nazarin notes

‘Nazarín gives us a comic vision of the Gospels without in any way demeaning its
latter-day Christ' (JO LABANYI). Discuss.
Gospels – the people around him
Latter-day Christ = Nazarín
Gospels = Christ
Comparison with Don Quijote – Comic ?
Comedy is irony that he is like Jesus coming back but being treated like a crazy man
– Frank P. Bowman, ‘On the Definition of Jesus in Modern Fiction’, Anales Galdosianos,
1967.
– Peter Bly, Nazarín, (Critical Guide).
– G. Correa, El simbolismo religioso en las novelas de Galdós.
– B.J. Dendle, The Spanish Novel of Religious Thesis, 1874-1936.
– ---, ‘Point of view in Nazarín: an appendix to Goldman (see below)’, Anales
Galdosianos, 1974.
– Stacey Dolgin, ‘"Nazarin" and Galdós's Modern Point of View’, South Atlantic Review
55. 1 (1990), pp. 93-102 (on JSTOR).
– Peter Goldman, ‘Galdós and the aesthetic of ambiguity: Notes on the thematic
structure of Nazarín’, Anales Galdosianos, 1974.
– J-C Mainer, ‘Cristos finiseculares’ in Historia de la literatura española, vol 6:
Modernidad y nacionalismo (1900-1939), pp. 18-23.
– B. Pérez Galdós, Prosa crítica. ‘El sentimiento religioso en España’.
– A.A. Parker, ‘Nazarín, or the Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ according to Galdós’,
Anales Galdosianos 2 (1967), pp.83-101.*
– F. Ruiz Ramón, Tres personajes galdosianos.
– R.H. Russell, ‘The Christ figure in Misericordia’, Anales Galdosianos 2 (1967): 10329.*
– Colin, Vera ‘A Note on Tolstoy and Galdós’, Anales Galdosianos, 2 (1967), 155-168
– Dolgin, Stacey L. ‘Nazarin: A tribute to Galdós’ Indebtedness to Cervantes’,
Hispanófila, 97 (1989), 17-22
– Romero Perez, Francisco, ‘Nazarín: Galdós’ Enigmatic Apostle’, Revista de Estudios
Hispánicos (Alabama), 17 (1983), 189-98
– Sinnigen, John, ‘The Search for a New Totality in Nazarín, Halma, Misericordia’,
Modern Language Notes, 93 (1978), 233-51
– Weiner, Hadassah R, ‘A Note on Nazarín’, Anales Galdosianos, 13 (1978), 101-3
– Ziolkowski, Theodore, Fictional Transfigurations of Jesus (Princeton, NJ: Princeton
University Press, 1972), 68-78
Jo Labanyi
– Buñuel’s ‘readings’ of Galdó highlight features of his work that do not fit easily with
what is commonly understood by realism.
– Galdós’s direct access to Cervantes allows him to exploit the ironic undermining of
romance that gives birth to realism with a playful awareness that a sense of the real
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is created, not so much by referring to the real world. As through the dialogue with
other literature.
…positivism had never really established itself in S[ain, where even the most freethinking intellectuals – Galdós among them – felt unable to adopt an entirely
materialist position.
The legacy of the past and the impact of new ideas combine to place Spain in a
doubly ambivalent position with regard to bourgeois ideology. The result in the
Spanish realist novel is an intense awareness of the coexistence of contradictory
points of view, whose formal expression is irony.
The Russian writers were hailed in Spain, as in France, for their passionate interest in
things of the sprit. Galdós’s novels from the extraordinary Angel GuerraI (1890-1)
onwards will apply the realist techniques developed in the course of the 1880s to an
analysis of paranormal phenomena and freakish characters that challenge the
empiricist tenets and common sense values on which realism is based.
Nazarín, like Angel Guerra, was strongly influenced by Galdós’s reading of Tolstoy’s
What I Believe (his copy of the French translation Ma religion is heavily annotated),
in which the Russian writer advocated a return to a primitive Christianity which has
much in common with anarchist thought.
In the nineteenth century, Spain – like Russa – was a country where religion had a
strong hold even onthose who, like Galdós, rejected the Church; and where the
workers’ movement was predominantly anarchist.
Galdós’s novel dramatizes the clash between a capitalist work ethic that had
belatedly and imperfectly established itself in Spain in the 1880s, based on the twin
notions of private property and material progress, and illustrated by the reporter in
Part I and the mayor in Part IV; and a doctrine of communal ownership in which
labor is voluntary and material needs are reduced to a minimum, preached by
Nazarín, a latter-day Christ who is perceived by society as a dangerous anarchist.
Nazarín is a register of the contradictions of late nineteenth-century Spain in its
ambiguous relationship to modernity, but it also represents Galdós’s attempt to
mediate those contradictions.
In 1894, the year before Nazarín was published, an anti-anarchist law was passed to
combat the threat of terrorism.
Galdo4s’s novel mentions Pope Leo XIII, who attempted to palliate the threat of
social revolution with his 1891 encyclical Rerum novarum: a charter of workers’
rights and employers’ obligations.
In 1894, just before Nazarín was written, a delegation of Spanish workers had visited
Leo XIII, who urged Spanish bishops to set up Catholic workers’ associations.
Nazarín’s rejection of private property and material progress makes the authorities
regard him as a dangerous anarchist, but his creed is, like that of Leo XIII, an attempt
to defuse social tensions and prevent revolutionary violence…
Unlike Leo XIII, however, Nazarín does not talk of workers’ rights, but preaches a
doctrine of self-sacrifice and passive submission. Poverty and non-resistance to evil
were central to Tolstoy’s creed in What I Believe; but Tolstoy condemned the
masochistic seeking out of suffering that Nazarín embraces and imposes on his
followers.
– Nazarín, like Tolstoy makes a political reading of Christ’s teachings but (as also
happens with Tolstoy) he simultaneously defuses the political implications of that
reading.
– The ‘evil’ Nazarín combats in the novel is not, despite all his talk of injustice, social
but ‘natural’
– One suspects that Nazarín too is ‘naturalizing’, and thus depoliticizing, social ills by
conflating injustice with disease; he too is seeking not political change but spiritual
regeneration.
– The 1898 writers will by and large reject the city (modernity) for a pre-capitalist rural
order which is in effect the cause of Spain’s social ‘ills. Narazín, who also rejects the
city for a return to nature, is equally blind in his failure to see that, by repudiating
material progress, he is perpetuating the lack of sanitation that cuases disease in the
first place. The fact that he finally contracts typhus himself is perhaps Galdós’s wry
comment on his protagonist’s ideological contradictions.
– In an 1885 article called ‘The Social Problem’, Galdós had seen unemployment and
capitalist competition as the main contributing factors to social unrest…
– We should however be wary of assuming that Nazarín’s views are those of his
author. Galdós allows the prostitute Ándara to voice with considerable eloquence
the contrary view that money and food make life easier, and that the victims of
injustice should fight to defend their rights.
– Nazarín’s penultimate ‘vision’ in the novel appears to legitimize Ándara’s
‘revolutionary’ stance by casting her in the role of shining warrior triumphant over
the forces of oppression.
– The problem of interpretation is compounded by the fact that this apocalyptic vision
is the product of a literally ‘diseased’ mind: by this stage in the novel, Nazarín is
delirious with typhus.
– Right from the start of the book, his sanity is called into question: the parallels with
the life of Christ are undercut ironically by a further set of parallels with Don
Quixote.
– The romances of chivalry that Nazarín sets out to enact are the Gospels; like Don
Quixote, he will be brought home and defeated (if defiant).
– In Part V of the novel, Nazarín will ask whether reality is located in the external
world of observable phenomena, or in the head which produces its own ‘visions’.
– Nazarín is an exploration of the ways in which the mind can project reality on to the
material world, transforming it in the process. It is in this sense above all that
spiritual regeneration and madness are connected.
– Nazarín’s ‘miracles’ include his ability to cure the hysteria of his female disciple
Beatriz, caused by a traumatic sexual relationship: with his quixotic ability to project
his ‘vision’ on to the outside world, he is a kind hypnotist.
– He does not cure Beatriz by removing her symptoms, but by channelling her negative
projections of frustrated sexual desire into a positive projection of spiritual longings.
– Hysteria becomes mysticism, both of which consist in the ability to project mind on
to matter in such a way that the latter is affected.
– Nazarín is an intriguing novel because it allows the materliast explanation typical of
nineteenth-century realism (Nazari3n is mad and by the end delirious with typhus;
Beatriz is repressing her sexuality) to coexist with an exploration of the paranormal.
– Both mysticism and hysteria, in their rejection of rational discourse, have been seen
as specifically ‘feminine’ forms of self-expression. In Galdós’s novel, Nazarín and
Beatriz share the same ‘miraculous’ power to project mind on to matter. Throughout
the novel, Nazari3n is described in feminine terms: when the narrator first sees him,
he takes him for a woman; characters refer to him as an ‘angel’….when he falls ill, he
fears his heroic adventures will end ‘in an inglorious womanly swoon’.
– Nazarín causes such outrage, particularly to other male characters, because his
doctrine of passive submission is a refusal to ‘act like a man’.
– Nazarín is shocking because he takes his ‘feminine’ values out of the home and into
the public sphere (perhaps it takes a ‘feminine man’ to do this). His apolotical
doctrine of non-resistance to evil joins hands with his ‘feminine’ insistence on the
superiority of things of the spirit.
– Nazarín is an aberration of nature in his combination of normally separate qualities:
mad and sane, saint and anarchist/criminal, male and female.
– The whole novel betrays a fascination with the problem of representing the
unrepresentable: from the opening description of the impossible perspectives of the
boarding-house (an ‘architectural joke’) to the absurdity of Don Pedro Belmonte
(another sane madman; Nazarín will vainly ask ‘what kind of a man is this?’) and of
Beatriz’s mystical vision (which leaves her unable to ‘explain what it was she saw or
even be sure she was seeing it’).
– We are constantly reminded of the inadequacy of words to represent their object.
The novel starts by pointing to the discrepancy between the impressive street sign
Calle de las Amazonas and the seedy alley designated by it; and warns us that Tía
Chanfaina’s boarding-house is no boarding-house in the normal sense of the word
(neither is Tía Chanfaina her real name).
– The end of the novel gives us Galdós’s version of the philosophical conundrum of the
Cretan who says ‘All Cretans are liars’: a statement which if it is true must also, being
spoken by a Cretan, be false. Here Nazarín, in hospital with typhus, has a vision in
which Christ tells him He is a figment of his imagination: if the latter is a true
statement, then the statement itself is unreliable.
