.

Valis, Noel M. “Order and Meaning in Clarin’s La Regenta,” in Novel. XVI (Spring, 1983), pp. 246-258.