—24→ —25→
A meaningful interpretation of Miau must be based on an understanding of Galdós' careful delineation of the protagonist, Ramón Villaamil.17
If all the motives of his comportment are not examined it will not be possible to asess with accuracy the implications of his acts. Furthermore, Villaamil's story cannot be comprehended unless it is analyzed in dynamic interaction with other elements of the novel, especially point of view, symbolism, and the secondary personages.18
The writer underlines ironically the double nature of most of his characters by exploiting the multiple possibilities of point of view. Despite moments of seeming omniscience, we find that the narrator does not pretend to know exactly what happens throughout the novel; he often cedes to the judgment of one of his personages concerning what has occurred.19 Nearly all of the other characters express their opinions about Villaamil, including: doña Paca (V, 556), Mendizábal (V, 556), doña Pura (V, 561), Luisito, paraphrased by Galdós (V, 580), Víctor (V, 582), Ildefonso Cabrera (V, 593), and Pantoja (V, 616). But just as we cannot accept on faith what the unomniscient narrator claims to know, we soon realize that neither can we trust the conflicting opinions of the witnesses within the novel. Nearly all of them are subjected to a process of ironic treatment in which their names symbolize qualities which prove to be antithetical to their true nature, or in other instances, we come to perceive a great disparity between an individual's appearance and his actions. The best case in point, because they are subjected to both ironic devices, are the Mendizábals. Both are portrayed physically as ferocious animals, yet they are also described as being friendly, generous souls. Their surname recalls Mendizábal, a historic figure of the nineteenth century who represents an era of radical liberalism in Spain; yet they yearn for the restoration of a brutal, anachronistic system of absolutism in order to institutionalize honesty at all levels of life.
The reader of Miau, then, is confronted with a complicated art form. The richness of techniques employed by Galdós contributes to our realization that the society recreated in this novelistic world is itself of an extremely deceptive nature. We will not be able to understand Villaamil nor the meaning of his novel merely by accepting the testimony of the other characters and the point of view of the narrator expressed in editorialization and symbolism. What the author tells us is not as important in the final analysis as what he chooses to show us.
Villaamil, of course, is also subjected to Galdós' ironic treatment. After Luisa's untimely death, «fue tomando su cara aquel aspecto de ferocidad famélica que le asemejaba a un tigre anciano e inútil.» (V, 590). But as with the other personages, his external appearance stands in stark contrast with the internal realities of his personality. We cannot penetrate the meaning of the writer's technique of irony unless we examine his careful psychological delineation of the protagonist of Miau.
Don Ramón's psychic balance is initially destroyed by the deeply-felt tragedy of his daughter's insanity and demise. His need for security is constantly threatened by Pura's lack of thrift. Whether through his own mediocrity or as a result of the intrinsic instability of the Spanish governmental system, Villaamil's well-being is menaced by —26→ frequent changes of jobs and periodic unemployment. As a result of these circumstances, he begins to withdraw from the world of conventional behavior. The cat-tiger symbolism, the ferocious demeanor, and the grinding of teeth serve in part as an indication of this withdrawal and underline the divergence between appearance and essence in Villaamil.
Galdós is always careful to set forth clearly the reasons for the disparity between how Villaamil appears to be and what he is really thinking and feeling. In one instance, the author humorously describes the old man's tigresque countenance and savage designs on his son-in-law Víctor (V, 578), but not without offering as a counterbalance to the irony of the pathetic toothless tiger a lyric description of Villaamil's grief upon remembering Luisa's death and the chief agent of it: Víctor (V, 579). We are informed that don Ramón only allowed his daughter to marry Cadalso with great reservations. He knew Víctor was a selfish, unfeeling individual, but once the headstrong Luisa forged ahead with the determination to marry him, Villaamil gave in to the laws of traditional Spanish honor: when relations were established between lovers, marriage was inevitable. The growing separation between Villaamil and his society and its norms is indicated by his words to Víctor years after Luisa's death: «Ojalá viviera mi hija deshonrada, ojalá...» (V, 580).
Related to these clues to the causes and nature of Villaamil's mental abnormality is Galdós' presentation of the single direction into which all of his energies become channeled: a psychological need to avoid pain and to achieve security. To accomplish these ends the protagonist devises a messianic plan to give morality, logic, and security to the world as well as to himself. This plan becomes his «fixed idea», the inalterable self-revealed truth which alone can save him from the uncertainties of the world.20 It is significant to note that the messianic plan for the nation does not represent merely an arbitrista type of extravagant, artificial solution to national problems nor the impossible superimposition of foreign institutions and solutions proposed by innumerable characters in Pérez Galdós' novels.21 Villaamil's self-saving system springs in large measure from his own experience and problems, and as such, represents an expression of his psychological needs more than a conscious intellectual effort.