– Part I of Nazari3n adopts a documentary stance by having Galdós as author
interview Nazarín together with a journalist; but the supposed veracity of the
reportage is turned upside down when Galdós and the journalist come up with
conflicting versions.
– To make matters more confusing, Galdós will end Part I by asking who wrote the rest
of the novel, and refusing to tell us. As he nicely puts it ‘I myself would be hard
pressed if I had to decide who had written what I write.’
– In Part II, the documentary claims of journalism are again exploded when Don Pedro
Belmonte finds ‘evidence’I nthe press for his ludicrous version of Nazari3n’s story.
The fictional Nazarín looks real by comparison with the press cuttings; but this very
scene is a reworking of Don Quixote’s visit to the Duke and Duchess’s palace in Part
II of Cervantes’s novel, as well as the result of Nazarín’s literal (‘realist’) reading of
the Gospels.
– In this proliferation of versions, the question of whether words are true is
foregrounded and shown to be unanswerable. As with Don Quixote, there is even
doubt about Nazarín’s ‘real’ name. And the unrepresentable dward Ujo’s name, we
are told, is not a ‘proper’ name at all.
– Throughout the novel, Nazarín is associated with the idea of carnival, incarnated in
the ‘monstruous’ Ujo who, with his outside head and tiny limbs, looks like the giant
papier mâché heads that are an integral part of Spanish carnival festivities.
– This carnivalozsation underscores the subversiveness of Nazarín’s doctrines which,
with their repudiation of property and progress, literally turn the world upside down.
– Nazarín is in many ways the swansong of the nineteenth-century bourgeois order.
The novel is an attempt to defuse the threat of revolutionary violence; but in
preferring carnival to revolution Galdós is also opting for laughter as a weapon.
On the Definition of Jesus in Modern Fiction - Frank P. Bowman
– Why, if this be Jesus, does he wander about Spain rather than his native Palestine?
Why the long interview with Belmonte, which has no counterpart in the Gospels?
Why the prison scenes, and more especially the nightmarish attempt to escape?
What is the meaning of the novel's conclusion, so similar to and yet different from
the drama of Palm Sunday, Passion Week and Easter? Why, in short, does Galdós
insist in identifying his hero in some ways, but not in others, with Jesus? And what
does such «partial identification» mean?
– The call to imitate Christ is a basic command laid on every believer, and the
Christian's efforts at obedience have necessarily found verbal and literary
expression.
– the sweet Jesus, divine child and teacher of love; Jesus, the tormented prophet of
truth whose message is one of despair and who suffers because of it; Jesus, the
revolutionary, friend of the poor and enemy of the rich; and, chronologically the last
of these, Christ as King. The first three are clearly present in Nazarín
– In the case of Galdós's Nazarín, there are seemingly two other major sources. One is
surely Cervantes' Don Quijote. Nazarín's long trek across Spain trying to do good and
taking things for what they ought to be rather than what they are clearly owes much
to the gentleman of La Mancha. The fact that Nazarín is described as Arab, and the
fact that Galdós at the time was reading Sufi mysticism, makes one suspect this hero
also owes something, say, to the ninthcentury Moslem mystic Al-Hallaj. Like Nazarín,
Al-Hallaj preached that by grace man can be purified and transformed so that the
creature participates in the Divine essence. Like Nazarín, with his disciples he
practiced the communal life of poverty. He also decided that he must be willing to
die for the salvation of all, was arrested, escaped from prison, recaught, and taken as
a prisoner afoot from Suse to Bagdad, suffering much during the trip. At Bagdad he
was condemned to death, decapitated and burnt. But if Nazarín owes something to
Al-Hallaj, Al-Hallaj himself owed much to Jesus. In any case, any examination of a
work which makes use of Jesus or of a figure of Jesus must look for that work's nonsynoptic sources.
– Only his humility keeps Nazarín, at the end of the novel, from being willing to be
crucified, and thus he merits a further life of imitation of Christ.
Point of view in Nazarín: an appendix to Goldman - Brian J. Dendle
– Ciriaco Morón Arroyo, for example, after demonstrating the extent to which Nazarín
follows Christ's teaching, and excusing certain infelicities of phrasing on the part of
Galdós, finds in Nazarín a «sensación de farsa», the consequence of Galdós' lack of
personal commitment to a theme which can allow no irony in its treatment
– For Alexander A. Parker, the weakness of the novel is to be sought in its relation
to Don Quixote, involving for the reader «a rather distracting effort to confine the
meaning of quixotry to the unpractical and the unworldly, and to exclude, as Galdós
bids us do, the comedy and irony we associate with that particular 'calling'»
– Michael Nimetz - Nazarín is an aesthetic failure because Don Quixote is its
correlative. The reader, from beginning to end, is so conscious that Cervantes' novel
lurks behind the scenes that he tends to compare Nazarín with Quixote instead of
with Christ. Thus Nazarín becomes an object of comic irony, not of veneration.
Because the structural correlative (Don Quixote) and the thematic correlative (Christ)
are at odds with one another, the use of literary metaphor is self-defeating. Had
Galdós confined himself to religious metaphor here -Nazarín as a modern Christ- he
would have accomplished what he set out to do: ennobled the hero, reinforced his
status as a character, and made him larger than life
– The ambiguity with which Nazarín is initially presented invites the reader to judge for
himself; it also, as Goldman indicates, enables the author to approach his creation
with great wariness.
– Galdós eschews a bare relation of facts (which would preclude the reader's
involvement) in favor of a perspective which allows familiarity with Nazarín's
thoughts yet at the same time avoids the authorial moral sympathy or disapproval
which such closeness often entails. Instead, Galdós, by adopting an attitude which is
equally removed from the credulity of the hagiographer and the corrosive irony of
the sceptic, obviates all possibility of the narrator's being taken as judge of the
character and actions described. The chronicler's perspective is, in fact, one that is
strikingly and deliberately inappropriate to the theme of saintliness, namely, one of
affectionate condescension.
– The existence in the novel of a tension between the chronicler's point of view and
the «saintliness» described is, I believe, central to Goldman's argument; the
following summary of certain of the devices employed by Galdós in Parts II to V to
create this tension, a tension which necessarily engages the reader in judgment
– References to Nazarín are with great frequency accompanied by a single qualifying
adjective, chosen from a narrow range, e.g., el buen Nazarín, el bendito Nazarín, el
beato Nazarín, el angélico Nazarín, el pobre cura, etc186. Such adjectives, if employed
sparingly, would denote affection or respect… the existence in Nazarín of
yetunproven moral qualities, precludes an unthinking acceptance of his tongue-incheek judgment by any but the most callow of readers; the nature of the adjectives
selected, and their repetition, imply an attitude which patronizes rather than reveals
esteem for the priest.
– At times, the reference reduces Nazarín to a transitory or barely-essayed role, e.
g., el fugitivo, el penitente, el novato, el novel asceta; at other times, the noun or
adjective employed manifestly places Nazarín in a bizarre light, e. g., el ermitaño
andante, el heroico Nazarín, el general, el maestro, el árabe, el venerable peregrino.
– At times, the language employed will seem inappropriate, if Nazarín's pretensions to
holiness are to be accepted at face value, thus: (Banalization of spiritual
experience)[...] hallábase el buen Nazarín en su modesta casa profundamente
embebecido en meditaciones deliciosas... (p. 1691) Adiós claridad, adiós luna, y
adiós meditación dulcísima del padre Nazarín. (p. 1691) (Condescending treatment
of religious activity) [...] el buen don Nazario, saliendo todas las mañanas a decir su
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misita... (p. 1698) (Tone of excessive familiarity) [...] pues a Nazarín no se le cocía el
pan hasta no meterse en el foco de la peste. (p. 1731) (Parody of the cliché of the
popular novel) [...] una inquietud nerviosa que habría desconcertado a hombres de
peor temple que el gran Nazarín. (p. 1723) (Parody of edifying literature) Y de
Nazarín, ¿qué puede decirse sino que en aquellos seis días fue un héroe cristiano y
que su resistencia física igualó por arte milagroso a sus increíbles bríos espirituales?
(p. 1736) (Grotesque metaphor) Ave mística, recorría los espacios de lo ideal, sin
olvidar la realidad ni el cuidado de sus polluelos. (p. 1743)
The narrator maintains sufficient detachment from Nazarín's one-sided vision of the
world to be able to indulge in occasional touches of humor, thus: (Bathos) [...] les
cedió todo su capital, o sea la perra chica que le habían dado los arrieros. (p. 1712)
(A pawkily jocose atribution of human relationships to a dog) Bien porque el animal
tuviese también parentela honrada en Polvoranca, bien porque no gustase salir de
su terreno, que era la zona de Madrid en un corto radio, ello es que al caer de la
tarde se despidió como un criado descontento, tomando soleta para la villa y corte,
en busca de mejor acomodo. (p. 1718) (Ponderous irony) Habría ella querido llegar al
caso absurdo de no comer absolutamente nada; pero como esto era imposible, se
resignaba a transigir con la vil materia. (p. 1733)
At times, the overly-compressed representation of Nazarín's thoughts will give a
resultant impression of imbecility, rather than idealism, thus: «¡Cuán hermosa la
Naturaleza, cuán fea la Humanidad!... Vivir en la Naturaleza, lejos de las ciudades
opulentas y corrompidas, ¡qué encanto!» (p. 1705).
Cervantes' influence can be seen in Nazarín's careful, although ludicrous, practical
preparations for his flight from Madrid, in his attempts at self-justification from
imaginary accusers, and in the Belmonte episode, in which two madmen seek to
solve, with flashes of commonsense, the problems of humanity.
