Thursday, May 14, 2009

Las medias rojas

written by Emilia Pardo Bazán
[I] 69 - 74

Summary:
It is a sad story of the reality of the Spanish life. It includes realismo (la representación objective de la sociedad y costumbres y la efecta de la historia y el ambiente en las personas) and libre albedrío (de hacer lo que quiere hacer).

It begins with the the rapaza Ildara who lives with her father, tío Claudio. She is a hard worker who works as a prostitute under Claudio, but she is saving up to go to the United States. She buys red stockings – a symbol of hope – and takes pride in the beauty of her face, her means of salvation. With her beauty, she can make money for herself; her face and beauty is her dream for America. Y tanto más defendía su belleza, hoy que se acercaba el momento de fundar en ella un sueño de porvenir (72). Unfortunately, Claudio, drunk, begins to beat her. He slugs her across the face and makes a tooth fall out. She becomes a tuerta. Her life and her hope dies, because los que allá, han de ir sanos, válidos, y las mujeres, con sus ojos alumbrando y sus dentadura completa ... (74)

Themes:
-desafío y perseverancia: la tenacidad individual ante los retos de la vida
-la crítica social y política
-la decadencia del orden establecido y el descontrol
-los cuentos del siglo XX

8 comments:

  1. I don't think that she is a prostitute. Tio Claudio doesn't like her buying the red stockings because of the fact that she has started to conform to modern ways of life. He doesn't want her to go to America because 1). She will be leaving him to take care of the land by himself, she is all that he really has, and 2). he feels that if she were to go to America she would just end up becoming a prostitute. That is my understanding of that part of the story. To show that she also wasn't a prostitute under Claudio look at the end of the story. Claudio beat her and knock out some of her teeth. This caused her to become ugly and to be a prostitute in America they would only really want to hire pretty girls. So that was Claudio's way of stopping her from having that desire to go to America.

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  2. I forgot a part. At the end it says that see was curled up thinking of the boat leaving to go America and she wouldn't ever be able to go. All immigrants have to go to Coney Island and pass through tests. She knew that they don't let just anyone in and that with her missing teeth and lack of sight in one eye, she would never be able to get in.

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  3. Check out this video analysis of Las medias rojas:
    http://espanolsinmisterios.blogspot.com/2011/09/recurso-para-el-ap-spanish-literature_23.html

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  4. I´m afraid both of you are wrong, for this was wrote in Spain as the fever for conquering more land in the Americans grew. She was not trying to go to the United States, she wanted to leave Spain which had everyone suffering from the incredibly high expenses of the conquistador trips and establishments which hadn't paid off yet. She was hard working and she worked the land for her father, Tio Clodio. He hits her because he doesn't want her to leave and stop helping him.

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  5. Yo creo que tio Claudia no quira ella a ir a America porque no quiro estar solo en spain

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