The simplistic income tax plan underscores Villaamil's ineptness. But the remainder of his ideas and the application of the tax panacea relate directly to his personal needs rather than to a desire to save the nation. His fixed idea of the necessity for balancing the national budget is a projection on the country of what has tormented him so long: Pura's complete lack of thrift. In this sense, there is a double meaning to his words: «¡Ah, el income tax! Es el sueño de toda mi vida, el objeto de tantísimos estudios y el resultado de una larga experiencia...» (V, 563). Justice, as an indispensable part of the all-saving plan, can be understood in reference to his belief that honest, qualified public servants should not be subjected to the capricious whims of politicians and changing governments. Morality refers to Villaamil's opposition to the type of public functionary represented by Víctor.
It soon becomes apparent that no one believes in Villaamil's messianic solutions and that his approach both to the nation's problems and to getting a job are useless. He is so convinced of the efficacy of the plan that his failure to implement it leads him to another level of psychological abnormality: he begins to believe that like another Messiah, Christ, he must suffer a passion and martyrdom before his ideas will be accepted (V, 555). Unlike Professor Gullón and other critics who see the world of Miau as a kind of labyrinth in the style of Kafka in which the protagonist cannot —27→ find his way and where there is no explanation of why he never succeeds in being reemployed, I believe that Villaamil's lack of success is amply explained in the novel. His psychological needs cause him to form the simplistic all-saving system; when this plan is ridiculed and rejected by everyone, it is then that his mental condition worsens. It is, indeed, his psychological state that prevents him from getting a job despite exercises in political pressure and personal favoritism.
The question of how the reader should react to the old man's suicide is also related to the comprehension of the psychic factors of his motivation. To understand why he chooses to take his life, one must analyze the sequence of events in the second half of the novel with reference to the psychological preparation of the first half. Villaamil's belief in his mission continues unrelenting in the face of adversity until something occurs which constitutes the definitive repudiation of his ideas: Víctor, the embodiment of the immorality and corruption which the protagonist has always opposed, is promoted with the aid of feminine influence; Villaamil, meanwhile, remains unemployed. We should not forget that besides Víctor's embodiment of political corruption, he was also the chief agent of Villaamil's greatest tragedy, Luisa's death. This sudden reversal of all the laws of logic and justice in the old man's mind, together with his continued failure to convert government officials to his ideas, leads to another change in his mental state. Upon discovering Víctor's triumph, he enters a period of psychological activity even more intense than before, in which there is a constant and progressively more agitated vacillation between firm adherence to the fixed idea upon which he built his life, and increasingly intense moments of mental recovery in which he sees the folly of his monomania.
The letters M. I. A. U. are used first to characterize the feminine members of the family, with the intention of ridiculing their physical appearance and general mediocrity, as well as indicating the qualities of jealousy, vanity, and selfishness sometimes attributed to «cats». With regard to Villaamil, the purpose is different. First the symbolism calls attention to the disparity between the old man's tiger-like exterior and meek interior. Towards the middle of the novel, the letters acquire a new significance: they dramatize Villaamil's personality vacillation by merging the irony of the toothless tiger presentation with a kind of mock-Christ parody (V, 657).
The Christ symbolism is not entirely a caricature of Villaamil, as one might conclude if the psychological dimension of his portrayal were ignored. The depiction of the protagonist as a martyr, a seemingly burlesque device, must be understood in the context of his psychological depiction. The writer reveals that for several reasons, Villaamil had a continual cross to bear. We see that from the beginning of his marriage, he was destined by the traits of his benevolent, tolerant personality, to be dominated by his wife and to suffer from her lack of comprehension and thrift (V, 586). Sherman Eoff has explained why Villaamil may be considered a victim of a ridiculous governmental system which bred in him a permanent sense of insecurity.22 Furthermore, since Villaamil is a character who alternates between consciousness and ignorance of his own mental illness, he is seen to be an individual engaged in an agonic struggle with his destiny. He knows, for instance, that favoritism in obtaining government positions is not desireable and would like to be rehired on his own merits. But in his desperation to be reemployed, he becomes the troublesome pest he so often criticized in others. Since, he knows he has become such a person, while not wanting to be so and being helpless to do otherwise, he undergoes great psychic pressures. Indeed, he issometimes even aware of the folly of his messianic plans (V, 662).