From the moment of Nazarín's first appearance, when we see Nazarín, whose
ambition is to possess nothing, vigorously complaining of a robbery, the reader is
conscious of the paradoxical nature of Nazarín's attitudes and adventures. Thus, the
fugitive from the judgment of his hierarchical superiors sees in the papacy the future
salvation of mankind; the advocate of neighborly love at first scorns the attempts of
his new-found disciples to follow him and later has no time for the conversation of
an aged beggar; the seeker after martyrdom is kindly received; the man who
disdains literature follows in the steps of Don Quixote and speaks in bookish tones.
ur first glimpse of Nazarín should, indeed, serve as warning of the ambiguous nature
of Nazarín's mission, for the first words of the self-professed apostle of renunciation
are a vociferous complaint that he is the victim of theft; he then proceeds, as he
must have done many times before, to cajole -with more than a hint of religious
blackmail the truly charitable Estefanía into feeding him
His supposed Christian concern for others takes bizarre forms: his protection
of Andara will not, as she knows all too well, prevent his revealing her hidingplace if
questioned; after the fire, he has neither concern for nor memory of the unfortunate
inhabitants of the destroyed lodging-house
At times, his attitude toward others is contemptuous: he dismisses Andara's friends
as «todo ese personal inmundo» (p. 1695); he turns his back on humanity in his flight
to Nature; he harshly discourages Andara and Beatriz from following him and accepting their presence only when they promise total obedience- does not cease to
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denounce their wickedness and ignorance; his sermons, as Goldman has remarked,
are conventional and literary, with little to offer in the way of comfort to troubled
souls.
The most notable trait in Nazarín, however, is egotism. The word «yo» is never far
from his lips; indeed, Estefanía, in the opening dialogue with the priest, remarks on
his use of the first person (p. 1683).
The overweening pride of Nazarín's pretensions is, as Goldman recognizes,
staggering: he would willingly reduce the world's learning to fertilizer; he aspires,
with the arrogance of the simple-minded, to the total salvation of mankind: «No me
contento con salvarme yo solo; quiero que todos se salven y que desaparezcan del
mundo el odio, la tiranía, el hambre, la injusticia; que no haya amos ni siervos, que
se acaben las disputas, las guerras, la política»
His behavior when confronted with a sick child reveals a self-centeredness of
remarkable proportions; his first -and almost-angry- response to the tearful pleas of
the grieving women is the heartless demand that they bear their tribulation with
resignation; only after lengthy entreaties does he utter a prayer which, as on other
occasions, is wildly extravagant and reserves for himself, in suffering, the central
role: «que a cambio del favor que de Él impetramos, me dé a mí todas las
calamidades, todos los reveses, todos los achaques y dolores que pueden afligir a la
Humanidad sobre la Tierra..., que descargue sobre mí la miseria en su más horrible
forma, la ceguera tristísima, la asquerosa lepra..., todo, todo sea para mí, a cambio
de que devuelva la vida a este tierno y cándido ser, y os conceda a vosotras el
premio de vuestros afanes» (pp. 1714-1715). Even the final delirious prayer of the
now fever-stricken Nazarín bears within itself an implication of pride, for his plea for
an obscure death rather than crucifixion becomes, paradoxically, the assertion of a
greater humility than that of Christ Himself.
ain and foolish Nazarín certainly is at the beginning of the novel -and some degree of
self-centeredness will remain with him to the end; however, when faced with a
suffering imposed from without, Nazarín is no longer a figure of fun but must be
taken seriously; he is no longer the fugitive from society but with dignity comforts
the followers he formerly rejected; it is also with dignity that he defends his views in
debate with the «enlightened» mayor.
f we measure Nazarín by his effect on others -and tía Chanfaina at the beginning of
the novel raises the question «¿Para qué sirve un santo?»- our conclusions will not
be totally unfavorable. Certainly, a misguided follower burns down a lodging-house;
however, Nazarín's services during the epidemic were no doubt useful; his
exposition of Christian teaching and his example, whatever their motivation, do
lead Andara, Beatriz, and El Sacrílego to a better life, and provoke the admiration of
his guards.
Galdós seemingly begs us to interpret Nazarín; the results of our enquiry, however,
will be as baffling and inconclusive as those of the novelist-interviewer who first
sought to elucidate this «aun no bien comprendido personaje».
Nazarín, indeed, smacks too much of his abstract origins to permit the reader any
easy judgment; he is for most of the novel seen from a distance; he is presented
without a past and with few links to society (he is even, symbolically, partially
divorced from the world of the lodging-house, communicating only through a
window and entering his room by an independent stairway); the reader glimpses
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him mainly through the deliberately discordant perspective of the unknown
chronicler; his thoughts, when given, are frequently too distorted and oversimplified to merit serious consideration. So sketchy, indeed, does the narration of
the adventures of Nazarín often appear -and the reactions of the society which
Nazarín flees and later confronts are represented in even more shadowy a mannerthat the temptation to dismiss the tale as a mere anecdotal curiosity, existing
outside of history, would arise, were it not for the powerful hold which the subject
itself (an apparent imitation of Christ) has on the reader.
Is Galdós, in portraying in terms of an at least partial eccentricity and selfcenteredness a priest whose career for a while offers parallels with that of his Divine
Master, not intimating the possibility of a similar motivation (and societal reaction)
for the ministry of Christ Himself?
What, wonders the reader of the closing scenes of Nazarín, when the priest merits
our respect and sympathy in the intensity of the suffering imposed on him, and
when the narrator scrupulously removes himself from all comment, what if Nazarín
were to die at the hands of his tormentors? Would he, despite his imperfections, be,
like the historical Christ, the posthumous founder of a new religion? Is not Galdós'
question, indeed, not whether Nazarín is a worthy imitator of Christ but,
blasphemously, whether Christ Himself was like Nazarín?
Similarly, moral judgments tend equally to become blurred within the novel. The
chronicler's affection not only embraces «el buen don Nazario» but also extends to
«el buen don Pedro» (p. 1729), the ill-tempered Belmonte, and to «el buen alcalde»
(p. 1749), the scoffing, materialistic mayor. Nazarín, disconcerted, learns the
difficulty of making moral judgments («Pero este hombre, ¿es malo o es bueno?» [p.
1728] he asks of Belmonte); he later acknowledges our inability to foresee with any
certainty the consequences of our actions: «cuando pensamos ir hacia lo malo, nos
sorprende el encuentro de lo bueno, y al revés» (p. 1762).
A further instance of Galdós' shrinking from too great a weighting toward or against
Nazarín of our sympathies or aversion lies in his refusal to allow Nazarín's mission to
take on the tragic and far-reaching consequences of Christ's ministry and passion.
Suffering -even financial- is never carried to extremes. No personal injury attends the
burning of the lodging-house; its owner will happily profit from the compensation
provided by an anonymous insurance company. Nazarín founds no Church (his
activities, indeed, in Halma seem of little consequence, save as an excuse to bolster
journalistic circulation); because no Church is established, the wars of fanatics
consequent upon the institutionalizing of religion remain a figment of Nazarín's
feverish delirium. Nazarín faces no crucifixion, but merely, as the mayor mockingly
suggests, incarceration in an asylum for lunatics, that is, «Pasión y muerte, con
chocolate de Astorga» (p. 1751).
Our individual interpretation need not, of course, exclude differing or even contrary
viewpoints; thus, for Beatriz the sound of bells is sad and for Ándara it is happy; for
Nazarín, however -and in this instance his lack of dogmatism approaches the allencompassing attitude of Galdós- the sound is both triste y alegre (p. 1732).
It is we, the reader, who must finally define saintliness or madness; it is we, the
reader, who must come to terms with Nazarín and with Christ Himself; Galdós,
ironically, refuses any resolution of the problems he has so skilfully posed.
Tres Personajes Galdosianos – Ruiz Ramón
– Que en la estructura de la obra y del personaje pesó demasiado la presencia de Don
Quijote y del Cristo evangélico
– Por eso al inventar la figura de Nazarín, Galdós se propone fundamentalmente
mostrar que la sociedad contemporánea rechaza cualquier forma de la santidad.
Este es, a nuestro parecer, el sentido de la novela
– Todos los ‘santos’ de Galdós son santos prácticos. Necesitan realizar
inmediatamente sus ideales religiosos, poner en acción el cristianismo esencial que
profesan. Su religiosidad es operativa, no contempletiva.
– Según este ilustre crítico, para Galdós ‘el misticismo, como cualquier otra forma de
idealismo exagerado, sólo se justifica cuando se pone al servicio de la vida’.
– “No basta predicar la doctrina de Cristo, sino darle existencia en la práctica e imitar
su vida en lo que es posible a lo humano imitar lo divino” Nazarín
– “De la resignación absoluta ante el mal no puede menos de salir el bien, como de la
mansedumbre sale al cabo la fuerza, como del amor de la pobreza tiene que salir el
consuelo de todos y la igualdad ante los bienes de la Naturaleza”
– Toda interpretación eficaz de la doctrina de Cristo consiste y se resume en imitar a
Cristo.
– Ambos caballeros, cada uno a su modo, pretenden lo mismo: resucitar un estilo de
vida pasado. Ni el héroe del Amor puro y esforzado existía ya en España cuando Don
Quijote monta en Rocinante, ni existía tampoco el santo andariego, imitador literal
del Cristo, cuando Nazarín, pobremente trajeado, cruza la puerta de Toledo…la
contemporaneidad de ambas criaturas.
– …levantar proceso a la sociedad de su tiempo, mostrar que el cristianismo
evangélico, literalmente entendido, no encontraba plaza en el corazón de la
sociedad actual
– …lo que en nuestro tiempo le pasaría a un Cristo encarnado de nuevo en la figura de
un humilde e ingenuo sacerdote.
– Para relatar esta mínima historia utiliza Galdo4s a un bien humorado alcalde de
pueblo, hombre que se cree “ilustrado” y capaz de portavoz a la sociedad progresiva
del siglo decimonono: el siglo que ha dicho “no quiero conventos ni seminarios, sino
tratados de comercio…”
– “Verdad que ahora le meteremos en la cárcel…Pero no le crucificarán: de eso está
libre”
– “Pero no apurarse, que con meterle en una casa de locos, cumple la Justicia, y ni
azotes le darán que eso ya no estila. Sacrificios higiénicos, es decir, sin azotes…
Pasión y muerte, con chocolate de Astorga. ¡Ja, ja!”
– Para la sociedad moderna de Galdós, “cuyo único afán es divertirse”, un Cristo
redivio no sería más que un loco inofensivo, nada trágico ni, mucho menos,
peligroso. Un estupendo motivo más de divertimiento. “Pasión y muerte, con
chocolate de Astorga”. ¡He aquí la fórmula de una sociedad!
Dendle – The Spanish Novel of Religious Thesis
– While Alarcón saw the Church as providing a haven from the agitation of the world,
Pérez Galdós considered the Church to be a disturbing factor both for the individual
and for the nation. Unlike the wise and charitable priests of Alarcón, Galdós clergy
are often violent, reactionary and immoral.
