Nostalgia y Resistencia Cultural en la Obra de Juan Marse

by Gabikagojeaskoa, Lourdes.

This investigation studies Juan Marsé’s interpretation of culture through his novels and focuses on how during the Franco era these figures — the charnego (the immigrant), the woman and the anarchist—confront the dictatorship. Implicit to Marsé’s novels is a discussion of cultural resistance to the hegemonic culture of franquismo. Marsé tells the story of the ‘other’ culture, the voiceless, and he tells the untold story of the marginalized. In 1936, after the Civil War and Franco’s victory, the losers of the battle paid for their defeat as objects of ridicule. Marsé takes these archetypal losers, and elevates them to the heroic. Marsé’s novels refer to the journey of the mythical hero as described by Joseph Campbell. Whereas the journey of Campbell’s epic hero effects changes on his surroundings and his psyche, Marsé presents this dual transformation by utilizing two separate figures: the charnego and the anarchist. The charnego completes a physical journey: a migration from south to north motivated by his interest in bettering the circumstances of his life. This trip is illustrated by the transformation of the Barcelona neighborhood where he settles. In contrast, the anarchist’s voyage is not so much physical as internal: a journey of self that is influenced by political understanding and solid class-consciousness. A heroine of Marsé’s novels is the archetypal woman who always looses: her destiny is dictated by her left leaning ideals and her role as the wife or lover of the 11 anarchist figure. The franquista regime brutalized all, but particularly women; the government restored a law from the Civil Code of 1889 that privileged patriarchal preeminence. Marsé explores the male-female conflicts of the era and reveals its repressed expressions. The work of Juan Marsé has not deviated from its fundamental foundation: the experiences of those marginalized and defeated by Franco. His work contest the erasure of a population’s unspoken memories. Perhaps because few of the abused have found justice in contemporary Spain, he looks to the future through a lens from the past. His nostalgic perspective finds the future by giving liberty to the untold experiences of the past. 12