ABSTRACT
In this monograph, the first single-study of Grandes’ postmillennial novels, I have analysed previously unacknowledged, but hugely significant, themes in her work, while also proffering new interpretations of the much-studied theme of Republican victimhood. The basic thesis that I have presented in this book has been that Grandes memorialises an expansive memory that not only takes into account the intricacies of gender and perpetrator memory but also reconceptualises the Republican victim who is transformed into a striving subject who seeks to obtain the pre-requisites of eudaimonia in order to flourish in inimical circumstances. I demonstrated that her memorialisation of the Spanish Civil War and the Franco dictatorship is more complex than an unequivocal advocacy of Republican memory, as she memorialises the gender memory of the first third of the twentieth century (Las tres bodas de Manolita); the memory of female exile (Inés y la alegría); perpetrator memory (El corazón helado, El lector de Julio Verne, Las tres bodas de Manolita, and Los pacientes del doctor García): and multidirectional memory (Los pacientes del doctor García). When considered within these new conceptual frameworks, Grandes’ much-studied memorialisation of the Spanish Civil War and Franco dictatorship cannot be reduced to a schismatic revindication of an adamantly Republican stance; on the contrary, it demonstrates the variation that exists in her representation of both perpetrator and victim memories. As such, this monograph presents a more comprehensive insight into the authoress, deepening public and academic understanding of her work More widely, my analysis has demonstrated that cultural perpetrator memory in Spain is a well-developed genre that can make a significant contribution to the European canon of cultural perpetrator memory. This monograph has demonstrated the reductionism in viewing perpetrator memory as being solely based on domination and submission by revealing new insights that redefine it as an affective, gendered and relational phenomenon. In moving away from stereotypical visions of the beleaguered victim, it proffers a vision of a victim who is both vulnerable and resilient, thereby challenging the inordinate emphasis on trauma in studies of victimhood.