—28→His ex-colleages in Administration soon note the symptoms of his deteriorating mental condition (V, 536). His psychic state becomes characterized by fluctuations between sanity and madness. Even his wife Pura notices sudden, unjustified appearances of her husband's fixed idea intruding extraneously in conversations (V, 666). The wavering between adherence to the fixed idea and escaping from it is also seen in the states of apathy or extreme irritability in which Villaamil lives after receiving the news of Víctor's success (V, 662). The intense psychic tension beneath the placid surface of his demeanor is underlined above all by the episode in which on congratulating Federico Ruiz, a cesante who manages to be reemployed, Villaamil embraces him so violently that Ruiz is nearly injured (V, 663).
Another facet of the fluctuation between sanity and insanity can be seen in don Ramón's relations with Víctor and Abelarda. He sees clearly that behind his daughter's strange, violent behavior towards Luisito lies Víctor's work. Yet when he evicts his son-in-law from the household, he affirms neurotically: «'En esta pobreza honrada somos felices. ¿No ves lo contento que yo estoy?' castañeteando los dientes.» (V, 665). Later, in an instance of sanity, when he is forced to make the difficult decision to entrust Luis to Quintina's care and to commit suicide, Galdós tells us: «Estuvo a punto de perder su estudiada, dificilísima compostura, y echarse a llorar. Se tragó toda aquella hiel...» (V, 672). Here, the Christ symbolism of the swallowing of bile is not employed to satirize Villaamil but rather to underscore sympathetically the fact that he is making a difficult and unselfish decision. Likewise, in another moment of sanity, when Galdós employs a kind of thief symbolism to describe how Villaamil carries Luis down some stairs heading for Quintina's house, the irony is only a disguise for a not infrequent example of the author's lyricism (V, 673).
After depositing the boy at the Cabrera's, the old man, in a moment of lucidity, rejects the falseness of his fixed idea: «...cuánto más interesante es un cacho de cielo, por pequeño que sea, que la cara de Pantoja, la de Cucúrbitas y la del propio ministro...» (V, 675). Yet the expression of cognizance of his error itself reveals the vacillation of the protagonist; in the innumeration of those he despises, Pantoja, Cucúrbitas, and the minister himself, Villaamil obeys a gradation of administrative hierarchy which reveals that his thoughts still run in the familiar channels.
A dominant note in the final moments of his psychological evolution, and one which shows the extent of his dementedness, is his psychic desire to be young. For years he had demonstrated a penchant for creating a make-believe world in which by thinking that something would not happen, it would in fact come to be (V, 564). When he sees that the bureaucratic world rejects his messianic solution to the national dilemma, his reaction is one of childishness and semi-madness: «Dirán: 'Pues que sea Villaamil ministro'; y yo responderé: 'Cuando quise, no quisiste, y ahora..., a buena hora, mangas verdes...'» (V, 654).
In one of the last episodes, in the café «Viña del señor», the protagonist's tendency to think and act like a child reaches its apex. Here he virtually retreats from his real age and becomes young again. Galdós has pointed out in other novels the process by which people faced with the impending reality of death seek a mental escape in the form of a reversion to memories of youth.23 Villaamil exhorts the young people in the café to be independent and irresponsible, but concludes his remarks by exclaiming, «me pongo al Estado por montera», once again indicating that despite his words he is still attached to his fixed idea (V, 677). On leaving the establishment, he encounters a tree, associates it with various levels of government until arriving at the one which —29→ must have been responsible for planting it, and in childlike fashion, wants to destroy the object which is so tenuously related to his obsession, the state (V, 679).
The retreat into adolescence is also a manifestation of the fact that although Villaamil ultimately kills himself, he does not want to do so. Contrary to the don Ramón of previous sections of Miau who never seemed to be hungry (V, 572), the old man, upon liberating himself from his fixed idea, proclaims «a comer se ha dicho, y ole morena mía.» (V, 675) The desire to eat is of course the desire to live. But the reversion to youth is not symbolized by eating alone. Villaamil's sexual instincts also seem to revive and he feels inclined to flirt with some young women there present (V, 682). The paradox of this combination, Villaamil's determination to commit suicide and his psychic desire to live, demonstrates that the old man's soul is already dead; only the instinctive desire to survive remains.
In his last moments of existence, Villaamil is clearly depicted as being mad. It is likely that he is aware of his mental state because earlier he, like Maxi Rubin in Fortunata y Jacinta, experiences a criscrossing of awareness and ignorance of his own condition of growing insanity.24 Upon perceiving the bureaucrats' reaction to his outburst of accusations concerning plots against him, Villaamil describes himself as follows: «'Todo ello' pensó con admirable observación de sí mismo 'consiste en que mis desgracias me han hecho un poco extravagante y en que alguna vez la misma fuerza del dolor es causa de que se me escapen frases y gestos que no son de hombre sesudo y contradicen mi carácter y mi..., ¿cómo es la palabreja?..., ¡ah!, mi idiosincracia...'» (V, 655). As the novel ends, thinking of what his widow will do after he is dead and she can exploit him no longer, he imagines her selling his hide to be used for a drum, and he shouts madly: «¡Magnífico, admirable, delicioooso!...» (V, 681).
