Essays on Literature, Literary / Textual Criticism, and Pedagogy
Editor: Ollie O. Oviedo, Eastern New Mexico University
Assistant Editors: Royal Prentice, Harvey Stanbrough,
Eastern New Mexico University
Intertextuality, Text and Metatext in Concha Romero's Un olor a ámbar:
The Eternal Gender Struggle
Teresa Anta San Pedro
Department of Foreign Languages
Montclair State University
Concha Romero is a young Spanish woman writer who has initiated the quixotic adventure of introducing herself in the sacred
masculine feud of the Spanish theater. Even when women have realized great accomplishments and gained acceptance in
narrative and poetry during the past twenty years, this has not been so in drama, in Spain or other parts of the world. Patricia
W. O'Connor writes in her brief introduction to the play, "In reference to drama, women will not be able to celebrate their
success, as their male colleagues [have done], until they stage untranscendental plays without being labeled as frivolous and
until they can create great works without surprising anyone" (Romero 8-9).1
In the play Un olor a ámbar, the struggle for power confronts the sexes both in the different texts that make up the work, and
even outside of the work, as O'Connor has pointed out. To stand up for their rights, the nuns (the feminine protagonists of the
drama) have to confront the masculine power exercised by the friars. At a metafictive level, the female protagonists of the
metatexts also have to confront the men who control the world in which they live in their respective epochs. In a parallel
struggle, Concha Romero has to face the masculine power that dictates the rules of the Spanish and world theaters. As a
woman writer, Romero finds herself in a field controlled by men, as do the characters of her XVI century play (Makward
102).2 Men, as the owners of the word and possessors of the truth, have not only proposed, approved and consecrated the
rules of the game, but have also very carefully designed the optic with which the spectator approaches the play. As Joanna
Russ says in an article entitled "What Can a Heroine Do? Or Why Women Can't Write," published by Susan Koppelman in
Images of Woman in Fiction, "Both men and women in our culture conceive the culture from a single point of view-the male"
(Koppelman 4).3 This means that women do not have any guides, any rules, any canons that are their own, or any bases
established by them for judgement. She is a faithful image of the male taste; she has lost her identity, her criteria, and her voice
as a thinking being. As Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar point out, "The notion that the chief creature man has generated is
woman has a long and complex history. From Eve, Minerva, Sophia, and Galatea onward . . . patriarchal mythology defines
women as created by, from, and for men, the children of male brains, ribs, and ingenuity" (Gilbert and Gubar 12). Concha
Romero, in Un olor a ámbar, moved by what Harold Bloom calls "the anxiety of influence" and by the use of metafictive
techniques, presents us with several images of women throughout the history of literature, with the double purpose of affirming
and denying previous texts. She affirms the problematic existence of the woman of the past and actualizes it by the creation of
a drama based in that same conflict. At the same time she revises the image created around that same woman, cataloging it as
false and denying with it the veracity of such texts. This classic image, a product of the male pen, is used by the author as a
trampoline to draw the spectator closer to the real woman; thus "the woman-image" is used by Romero as a technique by
which she is able to present woman from a new perspective, her own, the feminine perspective. She follows the steps that,
according to Gilbert and Gubar, every female writer should follow if she wishes to reach literary autonomy—"the process of
self-definition" (12). Concha Romero's new interpretative path denotes a self-realization, an autoreflection that has taken her
to a revision of old texts as well as a creation of new ones. The writer returns to the past, to the history made and narrated by
men, to question its objectivity and its veracity in reference to its appreciation and projection of women. Romero formulates
statements about what ought to be (Koppelman 29-49).4
At first glance, we are before a play that takes place in the Convent of the Carmelitas Descalzas in the Castillian town of Alba
de Tormes in June, 1583. By intertextuality, the narrations within the central narration, and a play within a play (the
metatheater), the author takes us from this concrete location in Spain to the world of the Greek and Latin myths. Concha
Romero considers these myths as the origin of certain false images about woman. Consequently, through the transformation
and reinterpretation of the intertexts, the work becomes a metaphor for the eternal struggle at many different levels between
genders.