– Most of the charges levelled by nineteenth-century reformers against the Spanish
Church find expression in the novels of Galdós: a reactionary and fanatical Church is
harmful to the progress of Spain (Doña Perfecta); the Church is controlled by
foreigners (La familia de León Roch, Angel Guerra)
– By way of contrast to the simulacrum of religion of Spanish Catholics, Galdós
proposes a Christianity which rejects sacraments and which emphasises conscience
– Galdós’s views represent the application to religion of a liberal ideology which
stressed individual rather than social effort. In his novels, charity is practised on an
individual plane; organisations, whether of Church or State, are evil; solutions to
social problems are to be found in a change of the individual heart, not in political
remedies…
– Galdós opposes the Chuch in the name of the individual; he is not fully confident
that the individual can successfully assert himself against Churc, State, and the dead
weight of tradition
– The religious reformer Nazarín claims that the modern world longs for a return to
the life of the Spirit, for science has failed to solve the transcendental problems of
our origin and destiny.
– …Nazarín advocates total non-resistance to evil. The social problem will be solved by
the renunciation of all wealth.
El simbolismo religioso en las novelas de Pérez Galdós
– En la evolución de la novela galdosiana, la figura de Nazarín representa la
reafirmación del ente religioso como manera de ser del hombre en este mundo.
– A la luz de esta perspectiva picaresca, el personaje Nazarín entra a formar parte del
inframundo de la criminalidad y la vagancia
– Existe, además, la vertiente paródica de lo biográfico externo que vuelve del revés
los ideales santifiacntes del peregrino
– El reporter de periódico que lo interroga cree que Nazarín es un ‘vicioso del
parasistismo’, y la Tía Chanfaina opina que la santidad no sirve en el siglo del
progreso científico sino para divertir a los ciquillos de las calles.
– El amante de Beatriz se burla de su misión de apóstol, creyéndolo embaucador y
seductor de mujeres: ‘Ya sé, ya sé, grandísima puerca, que te escapaste de Móstoles,
con ése que diz que es apóstol, y que echa los mesmos demonios con la santiguación
del misal, y viceversa los vuelve a meter’
– A su vez, el enano Ujo, enamorado de Andara, lleva la voz del pueblo en la parodia
de los peregrinos, considerados como rateros y criminales: ‘y diz que tú y ella , y
quillotro, ése que paice un público moro, vos ajuntáis para la ratería’
– Mas el sentido aniquilador de la parodia se ajerce principalmente contra los ideales
mismos de la imitación Jesucristo…
– …surge entonces la noción de su locura que sitúa al personaje en la zona equívoca de
lo serio y lo humorístico. Ya en la entrevista inicial el repórter de periódico ‘debió de
formar opinión muy desfavorable del estado mental del clérigo”. El alcalde, que lo
pone preso, también lo considera loco más que santo….
– La perspectiva externa sitúa al personaje Nazarín, por consiguiente, en el ángulo
equívoco de la criminalidad, la vagancia y la locura.
– Frente a la ineludible presencia de su ejemplaridad, sus ideales de vida se refractan
con frecuencia en el prisma disolvente de la burla y la parodia
– La comunidad social, con sus instituciones seculares, adopta estas diversas posturas
frente a la auténtica criatura religiosa, cuya misma pasividad lleva implícito el peligro
reformador de doctrinas disolventes.
– Lo que podemos denominar la biografia interna del personaje reconstruye su vida
espiritual y lo rescata de su posición equivoca frente a la sociedad, situándolo en la
categoría de lo heroico
– Dentro de esta perspectiva, la criminalidad y la vagancia se tornan en voluntad
ascética y práctica de la caridad cristiana, y la locura, en dechado de virtud y
santidad
– Pero el caballero andante es, en Nazarín, el ermitaño andante y lo que en el primero
es busca afanosa de la gloria, en el segundo es negación de toda fama
– Es decir, lo que es aventura en Don Quijote es desventura en Nazarín, y es buscada
como tal
– Desilusionado por la serie de bienandanzas que hasta ese momento ha encontrado
proclama a la malandanza como objetivo único de su peregrinacio4n “O el mundo
deja de ser lo que es, o hemos de encontrar pronto males gravísimos,
contratiempos, calamidades, abstinencias y crueldades de hombres, secuaces de
Satanás”
– El ideal de felicidad está en imaginar un estado cada vez peor “Ambición es está que
nunca se sacia, pues cuanto más se tiene más se quiere tener, o hablando
propiamente, cuanto menos, menos”
– El nombre Nazarín ya señala una relación simbólica con el lugar de nacimiento de
Jesús de Nazareth. Su fisonomía se destaca desde las primeras páginas como un tipo
semítico perfecto, un castizo árabe de “nariz aguileña, ojos negros, trigueño color”,
que hace también relación con la figura de Jesús.
– El señor de Belmonte, a cuya mansión ha ido a pedir limosna, caracteriza su
vestidura como “verdadera túnica de discípulo de Jesús”
– Aunque su intención es estar sumido en completa oscuridad y abandono de los
hombres, Nazarín se constituye en Maestro seguido de discípulos que oyen una
doctrina y practican un estilo de vida.
– El problema de Nazarín es, pues, el de conservar y desarrollar su auténtico ser
espiritual frente a las poderosas fuerzas que amenazan su aniquilamiento y
destrucción.
– Nazarín es, así el prototipo del ente religioso, en medio de una sociedad laica, cuyas
características podemos examinar en forma detallada, según se presentan en la
novela Nazarín
– Nazarín domina al colérico don Pedro y desarma al peligroso Pinto, lo mismo que
hace avergonzarse al socarrón alcalde.
– Las dos mujeres subliman su inclinación a Nazarín, situándolo en un plano
exclusivamente religioso. El mistico fuego que brota del alma de Beatriz es sólo
posible “con las chispas que el otro [Nazarín] lanzaba del rescoldo de su santidad”
– En una etapa sucesiva, los seguidores se converten en adoctrinadores que extienden
la buena nueva a otras gentes. Tal es el caso de Andara y Beatriz, las cuales, en la
marcha hacia Madrid, contribuyen a la conversión y adoctrinamiento del ladrón
sacrílego
"Nazarín" and Galdós's Modern Point of View - Stacey L. Dolgin
– IN NAZARiN (1895), THE FIRST of his three novels of spiritual realism, Gald6s
discloses the chivalric adventures of a Manchegan knight errant whose spiritualhumanistic ideals clash dramatically with the prevailing social mores of turn-of-thecentury Castille.
– Although some characters of the novel would describe Nazarin's intentions as noble,
nearly all are disturbed in one way or another by his presence as an active emulator
of Christ's teachings
– ne way or another by his presence as an active emulator of Christ's teachings. As in
the case of the anachronistic Don Quijote three centuries before, every reader of
Nazan'n is compelled to make his/her own assessment of the degree to which the
character is sane or mad.
– 2 Like the writers of our century, both Cervantes and Gald6s use multiple points of
view to free their heroes from the unilateral dictates of an omniscient author. By
means of this narrative strategy, the fictional characters are integrated into the
eternally ambiguous and contradictory life process.
– The fact that Nazarin's appearance coincides with an epoch torn between
materialism and spiritualism, positivism and speculation, science and religion, reason
and emotion justifies the wide range of reactions from the secondary characters,
most of whom are consternated by his anachronistic presence.
– Readers of novels such as the Quyiote and Nazarzn are compelled to discern reality
and truth for themselves. Neither author makes this task easy as their intention is to
present a fictional world whose reality is as inconclusive as life itself.
– r intention is to present a fictional world whose reality is as inconclusive as life itself.
For example, both Cervantes and Gald6s disclaim original authorship of the story
that their novels unfold. Both novelists purposefully assume the role of recipient of a
manuscript that contains the story of the adventures of their respec- tive knight.
Hence the reader is confronted with an infinite system of communication that
renders each novel an all-encompassing repro- duction of an uncertain reality in that
each is dealt with from numerous incongruous vantage points.
– Hamete Benengeli, and the original account of Nazarin's Christian adventures is to
be found in a chronicle of unknown authorship, then the Quyote and Nazarin, as
novels, are but artistic renditions of historical documents that have passed through
several hands and have been dramatized before reaching the two novelists.
– The unnamed "I" of each novel is a device used by the authors not only to give
verisimilitude to the stories they are telling, but also to offer a possible, although
artificial, explanation as to how the adven- tures of Don Quijote and Nazarin became
known in the first place. In essence, then, both the Qut4ote and Nazar'n reflect the
mechanical process of transmitting and communicating a story.
– Gustavo Correa tive: "Sin duda, Don Quijote se impuso a Cervantes con la fuerza de
una personalidad interna coherente y con una independencia que queda destacada
por su multiplicidad de perspectivas. De la misma manera, los heroes de Gald6s
destacan su individualidad y autonomia en un juego similar de perspectivas y de
acci6n interna coherente" (84
– 9). It seems that the greatest lesson that Gald6s appropriated to his own fiction as a
result of his admiration for the Quijote was that fiction and life could be merged
successfully, forming a cohesive and accurate microcosmic representation of the
ever-changing realities of the universe (Warshaw 127-30; Herman 177-81)
– , Don Quijote and Nazarin, as self-created characters whose lives are determined by
the dictates of their active will, are incarnations of the artistic process of integrating
life and literature
– books. Just as Don Quijote is a human embodiment of the lost world of knight
errantry as exemplified in Amadis de Gaula and Orlando, elfurioso, Nazarin is a
human revival of the religious teach- ings of Christ as he is portrayed in the Gospels
– that ultimately leads to their living life as imitators of literary ideals. The trajectory
along which each knight passes may be traced in the following manner: 1) the avid
reading of books (novels of chivalry for Don Quijote and the New Testament for
Nazarin), followed by 2) the contemplation of the ideals set forth in these books,
resulting in 3) the self-birth of Don Quijote and Nazarin as practitioners of the ideals
that they have absorbed.
– This technique affords the nameless narrator the mobility to play a dual role in the
narration of Part I: that of both narrator and character. At times, he is an active
participant within the action he is narrating while, at others, the author situates the
narrator at the periphery of the story where he is allowed to form opinions about
events in which he has participated. The reader must adjust his reliance upon the
narrator in accordance with the continual shift in the amount of narrative distance
between narrator and narration.