Like a child, he repeats again and again his hatred for what was formerly his fixed idea and manifests his adherence to a system of irresponsibility which is diametrically opposed to his former fixation (V, 679). He clearly does not have command of himself in the last moments of his life; he alternates in a short space of time between a feeling of hatred for his family (V, 679-80) and soon after, of love for them (V, 680-81). The tragicomic suicide, another example of the old man's childish gameplaying, adds a final touch of absurdity to an ending which the author, for his own reasons, will not allow to be entirely sad.
* * *
Such is the carefully delineated nature of Ramón Villaamil's life and death. Galdós has been extremely diligent in his tracing of what might be considered in one sense a detailed case history of abnormal psychology, and this information is essential if we are to comprehend the irony and symbolism of the novel. But in this work, which contains many characteristics of naturalism, we must not fail to note that the protagonist is presented in the context of a family group, and that the writer is interested in the interaction of its constituents. The pivotal personage of the work with regard to the merging of the external and internal realities of Villaamil's existence is his grandson, Luisito.
Many critics have interpreted the boy's actuation in a trascendental, religious fashion. They have pointed especially to his dialogues with the person he believes is God, to demonstrate Galdós' introduction of a simbolic dimension to Miau's meaning. All such interpretations, I believe, overlook something the author was particularly careful —30→ to indicate: that Luisito's dreams reflect virtually nothing more than the concrete realities of actions experienced by him and observed by the reader. It is not coincidental that the God Luis sees looks at first like an elderly beggar (V, 588, 560) and later like his grandfather (V, 674-75).
Galdós very cleverly sets in motion a sequence of events involving Luis and others which leads the boy to believe that his visions are of the true God. For example, he converses with God about his schoolmate rival Posturitas, whom he considers a badly educated child because he has repeated the satirical nickname of the Villaamils, Miau (V, 552). After discussing this matter with another friend, Luis has an hallucination in which he visualizes his family as cats and even wonders if he might not be one himself (V, 554). Later, when Posturitas falls ill and finally dies, Luisito, with his rudimentary notions of Christian divine punishment, is sure that his ex-schoolmate was punished by God for what Luis considers a cardinal sin (V, 635). Clearly, Luis' God is a product of his own religious concepts, who speaks remarkably like the boy himself, and is strangely unomnipotent in matters he wishes to arrange. All God's advice to Luis is based on elements of the child's own waking experience observed, furthermore, by the reader (V, 559).
As a further development of Luis' visions, we witness the merging of the reality surrounding his daily existence, specifically, Villaamil's failure to get a job, with the boy's naive ideas: Luisito begins to imagine that his own poor study habits may be the reason why God is punishing his grandfather (V, 599). The important point to be devined from all these episodes is that in the context of the youthful innocence and objective, disinterested point of reference of Luisito himself, although the boy's deductions may not always be entirely correct, they clearly represent an open, truthful approach to problems that others in Miau cannot or will not see. A salient example of this process is Luisito's realization that Abelarda is in love with Víctor (V, 607). Others notice the inferiority of her fiancé, Ponce, and even Villaamil becomes aware of the situation. But only Luis, the innocent observer of the novel's events, the uninhibited child as in the tale of The Emperor's New Clothes, candidly reveals the truth.
Luis' role with respect to Villaamil's developing mental illness is still more significant. When he sees that his grandfather is accomplishing nothing by seeking aid from ministers and friends, he relies on his own experience and no doubt the sermons he has heard in church, suggesting that his grandfather ask God to help him obtain a job. The old man's reaction is: «Ese demonches de chiquillo sabe más que todos nosotros y que el mundo entero.» (V, 621) This statement is the preparation for Luis' pivotal role in the protagonist's dilemma: what to do when he becomes liberated from his fixed idea and sees no path to take.
Luisito has a series of dreams in which he questions an apparently unomnipotent God as to why He has not seen to it that his grandfather get a job (V, 637). Later, when Villaamil learns of his latest setback, Galdós, preparing for Luis' next dream, makes sure that we the readers observe the boy in the act of overhearing the old man's words: «Esto ya es demasiado, Señor Todopoderoso. ¿Qué he hecho yo para que me trates así? ¿Por qué no me colocan? ¿Por qué me abandonan hasta los amigos en quienes más confiaba?» (V, 562) On the basis of this overheard statement and his earlier observations, Luisito's next dreamed conversation with God will be constructed.