The first pre-existing text contained in the drama, by which Concha Romero returns us to woman's past, consists of a short
story narrated by a novice who heard it from her grandfather, perhaps with the purpose of inflicting fear upon her. It is the
typical warning story of the proud Arachne, created by men for the purpose of scaring women. This story, a product of the
masculine mentality, accompanies us until the present without ever being rejected, questioned or challenged by women as we
could see in the introduction to the myth in the book Mythology and You, written by Donna Rosenberg and Sorelle Baker in
1981.
Arachne had achieved excellence (areté) in her weaving. However, she was not satisfied to be known as the best mortal weaver. She believed she was a better weaver than any of the gods. She lost her sense of perspective and forgot that she was human. She became arrogant and insolent, even to the old woman who gave her advice. Thisis an example of excessive pride or hubris, which leads to catastrophe. . . . when Arachne's emotions controlled her actions, she brought destruction upon herself. The appropriate nature of the punishment adds to the appeal of this myth. (Rosenberg and Baker 127)
Arachne, who was the best weaver in her own and neighboring countries and who dedicated her life to the creation of beautiful tapestries, was a young woman from Arcadia, a region of ancient Greece. One day she ventured to challenge Athena (called Minerva by the Romans), the goddess of the arts. Arachne won the challenge; her tapestry was more beautiful than the one made by the goddess.
Arachne wove a picture of Europa, deceived by Jupiter when he presented himself in the shape of a bull. You would have though that the bull was a live one, . . . All . . . incidents were correctly depicted, people and places had their authentic features. . . . Neither Pallas nor even Jealousy personified could find any flaw in the work. (Innes 137)
Minerva, furious for being humiliated and defeated by a mortal, decided to take revenge.
The golden-haired goddess, wild with indignation at her rival's success, tore to pieces the tapestry which displayed the crimes committed by the gods. Then, with the shuttle of Cytorian boxwood which she held in her hand, three times, four times, she struck Idmon's daughter on the forehead. Arachne found her plight beyond endurance: with a fine show of spirit, she fastened a noose round her neck to hang herself. But Pallas pitied her, [and] as she hung there . . . said: 'You may go on living . . . suspended in the air like this, all the time.' (137-138)
Obviously, Concha Romero gives this story a very different interpretation from the one that has been presented throughout human history by the masculine and even the feminine pen. According to Romero, Minerva has never felt pity for Arachne; on the contrary, her thirst for revenge takes her to the extreme of condemning the young girl to death, but the proud Arachne excels over the goddess and disallows her the satisfaction of her wishes. Arachne wants to prevent this deity from having control over her life, so
she wanted to take her life with her own hands. [She] took a rope, tied it to a beam, got on top of a chair and hung herself . . . . When she was about to expire, the very cruel [Minerva], thinking that the punishment was not severe enough, wanted to perpetuate her revenge; touched her with her magic wand and in the middle of her death rattle, kept reducing and reducing her until she became a spider, condemned to weaving the same web on the ceilings of the houses for centuries to come. (20-21)
This is an "exemplary lesson" according to "infallible" patriarchal thought, since as Mary Daly points out, the "male's viewpoint
is metamorphosed into God's viewpoint" (47), and is one of the many horror stories by which women have been subjugated
through history. It is a fine example of the price that females have to pay for their bravery, their intelligence, and their pride.
These qualities, glorified in the masculine hero, are the cause of the destruction of the female hero. Woman, according to the
image created by the masculine literary tradition, has to be humble, submissive and obedient. At this level, this story
perpetuates two feminine images that have accompanied us from the very beginning of literary history to the present: the
disobedient and challenging "Eva," incarnated in the young woman from Arcadia, and the "diabolic" and "vengeful" woman
incarnated in the goddess Minerva.
A closer interpretation of the play gives us a very different perspective and takes us to a new dimension of reality. At a mythic
level, we are faced with a very common, archetypical struggle for power between humans and gods. Since the beginning of
time, humans from every corner of the universe have challenged God in their attempt to reach his status, force him out of his
throne, and take his place. This is the second stage in the road to heroism, called "Initiation" by Joseph Campbell, and it is one
of the requirements of "The road of trials" by which the hero fights against his creator to replace him and gain control of the
universe (Campbell 97-172).
According to Campbell, this fight for power, or "Atonement with the Father," is what takes place between Minerva and the
young Arachne, yet the classic hero normally wins the battle and takes his father's place, while this female, after winning that
same battle is condemned to die and later reduced to the condition of a spider.