– While it may seem irrelevant or gratuitous at the time, as the reader enters into the
internal sub-novel (Parts II-V) of Nazarin, he learns that this metanovel of declared
unknown authorship is a personal dramatization of a series of chronicles that has
fallen into the hands of the first-person narrator by an unexplained act of fate
– … the narrator's negation of historical veracity in Part I begins to acquire significant
meaning. If chronicles at worst lie and at best exaggerate or distort the truth as the
narrator has suggested, then the reader well wonders what he is to make of "las
crónicas 'nazaristas'" (305) that Parts II-V of the novel help dramatize
– The reader's task is increasingly more complicated as a growing number of
perspectives enter into play. No two estimations of the protagonist are the same.
Whereas the reporter regards him as "un fanditico, un vicioso del parasitismo" (42),
the narrator perceives "una personalidad vigorosa" (42), and Chanfaina affirms his
saintli- ness: "Es un santo, cr6anme caballeros, es un santo" (44).
– “Pues me han robado” (19) - The cause-and-effect paradigm immediately tells us
that we are con- fronted with a human being to whom money is of value. However,
just as Chapter I of the Quijote eludes the lost world of knight errantry alluded to in
the prologue, the conversation that transpires among Nazarin, the narrator, and the
reporter reveals the opposite, for Nazarin had nothing of value to have been stolen
in the first place.
– Poverty is…his highest aspiration
– Parts II-V of the novel in fact represent an effort to merge into one exclusive point of
view all of the subjective viewpoints offered in Part I
– The first-person narrator cannot claim exclusive authorship of Parts II-V since
numerous opinions regarding Nazarin have indeed influenced his own. He no longer
is capable of distinguishing his own point of view from everyone else's, nor is he able
to maintain an objective stance toward this highly controversial character: "%Conclui
por construir un Nazarin de nueva planta con materiales extraidos de mis propias
ideas, o llegue a posesionarme intelectualmente del verdadero y real personaje? No
puedo contestar de un modo cate- g6rico" (48). Since all of the perspectives
presented throughout Part I have fused inseparably with his own, the narrator feels
compelled to pose to himself the following question: "Lo que a rengl6n seguido se
cuenta, jes veridica historia o una invenci6n de 6sas que por la doble virtud del arte
expeditivo de quien las escribe, y la credulidad de quien las lee, resultan como una
ilusi6n de la realidad?" (48). Given that the narrator is dramatizing a historical
chronicle (he repeatedly refers to "las cr6nicas nazaristas" and "referencias
nazarinistas") in what is to follow, he is bringing into question the degree to which
his version of events, complemented by each reader's appraisal of it, will alter the
"reality" of Nazarin's adventures
– ncur with Parker. If one does not accept the premise that the "author" of Parts II-V is
dramatizing a historical manuscript that destiny has allowed to fall into his hands,
then it seems impossible to explain why he would be unable to identify the location
of several episodes in the story of Nazarin's spiritual mission for the reason that his
unnamed references do not specify them either.3 If the so-called author of Parts II-V
were, as Parker contends, observing the events as they developed, then there would
be no question as to where all of Nazarin's adventures took place
– It is no wonder that the narrator is bemused as a result of interviewing Nazarin
– discordant sentiments of the remaining characters of the novel, in addition to having
read the anonymous chronicles relating Nazarin's adventures. Since the latter is to
form the historical nucleus of his own story, the nouns and adjectives used to
describe Nazarin in Parts II-V-"el clerigo," "el buen Nazarin," "el beato Nazarin," "el
pa- drito," "el curita," "el pobre cura," "don Nazario," "el buen eclesia's- tico," "el
cleriguito," "el desdichado sacerdote," and "el bendito Na- zarin"- demonstrate the
wide range of attitudes toward his character and offer further evidence that the
"author" of the dramatized chroni- cle comprising Parts II-V is not writing from his
own exclusive point of view, but rather from the compendium of all sources at his
disposal
– Viewed in this way, Gald6s's reliance upon the Cervan- tine technique of multiple
perspectivism would seem to disclose the author's belief that, had Christ returned to
late nineteenth-century Spain, he would have been a victim of the post-Renaissance,
post- Reformation fragmentation of belief. In other words, he would have been
judged from as many angles as is Nazarin. In the final analysis, the presentation of a
nineteenth-century Christ figure from a single, stable, omniscient point of view
would have oversimplified the so- cioreligious moment, of which Gald6s intended
Nazarin to be an embodiment.
Galdós and the aesthetic of ambiguity: Notes on the thematic structure ofNazarín - Peter
B. Goldman
– First, because in the novel no single character speaks for the author. Nazarín is
voicing preoccupations similar to those of Galdós, but we must not therefore
equate Nazarín with Galdós, or even assume that Nazarín will, for more than this
moment, be Galdós' voice.
– he reader must discriminate between what is said and what is done in the novel,
between Nazarín's proclamations and his subsequent behavior.
– [...] habría podido creerse que eran máscaras, y el colorete una forma extravagante
de disfraz carnavalesco... pero no tardé en conocer... que vivían siempre en
Carnestolendas. (1682, a) The narrator has, for a moment, been unable to
distinguish the reality of these grotesquely made-up women from his own preconceived ideas, i.e., his illusion, about them163, and at that instant reality and
illusion therefore become one.
– Finally, the attention to space is concentrated on the person of Nazarín himself, and
we are told that —103→ [...] vimos que se abría una ventana estrecha que al
corredor daba, y en el marco de ella apareció una figura, que al pronto me pareció
una mujer. Era un hombre. (idem) The reporter is completely deceived by physical
appearances. Reality and illusion do not merge here, as in the preceeding incident:
illusion actually replaces reality. Furthermore, it is an illusion generated not by the
preconceived ideas of the beholder, the reporter who sees Nazarín, but by Nazarín's
own appearance.
– The ambiguous physical reality of Nazarín is now related to an equally ambiguous
spiritual reality.
– The interview deals with Nazarín's character, his views on society, his motivations
for behaving as he does, etc. The impressions of our reporter go first from humorous
scepticism to non-commitment and finally to agitated doubt concerning Nazarín's
integrity. At first, «le tenía más bien por un humorista de los que cultivan la
originalidad (1687, a)». Then, «Tan pronto el buen Nazarín me parecía un budista,
tan pronto un imitador de Diógenes (idem)».
– Finally, time is focused on the story of Nazarín which is to follow. Is it a true story, or
[...] una invención de esas que por la doble virtud del arte expeditivo de quien las
escribe, y la credulidad de quien las lee, resultan como una ilusión de la realidad?
– They note that this leads to what Ruiz Ramón calls the «independización del
personaje (194)». In cervantine fashion, the creation has begun to develop itself.
– The entire beginning of Nazarín in fact announces Galdós' intentions. Galdós
does not want the reader to identify with the protagonist any more than he,
Galdós, does. By not identifying and yet not being alienated, the reader may
remain aloof, to use Nimetz' term, and therefore analize Nazarín and his
adventures in Parts II-V.
– The ambiguous quality of his novelistic birth at once separates us from Nazarín
and makes us wary; it warns us against taking anything at its face value, or
making precipitous judgements. The contradictory nature of the hero will
resonate throughout the novel as a cautionary device, as a constant reminder
that things and people are not what they seem to be.
– Opening his novel in this way, Galdós thereby challenges his audience to read the
apocryphal inner novel in Nazarín, to move among its strands of «fact» complexly
woven with illusion.
– In terms of the Carnival metaphor, Galdós is daring us to discriminate true faces
from among the masks, and also to distinguish those masks which hide faces
from those masks which have become the faces of their wearer.
– At the outset of the novel, Galdós, in the guise of a narrator-reporter, does not
present the reader with any personal opinion regarding the veracity of the chronicle
which is about to be related. But in the last three sentences of the novelistic birth,
i.e., Part I, we are informed that the chronicle which is to follow was indeed written
with a specific intent by its unknown author: No respondo del procedimiento; sí
respondo de la exactitud de los hechos. El narrador se oculta. La narración, nutrida
de sentimiento de las cosas y de historia verídica, se manifiesta en sí misma, clara,
precisa, sincera. (1691, b)
– We must examine Nazarín from the point of view of the implementation of his
ideals and determine whether his actions are in harmony with them.
– Let us now analyze what some readers may well consider Nazarín's most
spectacular achievement: the «taming» of the leonine Don Pedro de Belmonte.
– This is the first time that Nazarín goes in search of a sinner. Yet contrary to
appearances, he is not intent on saving the soul of Belmonte but rather seeks to
encounter «algún padecimiento grande, o cuando menos, castigos, desprecios y
contrariedades, ambición única de su alma (1721, a)».167 To the women
accompanying him, this seems excessive, gratuitously dangerous. The women draw
the fine distinction between facing up to trouble which comes one's way, and the
active search for self-mortification. But Nazarín only continues to view the
encounter as a confrontation with a dragón, as he puts it (1721, a; 1724, a).
– During the meal the two men discuss the problems of contemporary society, and
Nazarín again repeats his analysis of its ills (1725, b)168. As he speaks, he begins to
regain his composure. The meal comes to an end, and Belmonte now informs
Nazarín of the reasons why he had treated him so well. Nazarín, Belmonte explains,
is wearing a «cristiano disfraz (1727, b)». Nazarín is not a poor beggar but the bishop
of Armenia, patriarch of the Armenian Church, who after surrendering his authority
to that of the Pope, gave up power and wealth; thereupon, continues Belmonte, this
same bishop, disguised as a beggar, began a «santa peregrinación (1727, b - 1728,
b)». He has been wandering for two years (1727, b), and the women accompanying
him are also «santas»: «La una es dama principal, canonesa de la Turinga; la otra,
una sudanita descalza... (1730, a)». Nazarín's protestations to the contrary only
make Belmonte more certain; in utter dismay, Nazarín finally leaves la Coreja (1730,
a). Once again, we are confronted by a spectrum of disorienting elements. There is,
first, a fusion of reality with illusion; there is, secondly, a purported disguise, i.e., the
beggar's outfit worn by Nazarín; and there are realities so misunderstood that they
are considered to be disguises: the clothing Ándara and Beatriz wear is so pitiful
because they could not afford to buy anything better (Nazarín, it must be
remembered, chose his clothes [1706, b - 1707, b; v also n. 14 above]). The reader
also encounters mistaken identities and people who are not what they appear to
be169. The irony of the situation is heightened by the fact that if Belmonte knew
who Nazarín really was, he would probably have made short shrift of our ermitaño
andante. The taming of the lion has been a sham. It was —107→ his own good luck,
not his faith which saved Nazarín from Belmonte's wrath. Also, Galdós takes pains to
point out, Belmonte is possessed of a startlingly quixotic vein of madness, for after
leaving la Coreja, Nazarín and the reader meet señá Polonia who provides the
following data (1730, b): Cuentan que [Belmonte] se pasó mucho tiempo en tierras
de moros y judíos, y que al volver acá se metió en tales estudios de cosas de religión
y de tiología, que se le trabucaron los sesos... Cuentan que cuando le hablan de las
cosas de religión católica, o pagana, o de las idolatrías... es cuando pierde el sentido,
por ser esta leyenda y el revolver papeles de Escritura Sagrada lo que le trastornó.