—31→To show that Luis' God is a product of his experience and not a projection towards a trascendental plane, Galdós indicates again that God not only looks like Villaamil but, humorously, even writes letters like him:
| (V, 564-65) | ||
God, as usual, speaks a vulgar language much like Luisito's. He reveals that Villaamil will never be hired and that it is better that he die and join Him, since there is nothing left for the old man to do in this miserable world (V, 669). Psychologically, having something to do in life, something of which to look forward and to dream, is crucial to human psychic equilibrium, Galdós seems to believe. In Miau, as in life in general, every character has his dream, his escape from everyday realities. When Luisito, the voice of innocence and truth, reveals to Villaamil that the old man's dream is and was a false one, his grandfather sees clearly that there is no reason to continue to live.
The language and humor with which Luis' revelation of God's will is expressed, together with the preparation of the boy's previous dreams, do not lead to a trascendental meaning for this particular dream. As on other occasions, what God tells Luis is nothing more than the child's innocent deductions, based on his observation of Villaamil's life. When he tells his grandfather about the God who has revealed these truths (V, 674), Villaamil realizes immediately the source of Luis' insight: reality. The protagonist is at this point unsure whether to end his life. When he converses with Luisito as they meander circuitously towards Quintina's house, the crucial moment of their relationship arrives. Luis reveals the dream in which God has announced that Villaamil has no further role to play in the world, and the revelation is instantly recognized by the old man as the truth. He declares: «Mira tú lo que son las cosas: a mí me ha dicho lo mismo.» (V, 674) Again this remark has no trascendental connotation. Villaamil is aware that Luisito has not really conversed with a supernatural God; he has merely reflected impartially the realities that the old man himself has seen in his own conscience but has not been able to face until this moment.
In connection with the symbolic interpretations given to the entire matter of Luis' final dream by various critics, we must try to understand why Villaamil considers the boy a saint. Early in Miau, Galdós lays the groundwork for this aspect: «Miraba Cadalsito a su abuelo con una expresión tan extraña, que el pobre señor no sabía qué pensar. Pareciole expresión de Niño-Dios, la cual no es otra cosa que la seriedad del hombre armonizada con la gracia de la niñez.» (V, 573) Later, in the final scene, Villaamil evokes his Saint Luis. It is worthy of note that in the same passage he also recalls Luisa, Luis' mother, whose role in Villaamil's psychological history has been studied previously (V, 682). Both Luisa and Luisito, even the names are linked, are symbolic in the protagonist's mind of innocence and purity. Their sanctity consists precisely of the fact that they are, for Villaamil, innocent victims of the evil forces of his world: Luisito, like the old man himself, is the victim of the selfishness and mediocrity of Víctor, his aunts and his grandmother; Luisa was the victim of Víctor.
—32→The entire family is characterized as cats or tigers with the ironic significance previously mentioned. Luisito is a saint because he is the innocent victim of the physical, mental, and moral deficiencies of his family of cats and because he is the voice of truth in the novel. Like his grandfather, he is a brave but toothless tiger; from the beginning of the novel he fights when his schoolmates taunt him with the reality of his unhappy inheritance. He also has the role of divine reveler in this work; not divine in a supernatural sense but rather in virtue of his impartial revelation of truths known to other characters but which they cannot or will not admit to themselves.
* * *
In apposition to the saintly symbolism of Luisito, however, is the diabolical depiction of his father, Víctor. In Miau as in other works of Spanish literature, the devil seems to be essentially a fallen angel who retains some of the luster of his former angelical state in the form of physical beauty. Villaamil says of him: «Para hacerle más temible, Dios, que ha hecho tan hermosos a algunos animales dañinos, le dio a éste el mirar dulce, el sonreir tierno y aquella parla con que engaña a los que no le conocen, para atontarlos, fascinarlos y comérselos después...» (V, 621). Víctor is also described at various moments as «Mefistófeles» (V, 581) and «alma que lleva Satanás.» (V, 621) To understand Víctor's relationship to Villaamil we must compare his actuation with Luisito's. Whereas the angelic, saintly Luis could observe reality and communicate truths to his grandfather, Víctor, symbolically the devil, tells don Ramón the truth on numerous occasions but is never believed (V, 650). At the novel's conclusion, when he hears from the innocent Luis what in essence is the same information given by Víctor earlier, he recognizes it as the truth.
