Fathers to a Fatherless Nation: From Abjection to Legacy in Spanish and Catalan Autobiographies after Franco

This dissertation examines the figure of the father in autobiographies published in Spain after the death of the Spanish dictator, Francisco Franco, in 1975. It analyzes how four well-known Spanish authors born in Barcelona, Carlos Barral, Juan Goytisolo, Clara Janés, and Terenci Moix, portray the figure of the father in their memoirs. I consider first and foremost the authors’ depiction of the biological father. Nonetheless, I read this father in relation to the political figurehead of Franco, who was portrayed by many as father to the Spanish nation. The four authors either blame their fathers for being an authoritarian figure in the shadow of the dictator or present him as an absent but alternative model to the singular vision of the patriarchal household promoted by the regime. I argue that these four writers question Franco’s paternity and foster other conceptions of fatherhood in the newly democratic Spain. \n\nThis dissertation addresses several interrelated questions: To what extent do real fathers collapse and step away from the ever-present figure of the Spanish dictator as a censoring father? How do father figures influence one’s own gender subjectivity and what is the relationship between fathers and the transformation of gender models during the Spanish transition to democracy? In which ways are fathers central in the construction of selfhood in autobiographical writings in general and in post-Franco Spain in particular? The close reading of these four writers illuminates the strong bonds between father figures, autobiographical writing and Oedipal narratives in the literary scene of the Spanish Transition and more broadly in the three decades following Franco’s death.\n\nDrawing from psychoanalysis, feminism and theory on autobiography, I analyze how the language, space, body, and death of the father are essential to the construction of an autobiographical self. I also contend that the reading of these authors’ melancholic state after the death of their fathers offers a new way of understanding the politics of mourning in Spain. These authors’ considerations of the figure of the father illustrate divergent attempts to deal with desired and undesired legacies of Franco’s dictatorship and, in this sense, this dissertation establishes a dialogue with current debates about memory, generational replacement, and the politics of inheritance and legacy in Spain.

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