Document Type
Article
Journal/Book Title/Conference
Decimonónica
Volume
18
Issue
1-2
Publisher
Decimonónica
Publication Date
2021
First Page
18
Last Page
32
Abstract
Emilia Pardo Bazán’s Los pazos de Ulloa (1886) takes place in rural Galicia against the backdrop of Spain’s Revolution of 1868. Its plot is largely told through the eyes of Julián Álvarez, a young priest who travels from Santiago de Compostela to the once-grand and now- decaying Ulloa estate to become its new chaplain. There, he finds Pedro Moscoso, the de facto marquis of Ulloa, who is dominated by the estate’s peasant majordomo, Primitivo, and who has fathered an illegitimate son with his maid, Sabel, Primitivo’s daughter. Pedro marries his wealthy cousin, Nucha, in hopes of shoring up the Ulloa estate’s finances and producing a legitimate male heir, but the young bride loses her inheritance and gives Pedro a daughter instead. Moreover, theirs is an unhappy and abusive marriage. Meanwhile, Pedro is put up as the area’s reactionary Carlist candidate in the post-Revolution elections by Barbacana, one of the local caciques, but a betrayal by Primitivo throws the election to Pedro’s liberal opponent instead, which, in turn, leads to the cold-blooded murder of Primitivo by el Tuerto, one of Barbacana’s henchmen.
Recommended Citation
Erwin, Zachary, "The Violence of Competing Masculinities in Emilia Pardo Bazán’s Los pazos de Ulloa" (2021). Decimonónica. Paper 138.
https://digitalcommons.usu.edu/decimononica/138