Many interpreters of Miau have examined Víctor's role mainly in the context of political and literary themes: Víctor, the naturalist anti-hero, who sees the state as booty to be exploited and life as a battle for the survival of the fittest, as opposed to Villaamil, who considers man to be the servant of the State, an institution which paternally rewards its workers for their services (V, 581-82). There are, however, other levels on which Víctor's role may be evaluated, the most important one being the psychological; without considering this factor, Cadalso's actuation becomes fundamentally inexplicable.25 Galdós soon establishes the psychic reason for Víctor's exaggerated sense of competitiveness: he suffers from a very developed inferiority complex. Like many such mental states, Víctor's manifests itself in constant affirmations of superiority (V, 582).
The reader of Miau must inevitably explain why Galdós' villain bothers to seduce the homely Abelarda when there seems to be no material benefit in doing so. The answer lies in Víctor's self-proclaimed jealousy and need for attention (V, 605). Although the general world does not seem to hold him in esteem, at least one character does: Abelarda. It is precisely because she recognizes his superiority that Víctor takes an interest in the insignificant, stupid girl (V, 594). He has an extreme need for recognition and attention and when these are not forthcoming, he feels compelled to destroy those who fail to acknowledge his superior qualities (V, 594).
If we are tempted to believe that Galdós in any sense seeks to criticize Villaamil for the sin of despair, we should not ignore the fact that the chief exponent of the necessity for will in the face of adversity is the naturalistic Víctor (V, 599). We may —33→ conclude, then, that his role in the total fabric of the story is to serve as the symbolic embodiment of deceit in this world, just as Luis' is to exemplify innocence and truth. Structurally, the juxtaposition of the two characters explains why Villaamil chooses the path of suicide. The voice of innocence helps him to realize that he has no place in the world because the bureaucracy to which his life is unavoidably tied is in the hands of Spain's Víctors, symbols of self-interest, evil, and corruption.
Another salient example of a psychological portrait is that of Abelarda. At the root of her problems, too, is a deeply ingrained feeling of inferiority (V, 595). To underline her abnormality, Galdós reveals that she is seemingly anxious to replace her dead sister Luisa in Víctor's affections. As in Villaamil's case, she has a childlike nature. The author demonstrates this in a remarkable technique he devises, juxtaposing Abelarda's dreams with those of the child, Luisito, showing by contrast that the infantile fantasy of the nephew is matched by that of the aunt (V, 625).
Despite her awareness of Víctor's insincerity, she allows him to seduce her. She cherishes the hope that he will marry her because evil or not, she sees in a liaison with him of any kind, the only manner of rising above the level of mediocrity which is her nature and destiny. In this connection, it is important to weigh Villaamil's conduct with his daughter's. On various occasions and amidst his states of insanity, Villaamil recognizes Víctor's intentions. But Abelarda, even after Víctor has spoken against her father and ruined his last chance of being reemployed, says: «No; lo que es de malo no tiene nada. No lo creeré, dígalo quien lo diga.» (V, 600)
When Víctor cruelly abandons Abelarda after using her to assuage his need for ego building, she is overtaken by a fit of insanity in which she avenges herself upon the most innocent object available: Luisito (V, 644). As she attacks the defenseless child, Galdós describes her as Villaamil was often presented to underline his mental condition, «rechinando los dientes.» (V, 644) The difference between father and daughter, however, is underscored by the fact that whereas Villaamil is often aware of his mental state and laments the extent to which he has degenerated, when the attack on Luisito has subsided, Abelarda does not even remember having done anything (V, 667).
There are two others who are dynamically inmeshed in Villaamil's story: Quintina and Federico Ruiz. Since it is to Quintina and her husband Ildefonso Cabrera that Luisito is ultimately entrusted, and because the other cesante of Miau, Ruiz, reacts very differently to his unemployment than does Villaamil, there is a temptation to interpret the novel as a satire of the negative milieu of the Miaus in contrast with the positive middle class values of the Cabrera and Ruiz families. If we examine all allusions to Quintina, although there are not many, we find that she and Ildefonso are subjected to a process of humorous, ironic portraiture and to a degree of psychological analysis ignored by most critics. Like certain of Galdós' feminine characters, notably Maria Egipciaca in La familia de León Roch, Jacinta in Fortunata y Jacinta and doña, Juana de Samaniego in Casandra, Quintina's personality is shaped by the fact that she is barren (V, 667). Her passion for becoming Luisito's guardian is explained by her childless condition, but what is most significant is that her rationale for taking him from his grandparents and her methods of doing so are steeped in materialism (V, 592).