We are immediately reminded of Don Quijote and his reactions to the mention of
the topic of chivalry
– We must also keep in mind that Belmonte will still treat other people brutally, for
he admits to Nazarín that one of his pleasures is «el pelearse con la
servidumbre... (1729, b)».
– More serious, however, is the possibility that Nazarín may also have perverted
the Gospel. Despite his professed aim of saving not only himself but others 170, the
unavoidable fact is that Nazarín sought out Belmonte in order to test his own
strength of character; he courted suffering in order to prove his humility. He had
no true interest in saving the soul of Belmonte. His sermons, designed to alienate
it appears, are unheeded and ineffective because they are unimaginative,
formula-ridden monologues, vacuous examples typical of Galdós' Spain. Even
Nazarín's humility is forced, self-conscious, and in fact a source of pride.That
Nazarín registers dismay and confusion when Belmonte listens instead of lashing
out, suggests that Nazarín would prefer Belmonte to react more violently and
give him the opportunity to test his fortitude. Clearly, Nazarín did not want or
expect to be well-received.
The Christ Figure in Misericordia - Robert H. Russell
– In Nazarin and Halma there was no discernible separation between the ideas and
attitudes of the protagonist and those of the novelist. Despite the elaborate
surprise built into Galdós' personal apprehension of Nazarín, the sentimentalized
view of the Manchegan priest was clearly one which involved an earnest
ideological mouthpiece.
– The question of the power of the world over the Christ figure, so crucial and so
unsatisfactorily answered in Nazarín and Halma, is not a problem
in Misericordia.
– Nazarín, with his «direct line» to Heaven, seems a selfinflated braggart by
comparison
– In Nazarín simple physical separation from the world of Madrid enables the hero
to escape the pressures which menace him and to meet isolated circumstances.
Conceived perhaps as a parallel to Christ's wandering ministry, and certainly
reminiscent of Don Quijote's sallies, this separation from the complex urban
world in fact weakens the hero's claim to pervasive sanctity, as does the fact that
social pressures put an end to his wandering rural apostolate.
– Both Nazarín and Halma have a concept of themselves; they seek the means to
realize this concept. Their success is qualified not so much by their limited fields
of action as by their enslavement to a view of themselves which makes them
ponder, consider and judge each of their actions. This being so, they are neither
«round» characters nor charitable people.
– Nazarín and Halma give up the world in seeking themselves, and the world
defeats them. Benina has given up herself to the world, seekingnothing, but the
world cannot overcome her.
Nazarín, or the Passion of Our Lord Jesus According to Galdós - Alexander A. Parker
BIBLE REFS
– Nothing marks more clearly the difference between the Gloria and
the Nazarín periods than his presentation of the priests: the hard, uncharitable,
intolerant, self-seeking clerics of the early novels give way to the Christ-like
Nazarín and to the Don Manuel Flórez of Halma, who though already a good and
exemplary priest at the beginning is converted to «sanctity» at the end
– The differences between Nazarín's conception of the Christian life and Tolstoy's
are outweighed by their basic affinity. Both believe that if Christ's teaching were
actually put into practice it would transform the world: for this end Tolstoy
constructed a «rational» Christianity, humanitarian, pacific, utilitarian and
«social», which is essentially the same as Nazarín's.
– Both see property as the root of evil, both take literally the evangelical precepts
of not resisting evil, of turning the other cheek, of giving the man who sues you
at law for your coat, not only your coat but your cloak also. In view of this basic
affinity it matters little that Tolstoy rejects dogmas and the Church, while Nazarín
remains an orthodox believer, submissive to ecclesiastical authority; especially
since Nazarín never at any time performs the regular pastoral duties of his
priesthood within the normal ecclesiastical framework.
– He does not preach; he says Mass «siempre que me la encargan», which does not
imply every day or offering the Sacrifice for its own sake (the stipend for saying
Mass is his only source of revenue though he never seeks it); he does no parish
work at all, and while he would accept a parish if one were offered him he knows
that one never will be (V, 1732, 1733 b). Clearly Nazarín is on the «fringe» of the
institutional Church, as much outside it as it is possible for a priest to be while
still within it
– The critics who note the affinity between Nazarín's ideas and those of Tolstoy
also quote Galdós's own rejection of any influence. Not only was he annoyed at
being coupled with Tolstoy in this respect,137 he also makes Nazarín himself
surprised to learn that he could have derived his ideas from a foreign literature
he had never read;138 and immediately afterwards Don Manuel
– In his discussion with Don Pedro de Belmonte, Nazarín claims that the failure of
science, philosophy and politics to solve the problems of life points to the need
for religion. But what their failure amounts to is principally the failure to
eradicate poverty.
– “Después de los progresos de la mecánica, la Humanidad es más desgraciada; el
número de pobres y hambrientos, mayor; los desequilibrios del bienestar, más
crueles... los filósofos son el aire seco que sofoca y desalienta a la Humanidad en su
áspero camino... Cumplió [la política] su misión, y los que se llamaban problemas —
86→ políticos, tocantes a libertad, derechos, etc., están ya resueltos, sin que por eso
la Humanidad haya descubierto el nuevo paraíso terrenal. Conquistados tantísimos
derechos, los pueblos tienen la misma hambre que antes tenían. Mucho adelanto
material, y cada día menos trabajo y una infinidad de manos desocupadas.”
– There is the joyful poverty which he exemplifies, from Part III onwards, in a
voluntary detachment from property and from a fixed abode and livelihood.
– Practical religion in Nazarín is at bottom simple: it is Christ's basic teaching that
men should love one another. But practical religion also entails, on this basis of
charity, an uncompromising protest against social injustice, which in Nazarín
takes the form not only of turning his back on society but also of an ardent desire
to suffer both in a penitential life and through persecution.
– One of the contrasts between Nazarín and the religious ideas of Tolstoy, which
Mrs. Vera Colin sets against the similarities, is the protagonist's desire to suffer.
Tolstoy was opposed to asceticism. So, for the most part, are the forms of
Protestant Christianity. This feature of Nazarín's character and conduct is,
however, not just a part of the Catholic tradition. It is, of course, one element in
the parallel that Galdós shows between Nazarín and Don Quijote, corresponding
to the latter's eagerness to face danger and hardships. But much more important
is the fact that it is required by the presentation of Nazarín's mission in terms of
the life of Christ.
– The influence of Don Quijote is predominant in Parts II and III. It establishes
Nazarín as a «quixotic» character. The pattern of the Gospels is followed in Parts
IV and V.
– The first hint of the transformation of Nazarín occurs in III, iii, when before the
«miraculous cure» of the dying girl he enunciates the doctrine of the Atonement as
he prays to be allowed to carry on his own shoulders [...] todas las calamidades,
todos los reveses, todos los achaques y dolores que pueden afligir a la Humanidad
sobre la Tierra..., que descargue sobre mí la miseria en su más horrible forma, la
ceguera tristísima, la asquerosa lepra..., todo, todo sea para mí, a cambio de que
devuelva la vida a este tierno y cándido ser, y os conceda a vosotros el premio de
vuestros afanes.
– On this level of meaning the girl's «restoration to life» and the peace that will
come to her relatives is, of course, the life of Grace. After the entry into the peststricken village in IV, i, the novel begins to follow the stages of the Passion. This is
preceded by the Transfiguration (Matthew, xvii, 1-2; Mark, ix, 2-3; Luke, ix, 28-9):
– The conversation that opens IV, vi, in which Nazarín assures the two women that he
and they will always be one despite the separation that will come, and the
protestation of Beatriz that she and Ándara will never permit themselves to be
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separated from him, echo Christ's discourse at the Last Supper and Peter's
protestation of loyalty (John, xiii, 36-7; xiv). When «Beatriz dejó gravitar su cabeza
sobre el hombro de Nazarín, y se quedó dormidita, como un niño en el seno de su
madre» (V. 1793a), Galdós is recalling «Now there was leaning on Jesus' bosom one
of his disciples, whom Jesus loved» (John, xiii, 23). In the complaint of the hurt
Ándara that he loves Beatriz more because «a Beatriz le dice usted siempre las cosas
más bonitas» (ibid.), Galdós is perhaps echoing the earlier Gospel episode of
Martha's complaint about Mary (Luke, x, 38-40).
The arrest follows the Gospels closely. Nazarín is surprised that «un ejército» should
have been sent out to take them (Luke, xxvi, 51-2). Brought before the Alcalde for
interrogation, Nazarín is Christ before Pilate (a more jesting Pilate than the Roman
one): [He] saith unto Jesus, Whence art thou? But Jesus gave him no answer. Then
saith Pilate unto him, Speakest thou not unto me? knowest thou not that I have
power to crucify thee, and have power to release thee? (John, xix, 9-10) -Señor mío,
usted habla un lenguaje que no entiendo. El que hablo yo, tampoco es para usted
comprensible, al menos ahora. Callémonos. No era de este discreto parecer el
alcalde, a quien supo muy mal que sus bien pensados y medidos argumentos no
hicieran ningún efecto... (V, 1797a-b)
Beatriz, in prison, asks the guard to let them go free, urging him not to offend
God by persecuting a good man («[Pilate's] wife sent unto him saying, Have thou
nothing to do with that just man» [Matthew, xxvii, 19)). The guard replies,
«Nosotros, los guardias, nada tenemos que ver. Eso el juez... ¿Sabes tú lo que es
la Ordenanza?... Pone uno su honra en esto, y no es uno, Beatriz, es el Cuerpo...
El Cuerpo no sabe lo que es compasión, y cuando el alma, que es la Ley, le manda
prender, prende, y si le manda fusilar, fusila» (V, 1799a). This is Pilate's washing
his hands of the execution of an innocent man in order not to cease to be
«Caesar's friend» by releasing him.
