Abstract
This article studies the existentialist quality of Camilo José Cela’s La familia de Pascual Duarte (1942). Through a close textual reading, I argue that Cela’s novel produces a bad faith discourse which showcases man’s sovereignty. Although earlier critical studies have debated the novel’s existential, tremendismo and/or naturalist qualities, they have unanimously overlooked how Pascual Duarte’s bad faith readdresses humanity’s tragic absurdity. My analysis contends that the hyper-brutality of Cela’s novel, far from substantiating neonaturalist rationalizations about the protagonist’s sociopathic behavior, instead uncovers Pascual’s le neánt. Moreover, this negativity on the part of the Galician’s novel redefines 1940s social realism, as man is revealed to be the sum of his conscious actions.
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Murillo, E. Existential(ist) Echos: Bad Faith Poetics in Pascual Duarte and his Family . Neophilologus 93, 233–247 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11061-008-9133-9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11061-008-9133-9