Critics have noted that the Cabreras seem to be religious skeptics, an attitude which may have represented Galdós' feelings, but we must not overlook the reality that they also embody characteristics of extreme materialism, something the writer criticized —34→ in nearly all his works. Our first view of this family is one in which it is revealed that the chief obstacle to their assumption of Luis' foster-parenthood is Ildefonso's quibbling over the inheritance of an insignificant property; Galdós' desire to add irony to the situation is seen in Cabrera's action of turning his lawsuit over to the Church, which soon compiles mountains of paper on the matter (V, 591).
It is important that we contrast the Cabrera's values with Villaamil's. The old man, insane or not, believes in governmental honesty, whereas the Cabrera's industriousness, like Víctor's, consists in large measure of taking advantage of position, influence, and graft (V, 592-93). A consideration for material objects, the religious relics of which Quintina speaks every time she sees Luis, is what attracts the boy to their home (V, 635), and in his conversations with God, products of his conscious experience, we see this as the open motivation for his interest in them (V, 670). Like Juliana in Galdós' Misericordia, Quintina is thrifty, hardworking, and has active maternal instincts. But also like Juliana, she is in a very basic way ungenerous, and her chief values seem to be materialistic. It is not a moment of triumph for Progress and Reason when poor Villaamil passes the tutelage of Luis from his compassionate hands to the materialistic and uncharitable Cabreras.
Finally, in Galdós' delineation of Federico Ruiz, we see why the latter's seemingly positive reaction to his unemployment is contrasted with Villaamil's comportment. Ruiz is presented as a kind of ridiculous arbitrista satirized by Pérez Galdós in almost every novel he wrote. He has all kinds of fantastic, exotic solutions for the nation's problems (V, 571). Along with Pura and innumerable other Galdosian characters, Ruiz tries to lose himself in an imaginary world of literature, writing plays or acting in them, in order to demonstrate such notions as the inevitable triumph of the poor over the rich (V, 571).
When we compare Ruiz and Villaamil in their respective periods of unemployment, we must not forget the psychological motivation for the old man's actions. In juxtaposition to Villaamil's despair, we see an eternal optimism on Ruiz' part, but we cannot overlook the fact that Federico's plans for the day he is reemployed are always absurd (V, 572). Not coincidentally, when he finally receives a government commission, he is also accorded the following singular honor: «Era nada menos que el diploma de una sociedad portuguesa cuyo objeto es enaltecer a los que realizan actos heroicos en los incendios y también a los que propagan por escrito las mejores teorías sobre este útil servicio.» (V, 663) If there is any purpose for the contrast between Ruiz and Villaamil, it must be to demonstrate the absurdity of the entire bureaucratic world as many Galdosian scholars have suggested. In view of what Ruiz stands for, Villaamil would seem to be justified in despairing upon seeing the useless Federico rehired by the government.
* * *
Having examined elements of Miau which might lead to a comprehensive interpretation of its meaning, I must reiterate one central contention: that Villaamil is at the center of human interest here and that a study of the motivation of his conduct leads to the conclusion that what most concerns the author is the effect of Spanish society on this man.
One of Robert Weber's conclusions in his examinaton of the novel is of special interest in our consideration of Villaamil: «Galdós, I think, presents evil as a —35→ circumstance of existence to be recognized and fought by the individual. There is no panacea, whether embodied in an income tax or in a hypocritical identification with any system -political, religious or social.»26 Although I agree entirely with this interpretation of Galdós' general ideas, it must not be forgotten that don Ramón's reliance on systems is intimately entwined with his personality and the unhappy developments of his life. When he finally comes to realize the error of his faith in systems, it is too late to do anything about it; he is an empty, tired, old man. I have endeavered to show that incompetence is not what leads to the undoing of the protagonist and that, indeed, it is possible for Galdós to ridicule Villaamil's income tax panacea without condemning the old man himself. I believe Galdós employs the ironic, humorous cat-tiger symbolism to ridicule Villaamil's error, the belief in panaceas and systematic solutions to human problems, but in other instances studied above, chiefly the Christ and thief symbolisms, a sympathetic note accompanies the irony.
Miau is Villaamil's story, but to understand it we must comprehend the purpose of the others in the work. We have seen that one of the roles of the «others» is to establish a world of contradictory appearances and seeming absurdity through the multiplicity and ambiguity of points of view regarding the novel's events. But more important than the uncertainty, irony, and macabre humor which are created by the internal contradictions implicit in the portraiture of the personages is the contrast between Villaamil and the secondary characters. It is in the comparison of adjustments to their world of the protagonist and the others that we come finally to the meaning of Miau. Understood in this way, even the seemingly digressive episodes involving Víctor and Abelarda acquire a direct relationship to the novel's central theme.