During the first night in prison on the via crucis of the march to Madrid, Nazarín
endures the mockery, buffeting and scourging that Christ suffered at the hands of
the Roman soldiers.
The Alcalde had told Nazarín («el Jesucristo nuevo», he had called him) not to
worry, they would not crucify or even scourge him; being nowadays too
enlightened for such punishments they would only confine him in a madhouse:
«Sacrificios higiénicos, es decir, sin azotes... Pasión y muerte, con chocolate de
Astorga... ¡Ja, ja!» (V, 1798 a). Nazarín's Passion and Death are thus an internally
experienced allegory, externalized as the delirium of fever in imprisonment.
There is a return to the symbols of the Agony in the Garden. Entrada la noche, se
sentía muy mal el buen ermitaño andante, y de un modo tan pavoroso gravitaba
sobre su alma la impresión de soledad y desamparo, que poco le faltó para echarse a
llorar como un niño. Creyérase que súbitamente se le agotaba la energía y que un
desmayo femenil era el término desairado de sus cristianas aventuras. Pidió al Señor
asistencia para soportar las amarguras que aún le faltaban, y las maravillosas
energías resurgieron en su alma, pero acompañadas de un terrible aumento de la
fiebre.
His refusal to let Ándara and el Sacrílego lift him to freedom through the roof is a
refusal to let «this cup be removed from him». All the incidents of the ascent to
–
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Calvary are there, including the pain of the Crown of Thorns and the weight of the
Cross: Le sacaban de la cárcel, llevábanle tirando de él por una soga que le ataron al
cuello. El camino era áspero, todo malezas y guijarros cortantes. Los pies del
peregrino sangraban, y a cada instante tropezaba y caía, levantándose con gran
esfuerzo suyo y despiadados tirones de los que llevaban la cuerda.
If there is a weakness in the novel's structure, it is to be found, in my opinion, in
its relation to Don Quijote. No doubt Galdós had the same veneration for the
mad knight that Unamuno was to reveal eleven years later; but for some of us it
may be a rather distracting effort to confine the meaning of quixotry to the
unpractical and the unworldly, and to exclude, as Galdós bids us do, the comedy
and irony we associate with that particular «calling». Do not the Gospels, then,
set up a stronger tension in the opposite direction by making us accept a saintly
perfection and a redemptive suffering that we do not associate with the human?
Do we not have either an idealized, and therefore false, Quixote or a
«conventional» lay-figure saint?
The parallels between the Gospel Passion and Nazarín are, of course, neither
exact nor complete; none-the-less they range wide enough, and above all deep
enough, to be obsessive. Galdós is under a compulsion to emphasize the Passion
far more than is necessary, as Casalduero saw, if his aim is only to symbolize a
modern-type saint; far more than is necessary, also, if his aim is only to present a
fable along the lines of Dostoevsky's Grand Inquisitor or, pace Ganivet, a protest
against social injustice. The character of Nazarín as a whole justifies Ruiz Ramón
in saying «en Galdós me parece ver siempre como una intensa nostalgia de ese
cristianismo perdido»,149 but this falls far short of being an adequate explanation
of the intense concentration on tragic suffering that is here revealed, which is too
controlled to be morbid; the terror is kept under the surface but it is felt all the
time.
This insistence on the historicity of the events narrated while at the same time
doubting the objectivity of their presentation is a very odd departure from the
conventional way of establishing «reality» within fiction by detaching it from its
author. This is no subterfuge of the Cide Hamete type: there are, in fact, four
possible narrators including Galdós himself, and he is at a loss to determine who
the narrator actually is. The mystification is unnecessarily elaborate if it is only a
question of giving credibility to the eccentricity of the protagonist: Nazarín may
be a «singularísimo personaje», but surely not lacking in verisimilitude to that
extent.
This may be the source, but it does not explain why Galdós should present his
chronicle as a Part I of observed reportage followed by four Parts that are the
result of concentrated and preoccupied meditation on the observed phenomena.
In the novel that follows, Nazarín becomes associated with Christ to an extent
that is more than symbolical. Galdós is in fact telling us here that he is writing
a Life of Jesus the Nazarene in order to try to make up his mind exactly what this
historical, «singularísimo y aun no bien comprendido personaje» means for
mankind. Jesus «asked his disciples, saying, Whom do men say that I the Son —
93→ of man am? And they said, Some say that thou art John the Baptist; some,
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Elias; and others, Jeremias, or one of the prophets. He saith unto them, But
whom say ye that I am?» (Matthew, xvi, 13-15)
r. Like them we interrogate him, examine his actions and listen to his teaching.
«Corre el tiempo» and some of us forget or dismiss Christ; others of us are
compelled, like Galdós, to continue to meditate on the Semitic Prophet in order
to «posesionarnos intelectualmente del verdadero y real personaje», which
means stripping away the various layers of exegesis, and perhaps of superstition,
that the centuries of institutional Christianity have wrapped round the heart of
the Christian message. Galdós, in dismantling tradition and reconstructing the
«real» Christ in his novelist's way, cannot be certain whether he has arrived at
objective truth or distorted it by his own personal preoccupations. There are so
many reconstructed Christs, so many interpretations of his person and life. There
are the intellectuals, men of the world, economists, etc., who, like the reporter,
see Christ as a fanatic, a parasite on society, preaching a doctrine of passivity and
thus denying human personality and corrupting politico-economic man (V, 173).
There are the «workers» like tía Chanfaina, who ground down with poverty and
unceasing toil see no hope in Christ's message because he no longer works any
miracles which might relieve their lot, yet who nostalgically admire his perfect
goodness.151 There are, finally, the believers, like the old gipsy, for whom he is
divine -«el príncipe de los serafines coronados» (V, 1736b). Has any of these
three, rather than Galdós himself, written the story that follows? In other words,
is Galdós's view of Christ coloured by other interpretations or is it his own? He
cannot tell («el narrador se oculta»). Nor can he be sure of the legitimacy of his
own procedure in reconstructing the life of Christ novelistically («no respondo del
procedimiento»); all he can be sure of is his fidelity to the spirit of the events
themselves as recorded in the «histórica verdad» of the Gospels.
It is thus not so much a question of imposing Gospel «symbols» on the story of
Nazarín as of making his story something close to an «allegory». The attempt to
imagine Christ as a real man by remaining faithful to the simplicity of the Gospel
story explains the change that comes over Nazarín's appearance in Part III.
What the reporter and the author find so incongruous about him in Part I is the
discrepancy between his Arab features and his clerical dress. Without this dress
on his wanderings, weather-beaten and with his beard grown, «La fisonomía
clerical habíase desvanecido por completo, y el tipo árabe, libre ya de aquella
máscara, resaltaba en toda su gallarda pureza» (V, 1766a). His clerical garb was a
mask hiding his real beauty, which is that of a Prophet: the «real» Christ can only
be reached by unmasking the «official» Christ made «respectable» by
ecclesiastical tradition.
aced with this uncovered Christ, faced with his teaching in its starkness, stripped
of all compromise (as Tolstoy had tried to present it to the world), whom do men
say that Christ is? All but his tiny band of converts, Ándara, Beatriz and el
Sacrílego, together with Don Pedro de Belmonte (who is a speciatl case), think
him mad. These four are «outsiders», unrepresentative of modern civilization; «la
ilustración» is represented by the Alcalde of Part IV (V, 1795-8), as it had been by
the reporter of Part I.
– Christ, in his day, was a genius and a Great Social Reformer, but his teaching is
nowadays impracticable because it has no relevance to industry, agriculture,
commerce, public administration, transport, working class suburbs, education,
state charity and, above all, hygiene. «Y yo me permito creer..., es idea mía...,
que si Nuestro Señor Jesucristo viviera, había de pensar lo mismo que pienso yo,
y sería el primero en echar su bendición a los adelantos, y diría: 'Este es mi siglo,
no aquél..., mi siglo este, aquél no'» (V, 1797 b).
– Galdós allows the cynical crudity of this type of «ilustración» to condemn itself,
setting the dignity of Nazarín against the smug vulgarity of the Alcalde, in the
same way as Cervantes makes us reject the attack of the Duke's ecclesiastic on
Don Quijote because of the ill-tempered and insulting way in which it is
delivered. But this does not mean that the Alcalde may not, in principle, be right
to some extent, just as the ecclesiastic's standpoint is, in essence, sensible.
– In his delirious «visión» Nazarín thinks he has died on the Cross: «Un ardiente
anhelo de decir misa y de ponerse en comunicación con la Sagrada Verdad le
llenó todo el alma». But as he takes the Host into his hands «el divino Jesús» says
to him: «No puedes celebrar, no puedo estar contigo en cuerpo y sangre, y esta
misa es figuración insana de tu mente. Descansa, que bien te lo mereces» (V,
1814 b).
– The belief that he could be «en comunicación con la Suprema Verdad» in this
way is an illusion of his quixotic «madness»; but all through the novel his
character and conduct have exemplified a holiness that are certainly the greatest
step towards the divine made by the human world as Galdós presents it.
– The closing lines of the novel are the last words spoken to Nazarín by the
heavenly voice: «Algo has hecho por mí. No estés descontento. Yo sé que has de
hacer mucho más».
– When Nazarín beards the ferocious Don Pedro de Belmonte in his country house
he is following in the footsteps of Don Quijote, challenging the lions and being
later entertained in the home of Don Diego de Miranda. Don Pedro's character
and behaviour are paradoxical: he is a very religious man, courteous, affable and
generous to those he approves of, but a tyrant to his servants and cruel to
everybody else. Nazarín is amazed at his pigheadedness. Stubborn in holding to
his own convictions, he persists, despite Nazarín's reiterated denials to which he
refuses to listen, in considering him to be an Armenian Patriarch travelling
through Europe incognito.
– I suggest that this Don Pedro (the name itself is a tiny piece of additional
evidence) symbolizes for Galdós the Church -or at least the Spanish Church.153 His
refusal to accept Nazarín as the mendicant he claims to be, and his insistence
that Nazarín is in reality a high ecclesiastical dignitary, are the Church persisting
in deforming the essentially simple image of the historical Christ.
– The whole of the novel makes it clear that in order to reach the real Christ of
history we should strip him of dogmatic tradition and ecclesiastical
authoritarianism: only thus will he re-emerge as the divine element in human life
-the supreme exemplar of charity and compassion.