Arachne is tired of living in the shadow of Minerva:
Everyone thought that only grey-eyed Athena, the patron goddess of arts and crafts, could have taught Arachne to be such a skillful weaver. Yet Arachne was a particularly proud and independent young woman. She arrogantly denied that she had ever received any aid . . . . In fact, she boasted that she was far superior to Athena in the art of weaving. 'Let battle-stirring Athena appear and contest her skill with mine.' (Rosenberg and Baker 127-128)
Arachne wants to mother her creation in the same way that the male author father's his. Toril Moi writes that "the writer
'fathers' his text . . . he becomes the Author—the sole origin and meaning of his work" (57). This is impossible for a female
creator to do, for as Marcia R. Lieberman clearly explains in "Sexism and the Double Standard in Literature," social
conventions have shaped "both the creation of literature and our response to it" (Koppelman 338). The best creator of
tapestries, because she is a woman, is denied the right to authorship, and as a punishment for claiming such a right, is reduced
to a spider and condemned to weave the same tapestry for eternity. Arachne forgot that her condition as a woman demands
submission. As Gilbert and Gubar wrote, "Snow White is not a child but (as female angels always are) childlike, docile,
submissive, the heroine of a life that has no story, . . . [but the] Queen, adult and demonic, plainly wants a life of 'significant
action,' by definition an 'unfeminine' life of stories and storytelling" (39-40), but that has a price. Arachne wants to have a
story, her story, and for that she is condemned and punished.
This struggle, apparently between women, is actually a gender struggle. In her role of goddess—created by Zeus, a masculine
god—Minerva condemns Arachne to fulfill the purpose and play the role for which she was created. As Gaea and Rhea, she
was one of the Great Goddesses of Ancient Greece before the invasion of the troops from Macedonia around 1900 B.C. In
the matriarchal society of Ancient Greece, goddess Athena helped her people with reproduction and daily subsistence, but
according to the patriarchal society and religion (with Zeus as the protector of the Gods) that was imposed by the aggressors.
Athena was the daughter of Zeus and Metis. Zeus acquired the quality of wisdom by marrying and then swallowing the Titan Metis . . . took over the female function of giving birth . . . [and] delivered Metis's child, the goddess Athena . . . [who] remained her father's favorite daughter . . . [and who] represented the qualities that Zeus himself possessed and prized. She lost the motherly qualities she had possessed in the earlier religion and instead became an athletic-looking virgin goddess. (Rosenberg and Baker 43)
Athena or Minerva, as we can see, is not a true goddess but a god; she is created by Zeus in his own image. She possesses
his qualities, and the essence of the previous goddess is far removed. She is a creation based on male ideology, and she
behaves according to the laws and rules established by the patriarchal society, wherein "Daughters became the property of
their fathers, bestowed in marriage as their fathers chose. Wives became subject to the wills of their husbands . . . . People
became more aggressive, glorying in heroic courage, death in battle, and in the riches of conquest" (Rosenberg and Baker 15).
The goddess (woman) in this society forever lost her own personality, her unique self and became the self of the god (man).
Without a self, she cannot challenge; she accepts what is given to her by the ones who possess her self, the gods, the men.
She conforms to and accepts what is said by a masculine god in the person of a father, a brother, a husband or a goddess.
Woman cannot aspire to control the word, cannot narrate her story, and cannot make history. She simply fulfills the role
assigned to her in the history of man and assumes the character that he wants her to assume in his story.
Minerva and the young girl from Arcadia do not fight freely as two adversaries; they confront each other as two puppets in a
pre-arranged battle, in a tapestry created and designed by men. As Norman O. Brown writes, "The lady is our creation . . . .
The lady is the poem, [Petrarch's] Laura is really poetry" (Gilbert and Gubar 13).
Intertextuality also allows us to witness the struggle originated by the anxiety of influence at different levels. The fight between
Arachne and Minerva is parallel to that between the classic and mystic writer Santa Teresa and Concha Romero. Minerva's
tapestry was not unique, a one-time creation, impossible to repeat, because it is impossible to go back to the origin of things
(Culler, Ch. 5).5 For this reason, Arachne is able not only to challenge and equal the creation of the goddess, but surpass it.
Like Minerva, Santa Teresa is a goddess in her field, Castilian literature. She is a consecrated writer, and Concha Romero is a
novice trying to open a path in which to weave her tapestry. Consciously or unconsciously Concha Romero is trying to
overthrow Santa Teresa and take her place.
