ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses a significant critical gap in Carmen de Burgos Studies by focusing on happiness and its main symbol in popular culture, the happy ending. It also discusses the social function and political value of popular culture, in particular the symbolic role played by fictional feminists. Mass culture invites the reader of whatever sex to respond in a feminine fashion, encouraging the emotional identification that is necessary for a cultural product to affect the identity formation of its consumers. La entrometida is a minor masterpiece in the work of Burgos, not only because it is a tour de force through feminist debates, but more importantly, because it depicts the trials and tribulations of a first-wave feminist. Feminists throughout the centuries have shown how women's desires and needs have so often been conveniently forgotten by patriarchy, which instead has convinced women that their happiness lies in that of others and therefore in female self-abnegation.
