Literary criticism and representations of nation in Cecilia Boehl's 'La Gaviota' and Juan Valera's 'Dona Luz'

Contradictory views of Spain as a nation were represented in the realist novel with confusing ideological consequences. This dissertation considers discourses of nationalism as they are used to intervene in the debate over nation in Cecilia Boehl's novel La Gaviota and Juan Valera's novel Dona Luz.;In the first two chapters my study considers the ways in which contradictory images of nation as articulated in Boehl's novel lead the author to construct an image of Spain which is inimical to her own ideological project. Susan Kirkpatrick identifies the importance of images of nation in Cecilia Boehl by claiming that it is the protagonist's Spanishness which deflects the narrator's sympathy onto the concept of nation and away from a protagonist she designed to be an "anti-heroine." My argument addresses the contradictions that the discourse of nationalism then introduces into the text, in particular, by uncovering contradictory images of nation as they relate to another of the novel's characters, the Duke of Almansa. In addition, I examine the result of Boehl's use of pastoral conventions which dominate the first half of the novel, but which fade away in the second half of the novel.;The last two chapters consider Valera's role in theorizing nation during the Restoration in the aftermath of the revolutionary sexenium of 1868-1874. By challenging traditional readings of valera, the degree to which his novel is a political text which defies the aesthetics of "art for art's sake" emerges. Traditionally, critics have emphasized Valera's lack of assimilation into the literary movements of his time. By looking at the politics of Valera's novel, as well as the political conjuncture of Spain's Restoration, I argue that Valera's novel is an overt political intervention in the debate over nation.