The anxiety of influence can also be seen at a generational level in the daily life of the convent, but the reaction of the women
created by Concha Romero is very different than that of the women created by men through the story of Minerva. The nun
Inés de Jesús willingly allows other generations to step forward; she affirms, "In matters of soul antiquity should not count,"
and another nun responds, "The young girls are arriving with strong and firm steps" (23). The woman of Un olor a ámbar does
not fight against the inevitable replacement of the old blood by the new, younger, energetic one. She considers this coming and
going of generations as a natural part of the cycle of life, the cosmic flow—as Mircea Eliade affirms that "Every expression of
life is the result of the fertility of the earth, every form is being born of it . . . and returns to it the moment its share of life is
exhausted" (Eliade 54).
The tapestry as a text represents another tragic story of woman, the kidnaping of Europa by Jupiter. This story illustrates the
most important role assigned to woman by man according to male judgement: the role of serving him as a pleasing sexual
object. Via intertextuality, Concha Romero again takes us to the very origins of masculine sexual domination. Through the use
of his powers, Jupiter (the father of the gods) tricked, raped and abused every woman who crossed his path and whetted his
appetite, for "He was inclined to fall in love and committed all kinds of insanities when he capriciously became infatuated with
any girl" (22). Jupiter, as the maximum authority on the Olympus, establishes the law of possessing women and the other gods
follow his example.
Neptune, too, changed into a fierce bull for his affair with Aeolus' daughter. Disguised as the river god Enipeus, he was making love to Aloeus' wife . . . . The golden-haired mother . . . knew him in the shape of a horse, Melantho as a dolphin, . . . . Phoebus was there . . . disguised himself as a shepherd to deceive Macareus' daughter, Isse. . . . There was also a picture of Bacchus, tricking Erigone with the semblance of a bunch of grapes . . . Saturn, in the shape of a horse, creating the centaur Chiron, half horse, half man. (Innes 137)
The disguise and fraud of the gods is dual in Un olor a ámbar at the level of the "story" or content, as we have already seen
and at the level of "discourse" or expression plane (Chatman 146); the techniques used by the gods to seduce and possess
women are also used at the textual level. The gods take ownership of the female's body the same way they take possession of
the narrative body—by disguising the truth and creating false images of both men and women and by establishing their own
canons as bases for judgement in the literary world. The behavior of seduction and deception present on Olympus eventually
reaches humans, and not only reduces women to objects, but leaves women "battling in a feminized Oedipal struggle . . . the
tale concentrates on the conflict in the mirror between mother and daughter, woman and woman, self and self . . . women
almost inevitably turn against women because the voice of the looking glass sets them against each other" (Gilbert and Gubar
37-38). Here we see, once again, a feminine struggle that is actually a struggle between genders.
When the female refuses to serve as an object, refuses to give up her self and succumb to man's power, the gender struggle
presents itself in the form of a rape, which is "male power fighting female power" (Paglia 23). While Jupiter accomplishes his
totality (Muller 160) in Europa, she is reduced to nothingness, as Juno, Jupiter's wife previously was reduced. "Jealousy made
the poor Juno commit all kinds of cruelties" (22). The struggle between women for a macho, initiated by men, is the worst of
the female failures, is her downfall. Woman at this point has not only accepted her condition as a mere object, but supports
and perpetuates the masculine conduct. Juno, instead of punishing Jupiter for his infidelity, condemns and punishes his victims,
thereby approving the sexual abuse and domination of the male over the female.
Concha Romero, by her skillful use of metatheater, presents us with a third story where females' problems surface at different
levels. As part of the main plot of Un olor a ámbar, the nuns decide to present a play in honor of the prioress' birthday. The
play's main character is a young Spanish girl named Coloma, who at the end of the III century crosses the Pyrenees to die as
a Christian martyr in the persecution carried out by Emperor Aurelian. When she becomes a prisoner, she realizes that a
woman is not even considered worthy of dying for her beliefs, since "My companions were lucky and were executed
immediately, but because I am a woman, they have forgiven me with the intention of making me apostatize" (51). As
conscious beings who are possessors of "perfect mental faculties" and always sure about the consequences of their actions,
men are deserving of such a privilege. Coloma, being a woman, cannot be judged in the same manner. The word 'woman'
lacks validity. According to the image created by man, she is "not fully assembled, the intemperate, incoherent, hysterical,
extravagant and capricious" (Ellmann 44). Her insignificant and hollow voice loses itself in the pre-established masculine
argument, an argument so strong that it does not need words; it is understood in the silence.
