Rhetorical Self-Fashioning in Aramburu: A Contemporary Take on Cervantine Techniques

 In Cervantes’ Don Quijote (1605), Dulcinea does not participate in any dialogue, and yet still appears a vivid character as real as the other female characters who do speak in the novel. Dulcinea, a figment of others’ imaginations, forms a sharp contrast with the character of Marcela, who fashions an authoritative self through dialogue with other characters. Marcela’s self, like Dulcinea’s, is relational to others’; however, her self-fashioning frees her from the objectification of Dulcineism and instead Marcela makes herself a character that transgresses conventional narratives, both cultural and literary. Likewise, a similar rejection of Dulcineism and a desire to craft her life story through her dialectical exchanges with the rest of the characters enables Miren, a principal female character in Aramburu’s Patria (2016), to fashion a self that actively contravenes the general perspective of her son’s supposed crimes as an etarra. In this analysis, I consider the Cervantine technique of rhetorical self-fashioning in characters such as Marcela and I trace this technique in the development of the character of Miren in Aramburu’s contemporary novel, Patria. Cervantes’ Marcela inaugurates the self-fashioning character in Western fiction, which is expanded by Aramburu four-hundred years later with his female character, Miren. Like Marcela, Miren must fashion herself against a polyphony of voices, frequently male, that provide a variety of narratives shaping the events of her life. I argue that Aramburu’s character, like Cervantes’, is empowered to author her own narrative to contravene an undesired outcome. Furthermore, both female characters use dialogue to reject the common literary tendency towards Dulcineism and, through relational rhetoric, disregard conventional narratives in favor of creating their own: a remarkable choice for female characters, both then and now

Family law and "the great moral public interests" in Victorian Cape Town

In the wake of the mineral revolution, and the Cape Colony’s attainment of responsible government, Cape Town’s population doubled in the nineteenth century’s latter years. Its largely British ruling class, seeing opportunities for wealth and a greater significance in empire and world, sought to construct a social order conducive to those goals. Faced with increasing ethnic heterogeneity, gender imbalance due to the numbers of male immigrants, and frustration in combating the endemic poverty and slums, city fathers and their closest colleagues – doctors, clergy – perceived the way forward in terms not of extending rights but of moral reform. This article carries the ongoing investigation of family life and law in Cape Town through the Victorian period. It examines legal enactments and social developments where they impacted on marriage, divorce, concubinage and related matters, with particular reference to the welfare of children and those born out of wedlock

Grandparental effects on reproductive strategizing

This paper analyzes data from the household registers for two villages in the Nôbi region of central Japan in the late Edo period (1717-1869) to assess how grandparents may have affected reproductive strategizing in stem families. The particulars of the family system fostered a culturally favored set of reproductive goals, in particular, a daughter as eldest child, followed by a son (and heir), coupled with gender alternation in subsequent reproduction and overall gender balance. This reproductive strategy was generally followed during the stem phase of the domestic cycle, when one or both grandparents were present, especially when the family head was in the senior generation. By contrast, a son-first strategy was favored when childbearing began in the conjugal phase of the cycle. This suggests grandparental influence on the junior couple’s reproductive decisions in favor of the cultural ideal. I find that the senior couple’s decision to marry the heir early or late strongly affects the reproductive strategies followed by him after marriage. I show that when a grandmother is present at the onset of childbearing, especially if she is relatively young, the junior couple ends up with more offspring on average. A controlled analysis of infanticiding behavior is interpreted in terms of conjugal power and coalition formation. It appears that a grandmother gets her way only when she and her son gang up on the daughter-in-law, but such a coalition is likely only when her son dominates the conjugal relationship (which in turn reflects the grandmother’s success in binding the son tightly to her emotionally and in delaying his marriage). Otherwise, the grandmother may be shut out from reproductive decision-making by the solidary conjugal coalition.family, historical household studies, infanticide, Japan, reproductive strategies

Adoption in New Testament Times

The plight of abandoned children in ancient culture is a plight that reaches to the depths of practical Christian living. Adoptions in both Semitic and Greco-Roman were conducted in much different ways than we do now. The background and society in which these adoptions took place, particularly in New Testament times is very important to understanding first century families. Closely tied to the subject of adoption is the subject of orphans, since many of those adopted were orphans. In examining the varying approaches to adoption, it becomes apparent that the contrasts between the cultural and familial perspectives of the Semitic culture and the GrecoRoman are quite significant. These contrasts are seen rather bluntly in the area of adoption

Two Old Babylonian model contracts

This article presents the edition of a cuneiform tablet recording two Old Babylonian model contracts

Victorian domestic disorders: mental illness and nature-nurture confusion

Victorian debates about the etiology of madness are examined through a comparative study of Wilkie Collins’s The Woman in White and Charles Dickens’s Great Expectations. The Victorian era is marked by inquiry into the causes of mental illness, defined by a consideration of both heredity and environmental exposures. By combining literary analyses of Dickens’ and Collins’ novels and Victorian medical and scientific texts, this study examines how literary works reflect contemporary confusion about the origins and treatment of mental illness. Anne Catherick and Laura Fairlie of The Woman in White represent an emphasis on inherited vulnerability towards mental illness, while Great Expectations’ Miss Havisham and Estella illustrate the importance of social and circumstantial settings in the development and mental health of the individual. Gender is a considerable factor in the Victorian conceptualization of mental illness, as women are thought to be naturally more susceptible to external influence than men and therefore more prone to states of affected mental capacity. The role of the domestic sphere is considered as a protective factor and treatment model. The activation of inherited vulnerabilities through environmental exposure ultimately combines the nature and nurture theories and provides insight into a Victorian emphasis on control and surveillance of the domestic environment to which women are often confined