Negotiating Gossip in the Spanish Realist Novel
type: CreativeWork
description: This dissertation focuses on ‘chisme’ or ‘gossip’ as theme, plot device and narrative dynamic in four canonical realist novels of the Spanish Restoration of the 1880s by Emilia Pardo Bazán (Chapter 1), Benito Pérez Galdós (Chapter 2) and Leopoldo Alas (‘Clarín’) (Chapter 3). An Introduction presents a theoretical analysis and framework of chisme, beginning with its definition and etymology, and considers the historical moment (the Spanish Restoration). It also draws on the fields of anthropology and psychology (Dunbar and Foster), philosophy (Foucault and Adkins) and sociology (Bourdieu), and literary theory (Bakhtin) to define gossip in terms of its core purpose (information-sharing, segregation and distancing, connection and bonding, or all simultaneously). This study argues that, when viewed as gossip, these texts are at their most powerful. They dialogue with and bond, confound and distance readers, alerting them to hidden intentions. They point to the epistemological value of gossip as a form of knowledge, and as a metaphor for the Spanish realist text. Their reproduction and troubling of social norms echo the multiple dual-faceted dynamics of gossip: knowledge/power, schism/bonding, differentiation/homogenisation, totalisation/fragmentation, speculation/substantiation, among others. Chapter 1 on Emilia Pardo Bazán’s Los Pazos de Ulloa and La madre Naturaleza examines gossip’s role in apportioning blame and stereotyping, and marginalising others. In a form of gender revenge, Pardo Bazán turns on its head the stereotypical belittling of women and women’s discourse as gossips and gossip, and exposes male anxiety around gossip and status. In Chapter 2, I posit that in Fortunata y Jacinta Galdós uses an economy of gossip to create bonds between his characters, to bond readers to character groups and to question the patriarchal status quo. Using the theories of Pierre Bourdieu on the bourgeois construction of social distinction through displays of material wealth an…
abstract: This dissertation focuses on ‘chisme’ or ‘gossip’ as theme, plot device and narrative dynamic in four canonical realist novels of the Spanish Restoration of the 1880s by Emilia Pardo Bazán (Chapter 1), Benito Pérez Galdós (Chapter 2) and Leopoldo Alas (‘Clarín’) (Chapter 3). An Introduction presents a theoretical analysis and framework of chisme, beginning with its definition and etymology, and considers the historical moment (the Spanish Restoration). It also draws on the fields of anthropology and psychology (Dunbar and Foster), philosophy (Foucault and Adkins) and sociology (Bourdieu), and literary theory (Bakhtin) to define gossip in terms of its core purpose (information-sharing, segregation and distancing, connection and bonding, or all simultaneously). This study argues that, when viewed as gossip, these texts are at their most powerful. They dialogue with and bond, confound and distance readers, alerting them to hidden intentions. They point to the epistemological value of gossip as a form of knowledge, and as a metaphor for the Spanish realist text. Their reproduction and troubling of social norms echo the multiple dual-faceted dynamics of gossip: knowledge/power, schism/bonding, differentiation/homogenisation, totalisation/fragmentation, speculation/substantiation, among others. Chapter 1 on Emilia Pardo Bazán’s Los Pazos de Ulloa and La madre Naturaleza examines gossip’s role in apportioning blame and stereotyping, and marginalising others. In a form of gender revenge, Pardo Bazán turns on its head the stereotypical belittling of women and women’s discourse as gossips and gossip, and exposes male anxiety around gossip and status. In Chapter 2, I posit that in Fortunata y Jacinta Galdós uses an economy of gossip to create bonds between his characters, to bond readers to character groups and to question the patriarchal status quo. Using the theories of Pierre Bourdieu on the bourgeois construction of social distinction through displays of material wealth an…
author: Fell, Rebecca
language: eng
keywords: blame stories, bourgeois practices of social distinction, 'chisme', differentiation/homogenisation, gossip, knowledge/power, schism/bonding, speculation/substantiation, stereotyping, tale-telling, the Spanish realist novel, totalisation/fragmentation
license: https://www.rioxx.net/licenses/all-rights-reserved/
date published: 2021-08-02
date modified: 2026-07-22T22:24:25Z
provider: Cambridge University
publisher: Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations
type: WebPage
source organization: University of Cambridge

PropertyValue
property ID: DOI
value: 10.17863/CAM.79423