Emperor Aurelian, guided by his infallible understanding of women, tries to convince Coloma to desist from her intentions. He
is convinced that she will change her mind and will forget her religious fervor; so he tries to approach her by using different
methods of persuasion. His first technique is praise, adulation, and seduction. "What a beautiful head, yes sir! Properly
Roman. A precious profile, sure, firm, without hesitation. Eyes of almond and honey, hair of golden lemon" (52). The emperor
uses this method because he is moved by another image about woman—that she can always be manipulated by appealing to
her vanity. It is implied here that every man believes that every woman surrenders before the celebration of her beauty.
Aurelian does not realize that Coloma does not fit the man-made pattern of the woman; she is a woman, a person, not an
image of a woman.
When the emperor sees that his persuasive words don not succeed, he tries to overwhelm her with the greatness of the
Roman gods and the physical beauty they possess, a beauty that is parallel to her own. Talking about her hair he says, "How
beautiful it would look in the temple that I have built to the God Sun . . . ! Don't you like the gods of Rome, little one? Doesn't
Minerva tell you anything . . . ? Nor Jupiter? Oh! if Jupiter could see you . . . ! Nor Apollo? He is very handsome, do you
know?" (52). Coloma does not seem to care for the beauty of the Roman gods. It does not attract her. She is not concerned
with appearance, with the exterior, with the superficial. Thus she takes the emperor's words with complete indifference.
Frustrated by his lack of success, Aurelian resorts to the offense—and attacks Coloma's femininity: "You don't like boys?"
(52). Coloma doesn't react to this either and never tries to defend herself, because as Paglia demonstrates, women do not
have to prove they are women, but men do have to prove they are men (29-30).
Emperor Aurelian refuses to accept that Coloma has as much integrity as any man, and he continues to try to persuade her.
His only recourse is to bring fear upon her. He decides to use threats and furiously says: "Your friends have died. Did you
know that? . . . You know that you will follow them if you persist in adoring that starving man who died on the cross" (52).
Aurelian's threats are no more successful than the methods he had previously used. The emperor, "impotent" before the
firmness of Coloma's character, decides to negotiate with her: "You could adore him in silence and pretend that you believe in
the gods of the state. One life is worth the lie" (53). The emperor does not care about Coloma's beliefs; he just wants to make
sure she follows the rules of the state—by obeying his orders. These orders are "sacred" and everybody must obey them, not
because they are of any philosophical value, but because the emperor's power is proven by their enforcement. He must show
his subordinates that he is in charge, that he is a man, and that no one is above him, even if in the depth of his heart he is
begging the young Coloma to compromise. But this brave girl does not give into his very personal reasoning, and his words
seem to give her more strength to fight for her beliefs, when she utters, "I adore Jesus Christ and I confess that he is my
Savior" (53).
When the emperor finally realizes that Coloma's love for Christ is all that matters to her, he also discovers a way to make her
react—by threatening her with the loss of her virginity. Aurelian will attempt something against her sainthood, will invade her
sacred space (Paglia 19-20). He tells her to "renounce your faith or I will have you dishonored" (53). He then calls a centurion
to deflower her. At this point, Coloma's fate is out of her hands; it is in the hands of God, so a miracle takes place. Coloma
has followed the path traced by the Divinity; she has done what is expected of her, so the Divinity comes to her rescue. She
receives what Joseph Campbell calls "Supernatural Aid" when "having responded to his own call, and continuing to follow
courageously as the consequences unfold, the hero finds all the forces of the unconscious at his side. Mother nature herself
supports the Mighty task" (Campbell 101). The centurion is not able to rape Coloma because of the miraculous appearance
of a bear. The emperor, furious because of his lack of power to resolve the matter, orders the tearing of her flesh with steel
nails and then her decapitation. This image of emperor Aurelian is very different from that portrayed of him in our history
books (Lissner 297-302).
"History repeats itself," we may utter; and any woman who decides to disobey masculine orders has to pay with her life.