Through this Galdós is able to explore the relationship between fiction and reality, in a quest
to examine the authenticity and ambiguity of the Jesus myth, as well as what we can perhaps
learn from it.
This is compounded by the fact that both the Gospel narrative as a whole, and its main
protagonist can be read in a comic or satirical way, as well as a more serious one, in the same
way that Cervantes’s masterpiece contains a multiplicity of meanings
This comedy does more than just entertain: it also, as Cervantes’s masterpiece does, invites
us to be cautious when it comes to evaluating something based solely on appearance.
This is seen from the outset, when the narrator warns us not to be too quick to judge the
“boarding house” being approached: “No tome nadie al pie de la letra lo de casa de
huéspedes que al principio se ha dicho, pues entre las varias industrias de alojamiento que la
tía Chanfaina ejercía en aquel rincón, y las del centro de Madrid, ... no hay otra semejanza
que la del nombre”. Such caution is emphasised with the introduction of the carnivalesque
and grotesque, which, apart from being satirical, explores the theme of masks and the
inability to tell when characters are acting, or when the are being themselves: “habría podido
creerse que eran máscaras, y el colorete una forma extravagante de disfraz
carnavalesco...pero no tardé en conocer... que vivían siempre en Carnestolendas”.
In this confusion we then meet the character Nazarín (or don Nazario Zaharín o Zajarín),
whose name immediately makes the connection with Jesus of Nazareth, but whose identity
still feels confused, so much so that the narrator notes “al pronto me pareció de mujer. Era un
hombre.”
This cautious approach and desire to find the truth despite appearances is reflective of a
broader quest to find out who Jesus as a figure was, questioning the Gospel narrative through
this comic carnivalization of it.
The distance between narrator and subject allows at times a playful condescension using
diminutives: “el buen don Nazario, saliendo todas las mañanas a decir su misita”, the
repetitive exaggerated epithets such as “buen” somehow diminishing him to a stock figure,
rather than showing reverance to him.
This is reiterated in the parodic description of Nazarín’s deeds in Villamanta, calling into
question their validity: “Y en cuanto a la jactancia con que las enumeraron y repitieron (i.e.
las hazañas), Dios perdonaría de fijo el inocente alarde de soberbia, pues es justo que todo
héroe tenga su historia, aunque sea contada familiarmente por sí mismo”, as well as
exagerating Nazarín’s status as an epic hero, like don Quijote: “¿Y de Nazarín qué puede
decirse, sino que en aquellos seis días fue un héroe cristiano, y que su resistencia física igualó
por arte milagroso a sus increíbles bríos espirituales?”
Is Galdós asking us to treat the Jesus myth, indeed the Gospels, with as much caution as any
other material we might come across?
Likewise, despite pledging a duty of care to others, after he has left his ruined home, he gives
no second thought to its former occupants: “Hallábase en las puras glorias, con todo aquel
descuido del vivir asentado sobre el cimiento de su conciencia pura como el diamante, sin
acordarse de su destruido albergue, ni de Ándara ni de Estefanía, ni de cosa alguna que con
tal gente”. The use of the diamond simile is particularly ironic, for its precious nature
highlights how his pride in poverty is his own form of selfishness, almost materialism, as he
forgets about others.
Nazarín is like don Quijote in so far as he projects onto the world his vision of how it should
be, which clashes with how it is in reality.
As in Don Quijote, this clash creates a great deal of comic irony, perhaps highlighting how
many now struggle to see how the vision of Christ maps onto modern day life, as tía
Chanfaina elaborates “¿Para qué sirve un santo más que para divertir a los chiquillos de las
calles?”
In fact, this is perhaps most evident in the discussion between the Alcalde and Nazarín,
suggesting that just as knight errants seeking to do good no longer fit in in Cervante’s
contemporary Spain, so Nazarín’s way of humility and poverty will not fit either: “este siglo
en que la ilustración nos ha emancipado de todo el fanatismo de antiguedad...y en este siglo
ilustrado, a qué tiene que mirar el hombre? A la industria, a la agricultura, a la
administración, al comercio... Pues nada fe eso tendrá usted con el misticismo, que es lo que
usted practica; no tendrá más que hambre moderna, pública y particular”.
Nazarín doesn’t quite fulfil the same destiny as Christ did at the crucifixion: instead he is
seemed insane: “Sacrificios higiénicos, es decir, sin azotes...Pasión y muerte, con chocolate
de Astorga”.
Rather than one resounding Gospel message, Galdós instead constructs a comic vision of
both the Gospel narrative and Nazarín himself, elaborated through irony and ambiguity, with
strong parallels with Cervantes’s masterpiece.
Indeed, although it is dangerous to connect an author’s point of view with a character’s, some
have pointed out the similarity between what Galdós said in his Confessiones y paradojas:
“Hemos luchado por las libertades, conquistada al fin con mil sacrificios. Estamos contentos?
No. Con tantas franquicias vivimos como antes, rodeados de injusticias, de desigualidades, de
monstruosas aberacciones del sentido moral” , and what Nazarín explains to 6 Belmonte:
“después de los progresos de la mecánica, la Humanidad es más desgraciada; el número de
pobres y hambrientos, mayor; los desequilibrios del bienestar, más crueles... los filósofos son
el aire seco que sofoca y desalienta a la Humanidad en su áspero camino...”.
Jesus too was seen as a liar and a madman, his actions perceived as completely counter
cultural, as he healed on the Sabbath, proclaiming what would have seemed like quixotic
statements about heaven and eternal life. The multiple narrative viewpoints in Galdós’s novel
draws a parallel with the multiple narratives concerning Jesus that the Gospels present.
The combination of comic and serious therefore would serve the function of putting us on our
guard against taking things at face value, inviting us to make a proper investigation, to the
point of asking, as Dendle does, “is not Galdós' question, indeed, not whether Nazarín is a
worthy imitator of Christ but, blasphemously, whether Christ Himself was like Nazarín?”
I would also suggest that Galdós provides some tentative possible answers to this question,
through the sincere depiction of aspects of Nazarín’s behaviour, as he advocates poverty and
humility in a materialistic world. Similarly, the deeper Gospel parallels reflect the possibility
that this novel is more than a bit of fun: it is equally a serious invitation to investigate the
Jesus myth for ourselves, piecing together, as Galdós has done, our own opinion of who we
think Christ is.
Nazarín
– La imaginación del fugitivo centuplicaba los encantos de cielo y tierra, y en ellos veía,
como en un espejo, la imagen de su dicha, por la libertad que al fin gozaba, sin más
dueño que su Dios.
– consistía tan sólo en evadir la reprimenda del superior, y en esquivar los dimes y
diretes y vejámenes de una justicia que ni es justicia ni cosa que lo valga...
– No huía de las penalidades, sino que iba en busca de ellas; no huía del malestar y la
pobreza, sino que tras de la miseria y de los trabajos más rudos caminaba.
– Porque la libertad que yo apetezco, lo mismo la tendría vagando solo por laderas y
barrancos, que sujeto a la disciplina severa de un santo instituto.
– El tiempo, que las cosas más sólidas destruye, había ido descostrando y arrancando
de su rostro la capa calcárea de colorete, dejando al descubierto la piel erisipelatosa,
arrugada en unas partes, en otras tumefacta.
– Pero lo que más asombro causó a Nazarín fue que la mujercilla, al llegarse a él,
parecía vergonzosa, con cierta cortedad infantil, que era lo más extraordinario y
nuevo de su transformación.
– Bueno, Dios sea contigo. ¿Qué quieres de mí ahora?
– -No puedo detenerme, tengo prisa. Lo único que te digo, Ándara corrompida, es que
no olvides las advertencias que te hice en mi casa; que te enmiendes...
– No me fío... Eres mala, mala. Quédate sola. La soledad es una gran maestra para el
alma. Yo la voy buscando. Piensa en Dios, y ofrécele tu corazón, acuérdate de tus
pecados, y pásales revista para abominar de ellos, y tomarlos en horror.
– Tuvo el fugitivo en aquel primer día de su peregrinación encuentros que no merecen
verdaderamente ser relatados, y tan sólo se indican por ser los primeros, o sea el
estreno de sus cristianas aventuras.
– Ensayó allí Nazarín su flamante oficio de pordiosero, y fueron las campesinas tan
generosas, que apenas oídas las primeras palabras, diéronle dos lechugas
respingadas y media docena de patatas nuevas, que una de ellas sacó de un saco.
– Pidioles Nazarín permiso para cobijarse bajo aquel techo, y ellos respondieron que el
tal nicho era de libre propiedad, y que en él podía entrar o salir sin papeleta todo el
que quisiere.
– “Tengo que ir con su reverencia hasta el fin del mundo, o si no, que me entierren...”
– No llevó a mal el sacerdote que buscara y reconociera sus amistades, aunque para
ello tuviese que ir al fin del mundo y no volver, pues no quería llevar tal mujer
consigo.
– “Iré, pero solamente por dar a esas pobres mujeres un consuelo de palabras
piadosas...”
– “-No blasfemes, ignorante, mala cristiana. ¡Milagros yo!”
– No se dio Ándara por convencida, atribuyendo a modestia las palabras de su
protector; pero, sin volver a mentar el milagro, insistió en llevarle a ver a sus amigas
y a la niña moribunda.
– ¿Pero, hijas mías, cómo pretendéis que yo la cure? No seáis locas. El cariño maternal
os ciega. Yo no sé curar. Si Dios quiere quitaros a la niña, Él sabrá lo que hace.
Resignaos. Y si decide conservárosla, ya lo hará con sólo que se lo pidáis vosotras,
aunque no está de más que yo también se lo pida.
– “Sabemos que usted, padre, es de pasta de ángeles divinos, y que se ha puesto ese
traje y anda descalzo y pide limosna por parecerse más a Nuestro Señor Jesucristo,
que también iba descalzo, y no comía más que lo que le daban”
– ¿Cómo se cura? Mucha parte tiene en ella la imaginación, y con la imaginación debe
intentarse el remedio… Persuádase usted de que esos fenómenos no significan
lesión ni avería de ninguna entraña, y no volverá a padecerlos.
– Nada tenía que hacer allí; estaba perdiendo el tiempo muy sin substancia, y érale
forzoso partir para dar cumplimiento a su peregrina y santa idea.
– ¿Para qué me traes a mí esas vanas historias, habladora, entrometida? -le dijo
Nazarín con enfado-. ¿Qué tengo yo que ver con Beatriz, ni con el Pinto, ni con...?