Crows in the sky, in Vetusta and in the soul. The impossible space of motherhood in La Regenta

Abstract

The present reading proposal bets on a decentering. The critical incursion in an unavoidable work of the Modern and Contemporary Spanish Literature with own and very frequent exegetic protocols of the Spanish Golden Age: the strategies of symbolization and production of senses anchored in the incipient humanist and baroque discourses on animality. A watchtower of meaning that, to a great extent, nourishes multiple contemporary theoretical approaches on the meanings of the animal in literature and the arts. The scene that will guide our inquiries could be considered marginal in many respects: it occurs only one chapter away from the conclusion of the story and happens when the reader already knows about the fall of Ana Ozores. But it is evident to us that, as a cipher of a myriad of coordinates in the novel, what Víctor Quintanar contemplates and dreams of in the final stages of his disgrace transcends the strictly anecdotal, since although it can be admitted that the vision of the "phalanx of crows" flying overhead has an impact on the animalization of the people and figures that will populate his last dream, it should not be overlooked that his evasion of reality occurs precisely when he contemplates the only maternal vignette in the entire novel. And this will become more complex when we realize that the relevance of these birds transcends, by far, the gleaned fragment because La Regenta, in multiple dimensions, encourages a meditation on the dehumanization of those communities dominated by the crows while, in parallel, sketches the ill-fated and fateful destiny of those who fail in the filial imperative.