Emperor Aurelian does not condemn Coloma for being a Christian but for disobeying him: "Stubborn, more than stubborn! I
would have preferred not to hurt you, but you can not contradict the emperor of Rome, and less a callow young girl like you"
(54). Coloma died for wanting to have her own life, for not wanting to be a puppet—moving under masculine orders, for
wanting to be her own person. She identifies herself as a Christian and defends her identity. Aurelian also fights to maintain his
identity as the emperor of Rome, and his identity is based on the absolute obedience of his subjects. When Coloma disobeys
the orders of the emperor, she undermines his authority. By not accepting the gods of the state as her own, she validates her
own religion and questions the supremacy of the state imposed by masculine power. In modern terms she is a dissident, a
non-conformist, and a threat to power; therefore, she must die.
This suggests that Coloma challenged the patriarchal rules from the time she decided to leave her pagan parents and become a
Christian. The family was the basic institution in the Roman Empire and the father was its head. By leaving her house, Coloma
broke the rules and the ties, in traditional terms, to be in charge of her destiny—although it ironically led to her death.
The gender struggle in the three metafictive texts that are integrated in the drama are also present in the plot of that drama,
Concha Romero's drama. This play, as Patricia W. O'Connor states, is based on a rigorous investigation done by the
playwright about the beatification of Santa Teresa de Jesús. Her investigation manifests the tremendous power struggle
between the sexes that existed in the Spanish religious orders of the XVI century. The friars are in control of power and do
not want to lose it. The nuns of Alba de Tormes, as all the other nuns, were subordinated by their orders and had to obey the
friars, even against their own will, as Santa Teresa did at the brink of death.
Mother [Teresa] at the beginning resisted passing by Alba; she told me that she couldn't, that she was feeling very sick and that she wanted to arrive at the convent of San José as soon as possible. Since I was not able to reason with her in a nice way due to my limitations, I was not able to realize the seriousness of her illness, and since there were so many favors that the house of Alba, especially the duchess, had done for the Reformation, that I finished the discussion by telling her that it was an order. Mother Teresa, on her way, answered me: 'I will go, but know that this is one of the acts of obedience that has been the most difficult to follow in my life.' (60-610)
This declaration, made by father Antonio in the play, is identical to the one that appears in the books about the life of the saint.
"Going from Burgos to Avila towards the end of September in 1582, she stopped at the convent of Alba de Tormes where
she felt sick and death surprised her" (Jesús 20).
The plot of Un olor a ámbar revolves around the battle between the friars and the nuns over possession of the body of Santa
Teresa. The friars maintain that they have the right to claim her body and take it to San José de Avila. According to them, "it
was not God's will who brought her to Alba, but the will of the Duchess of Alba and the unfortunate order of a friar" (61). The
prioress of the Convent of the Carmelitas Descalzas of Alba de Tormes, where the saint died, thinks differently and defends
her position with a strong and convincing argument. "No one is able to choose the place and date of his death. It is God who
chooses them. There are always, without any doubt, circumstances that justify it to happen in one place and not another, but
finally, it is God and only God who determines. We could say that father Antonio acted on that occasion as a mere
circumstance (62). Being unable to refute the argument of the prioress, the Provincial of the Carmelitas Descalzas, Fray
Gregorio Nacianceno, resorts to the typical insult so often used by man to underrate feminine intelligence: "For a woman she
reasons quite well, but it doesn't seem respectful that a nun as prioress, as she might be, should have the insolence of calling a
friar a 'circumstance'" (61).
It is worth noting that the friars treat their colleagues, the nuns, with the same disdain and scorn as the secular world treats
women. Every good argument that comes out of a feminine mouth and opposes the masculine criterion is labeled as a lack of
respect. When the "provincial" sees that his initial argument has not been very convincing, he resorts to sentimentalism to move
the heart of the prioress:
There are other considerations, humanitarian and sentimental ones. It happens at the time of death as in old age with the memories from childhood. We like to return to the place and the house that saw us being born. . . . And Mother Teresa was born for the Reformation in the convent of San José of Avila; and that is why she wanted to die there with such an impetus. An act of obedience prevented her from reaching her goal. And we, her children, should please her as an act of charity. (62)
The prioress responds to these "sincere" and "charitable" feelings with another confession:
The day before her death, I got close to her bed and I asked her where did she want to be buried. And do you know what she answered me? That a dung heap was enough for her; that if in Alba we didn't want to give her a little soil. And believe me, she said that with a lot of feeling, hurt, as if my question had bothered her. (62)
Fray Antonio, the companion of the "provincial", when he sees that it is impossible to convince the prioress says, "Where words have no power, perhaps papers will do it" (62). To this Fray Gregorio Nacianceno adds:
This matter has already been decided. . . . I am bringing papers . . . in my right hand from the Order in charge of this Chapter . . . and in the left, the signature of mother Teresa . . . by which she promises the bishop of Valladolid that she will be buried by his side in the chapel of the convent of San José of Avila, as an exchange to cover for the expenses that she had incurred. Religious power in one hand, civil power in the other. (63)
That is, Santa Teresa even had to hypothecate her dead body to the masculine power, to the owners of the economy.
