ABSTRACT
Presence/absence of money pervades (and arguably determines) nineteenth- and early twentieth-century realist novels: they not only register the effects of unprecedented economic growth under the industrial revolution; they also contest certain laws of that growth predicated by contemporary treatises of Political Economy. Political economists conceive only of a strictly rational consumer of luxuries, guided by unalterable mathematical equations. Realist novelists portray irrational consumers and financiers, motivated by the individual’s misguiding whims and desires. Doña Berta recounts the gender-bent vicissitudes of a transition from ancien régime economics to modern capitalism. La febre d’or and Torquemada dwell on the shortcomings of the modern financier’s (de)formation. Los Pazos de Ulloa traces the roots of modern evils to the ploys of a quintessential financier. La desheredada and La de Bringas trail insatiable female consumers (their deeds and debts) to expose a passion for luxury, especially in fashionable dresses, intricately tied to women’s bodies and their beauty, as objects of conspicuous consumption. Misericordia is a novel of strict necessity, with mendicancy as the only means of a compassionate old servant to provide survival food for her master’s family; until the master inherits money, luxury reappears, and the merciful old beggar is superseded.
