Critical Essay | Critical Essay by Peggy Whitten Watson

Critical Essay by Peggy Whitten Watson

SOURCE: Watson, Peggy Whitten. “‘Ir monja’: Entering the Convent in Unamuno's Abel Sánchez and San Manuel Bueno, mártir.” Selecta 15 (1994): 63-6.

In the following essay, Watson discusses the interior/exterior representation of imagery and the role of women in Abel Sánchez and Saint Emmanuel the Good, Martyr.

In San Manuel Bueno, mártir (1930), Angela's mother questions her daughter's intentions: “Me parece, Angelita, con tantas confesiones, que tú te me vas a ir monja” (17). Angela attempts to comfort her mother with her reply: “No lo tema, madre … pues, tengo harto que hacer aquí, en el pueblo, que es mi convento” (17). This convent imagery, also used some thirteen years earlier in Abel Sánchez (1917), illustrates two characteristics of Unamuno's novels: the interior/exterior representation of imagery and the use of female characters as adjuncts to male characters searching for self-definition. While these two characteristics may appear, at first glance, to...
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