Challenge or Surrender?

<p class=ql-align-justify><span style=color: rgba(43 75 88 1)>The eminent Spanish writer Emilia Pardo Bazán (1851-1921) penned</span><em style=color: rgba(43 75 88 1)> </em><span style=color: rgba(43 75 88 1)>more than six hundred</span><em style=color: rgba(43 75 88 1)> </em><span style=color: rgba(43 75 88 1)>short stories and this work</span><em style=color: rgba(43 75 88 1)> Challenge or Surrender?</em><span style=color: rgba(43 75 88 1)> focusses on the female protagonists of twenty-five of these narratives selected for their exposition in one way or another of Pardo Bazán's feminist views. Each of these stories has provided one or more largely proactive female protagonists who confront personal and contemporaneous societal challenges in their lives. Some rise to overcome a gender-related challenge while others fail to do so. </span></p><p class=ql-align-justify><span style=color: rgba(43 75 88 1)>Every story embodies Pardo Bazán's forcefully expressed disdain for </span><em style=color: rgba(43 75 88 1)>fin de siècle</em><span style=color: rgba(43 75 88 1)> Spain's gendered injustices and challenges at least one of the patriarchal mores of her Spanish society most notably the Spanish code of honor the </span><em style=color: rgba(43 75 88 1)>ángel del hogar</em><span style=color: rgba(43 75 88 1)> construct the sexual double standard and </span><em style=color: rgba(43 75 88 1)>el qué dirán</em><span style=color: rgba(43 75 88 1)>-ubiquitous neighbourhood gossip.</span></p><p class=ql-align-justify><span style=color: rgba(43 75 88 1)>Most of the stories are as expected Realist narratives but there are also examples of naturalist romantic gothic </span><em style=color: rgba(43 75 88 1)>costumbrismo</em><span style=color: rgba(43 75 88 1)> fantastic and </span><em style=color: rgba(43 75 88 1)>folletín </em><span style=color: rgba(43 75 88 1)>writing. Pardo Bazán's ability to manipulate the literary styles in her fiction and her use of narrative techniques that undermine the portrayal of conventional female behaviour convey as subtexts her antipathy towards the gendered inequalities that she recognises in her society. In retrospect her short stories can now arguably be seen to have been her most effective channel of dissemination for her feminist ideas. </span></p><p class=ql-align-justify><em style=color: rgba(43 75 88 1)>Challenge or Surrender?</em><span style=color: rgba(43 75 88 1)> encompasses both the literary and cultural traditions of Spain and in addition it references multiple intersections of Spanish literature culture and arts. With its original analyses of twenty-five Pardo Bazán narratives this publication represents a major addition to the existing corpus of analyses of the author's short stories to date. </span></p><p class=ql-align-justify></p><p class=ql-align-justify><strong style=color: rgba(43 75 88 1)>Patricia Ramsay</strong><span style=color: rgba(43 75 88 1)> Ph.D. Victoria University of Wellington. Dr. Ramsay has an ongoing interest in </span><em style=color: rgba(43 75 88 1)>fin de siècle</em><span style=color: rgba(43 75 88 1)> Spanish literature and in particular Emilia Pardo Bazán's short stories. </span></p>