She—the in-exhaustible woman, the founder of seventeen convents and reformer of many more, the great humanist and
writer—had to bend her pride as a woman in order to be able to carry out her enterprises. In much the same way, the
prioress of the Carmelitas de Alba has to surrender before the papers that concede to man, the friars, political as well as
religious power, but not before throwing the truth in the "provincial's" face: "Why didn't you claimed her two years ago, when
she died, when the incorruption of her body was not known? During that time feelings did not count, and the papers were not
signed? You don't want to please her, you just want the glory of her body" (64). Once more, men, supported by the laws that
they created, win the battle while women surrender, defeated as they see themselves totally helpless.
This passage is a faithful representation of the dimensions that masculine power can reach. Indeed, the friars did not claim the
body of Santa Teresa until they discovered its incorruption and miracles. Once they realized its value, they wanted to take
possession of it in the same manner they took possession of her literary works. This implies that Women have no possessions
of their own. Everything belongs to men, including women's body and corpse. Santa Teresa did great things in her life, but this
did not free her from her subordination to the friars, for she never had any power to decide on her own.
The prioress, as a woman of action, does not surrender before the menace that the papers represent; she tries to impede the
departure of the saint's body in a physical way. Father Naciancero threatens her with the loss of her job and defrocking her,
but she refuses to be intimidated. Together with the other nuns, she builds a human chain that lasts until the "provincial"
threatens her with the ex-communication of all the nuns. The blackmail and the fear force women to surrender again. The
situation of the nuns had not changed very much from that of Coloma thirteen centuries earlier. Coloma feared the loss of her
virginity and her sacred temple, and the nuns feared the loss of theirs out of the ambit of the church.
Toward the end of the play, the prioress, desperate before so much injustice, appeals to heaven and rings the church bells to
inform the town's people about the situation. The people, in their role of a Greek choir, come to her rescue ready for whatever
may happen: "Open, sisters! Here is the whole town to defend what is theirs. They are not taking her. She is ours, ours,
ourssss!" This reaction terrifies the friars. They know that the "pueblo" does not forgive, does not listen, does not abide by
reason, and is implacable in its application of justice. As Fray Antonio offers, "Against a furious multitude, orders,
excommunication, authority and papers are worthless" (68). But the threat of excommunication from the church continues to
weigh over the prioress' head, and by the use of this threat the "provincial" forces the nun to disperse the crowd. She does it
but takes advantage of the presence of the people and decides to negotiate with the friars, demanding Mother Teresa's right
arm for the convent of Alba.
The play ends with a very symbolic and promising scene. The prioress is seen holding up Santa Teresa's arm as a banner; and
she energetically affirms, "My daughters, I promise you that I will not rest until that body, that now leaves in the dark secretly,
will reunite with this arm, at the light of the day and with all the bells ringing in the campanile" (70). The nuns of Alba de
Tormes have inherited the right arm from Santa Teresa, the arm of power, the arm of the pen and the sword. With this arm,
they will be able to create, make history, and become history. Romero also inherits that arm and brandishes the pen,
exercising her power. She takes possession of the creative act, a traditionally masculine act (Finch 4-5). In a figurative sense,
she "steals" the [pen]is from man. Metaphorically she seizes her instrument of power (Curtius 305-306).6 Romero executes
the promise of the prioress, takes all the parts from the dismembered body of Santa Teresa and the women of all time, and
unites them into a single body—the narrative. In this creation, woman has stopped being a collection of loose images, a
product of the masculine pen, to become herself.