In contrast to Villaamil's conformity to his values of honesty and responsibility, we see the actuation of Víctor and Abelarda. Víctor represents a basically insecure personality who adjusts to society by attacking it and seeking to triumph over all obstacles to his success. He, rather than the suicidal Villaamil, is the embodiment of excessive self-concern in Miau. The old man's concern for others even in the face of insurmountable problems and intense psychic pressures, is in direct apposition to the truly excessive self-concern demonstrated by Abelarda. The chief difference between father and daughter is that in her psychically tense moments, Abelarda endeavors to carry out her threats of destruction; she tries to kill Luisito. Villaamil, on the other hand, never harms a living thing but himself. Rather, caught up in a consciousness of his own madness and the impossibility of adjusting to the realities of the absurd world in which he lives, he takes only his own life. Furthermore, even amidst his final insane moments, his last notions before pulling the trigger concern his preoccupation that his family be provided for after his demise (V, 676).
We see a similar juxtaposition of the Cabreras and Villaamil. The chief difference in this contrast, however, is that in the adjustment to their role in a corrupt society the Cabreras do not manifest characteristics of agression towards others as do Víctor and Abelarda. It is for this reason that having decided to end his life, Villaamil entrusts Luis to them. They are not ideal but they are better than any of the others in whose care the boy might be placed. Federico Ruiz serves as a foil to Villaamil's agonic struggle to adjust to society. In this instance the contrastive adjustment is not accomplished through dishonesty or agression but through the adherence to an absurd notion of human activity.
If, as I have tried to indicate, the old man may be considered to be at least in part a victim, we are still faced with the problem of explaining the ironic, humorous —36→ manner in which his suicide is treated. Northrop Frye, in a study proposing a fivepart method of viewing the development and types of novels, provides us with a useful clue concerning Galdós' novel. His fourth type in particular, ironic comedy, has a direct bearing on the problem of evaluating Miau's meaning. Frye writes of «an ironic comedy addressed to the people who can realize that murderous violence is less an attack on a virtuous society by a malignant individual than a symptom of that society's own viciousness.»27 We may perhaps logically conclude that in portraying Villaamil in a humorous, ironic manner, the novelist does not wish to attack Villaamil categorically but rather to underline in typically Galdosian fashion the reason for his extravagant comportment: the immorality, inhumanity, and absurdity of the entire fabric of Spanish society at that time. Villaamil's «murderous violence» is directed against himself, but it underscores Galdós' attack on his society.
With this idea in mind, the final meaning of Miau, including the title, the ironic symbolism, and comprehension of the protagonist, may best be understood by examining the term miau itself. In addition to two literary sources mentioned by Robert Weber, there is also the meaning of a popular usage of the word in the Spanish language.28 José María Iribarren includes the term miau in his book, El porqué de los dichos, stating: «El diccionario sólo incluye esta voz como 'onomatopeya del maúllo del gato.' Sin embargo, tiene mucho uso en la conversación familiar y en el habla vulgar como interjección negativa, con el mismo sentido que las expresiones 'eso es mentira,' '¡qué te crees tú eso!', 'no me vengas con tonterías,' etc.»29
It is reasonable to suppose that the term, with the meaning Iribarren cites, was present in the Spanish language of the streets of Madrid in Galdós' days. Whether the novelist found this motif in the oral tradition of the capital or whether he was original is of little consequence; the important point is that he uses the miau symbolism in this novel in the manner of the popular usage. One clear instance in which we see the motif in operation is in the scene where Luisito is insulted by his schoolmate Posturitas:
| (V, 575) | ||
The expression miau is employed here as a strong oath of defiance on the part of Posturitas towards Luisito.
I believe this interpretation of the term may be profitably related to Villaamil's ultimate defiance of a society in which he can find no place. Having been driven insane by his family and the government system, the old man says miau not only to that society and those people who have so tormented him, but also to the extravagant ideas, products of that society and of his mental illness, that he had forged for himself and by which he tried so hard to live. The symbolism, irony, and humor which artistically shape this ultimate exclamation of defiance underscore the absurdity of the world in which Villaamil resides and have a double purpose: on the one hand they emphasize ironically Villaamil's error in seeking miraculous panaceas to national and personal problems; on the other, they stress sympathetically that in his old age and weakened condition, Villaamil can find no other solution but suicide.
—37→Like Cervantes' masterpiece before it, Miau is constructed with a conscious process of ambiguity, irony, shifting levels of appearances and reality, and above all, with a sense of comedy. Several generations passed before readers and critics realized that Don Quijote de la Mancha was in fact a tragicomedy; the complexity of intention encompassed in Galdós' novel Miau has not been easily comprehended either.