Notes
1All quotations hereafter are from the edition cited in this paper. The original text is in Spanish and all the translations are mine.
2Christiane Makward, in a study about feminist French literature, states that even these female writers continue to use
masculine authors as the models of their discourse.
3The taste of the spectator is a product of an education based on masculine values. The spectator conscientiously or
unconscientiously judges a play as well as any other art as excellent, good, or bad according to the male canons.
4According to Susan Gorsky in "The Gentle Doubters: Images of Women in Englishwomen's Novels, 1840-1920," not all
women in literature correspond to the feminine stereotypes created by men. But the images of angel, saint, martyr, sinner and
evil persist. Another interesting study, Las Románticas: Women Writers and Subjectivity in Spain 1835-1859 (U of California
P, 1989) was written by Susan Kirpatrick.
5Texts do not have autonomy, in the same way that language has no autonomy. It is very important to pay attention to
previous texts. The meaning of a text depends on these precursors; they contribute to the code that makes the new meaning
possible. For additional studies consult Harold Bloom, A Map of Misreading (New York: Oxford UP, 1975, Roland Barthes,
"From Work to Text," Textual Strategies, ed. Josué Harari (Ithaca: Cornell UP, 1979).
6For more information use the following texts: Bridget Riley, Art and Sexual Politics (London: Collier Books, 1973), and
Norman O. Brown, Love's Body (New York: Vintage, 1968).
Works Cited
Barthes, Roland. Textual Strategies. Ithaca: Cornell UP, 1979.
Bauer, Dale. Feminist Dialogics: A Theory of Failed Community. Albany: State U of New York P, 1988.
Bloom, Harold. The Anxiety of Influence: A Theory of Poetry. London: Oxford UP, 1973.
_____. A Map of Misreading. London: Oxford UP, 1975.
Brown, Norman. Love's Body. New York: Vintage Books, 1968.
Campbell, Joseph. The Hero with a Thousand Faces. Princeton: Princeton UP, 1972.
Chatman, Seymour. Story and Discourse. Ithaca: Cornell UP, 1983.
Culler, Jonathan. The Pursuit of Signs. Ithaca: Cornell UP, 1981.
Curtius, Ernst Robert. European Literature and the Latin Middle Ages. New York: Harper, 1963.
Daly, Mary. Beyond God the Father. Boston: Beacon, 1973.
Deneuville, Dominique. Santa Teresa de Jesús y la mujer. Barcelona: Herder, 1966.
Eliade, Mircea. Patterns in Comparative Religions. New York: American Library, 1963.
Ellmann, Mary. Thinking about Women. New York: Harcourt, 1968.
Finch, Anne. The Poems of Countess of Winchelsea. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1903.
Gilbert, Sandra M. and Susan Gubar. The Madwoman in the Attic. New Haven: Yale UP, 1979.
Innes, Mary. The Metamorphoses of Ovid. Hardmondsworth, England: Penguin, 1977.
Jeason, Francis. Sartre and the Problems of Morality. Bloomington: Indiana UP, 1980.
Jesús, Teresa de. Libro de la vida. Madrid: Ediciones Cátedra, 1993.
Kirpatrick, Susan. Las Románticas: Women Writers and Subjectivity in Spain 1835-1859. Los Angeles/Berkeley: U of
California P, 1989.
Koppelman, Susan. Images of Woman in Fiction: Feminist Perspectives. Bowling Green: Bowling Green UP, 1978.
Lissner, Ivar. The Caesars: Might and Madness. New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1958.
Makward, Christiane. The Future of Difference. Boston: Hester Eisenstein and Alice Jardine, 1980.
Moi, Toril. Sexual/Textual Politics. New York: Methuen, 1991.
Muller, Rene. The Marginal Self. New Jersey: Humanities Press International, 1987.
Paglia, Camille. Sexual Personae. New Haven: Yale UP, 1991.
Riley, Bridget. Art and Sexual Politics. London: Collier, 1973.
Romero, Concha. Un olor a ámbar. Madrid: Colección La Avispa, 1983.
Rosenberg, Donna, and Sorelle Baker. Mythology and You. Skokie, IL: National Company, 1981.
Last Modified 12 Feb 2000
Comments or Problems to: ENMURWT@ENMU.EDU
.gif){kind=small}
.gif){kind=small}