‘Discuss Ana María Matute’s Use of Childrens’ Perspective to Comment on the Adult World’
‘Discuss Ana María Matute’s use of childrens’ perspective to comment on the adult world’
Ana María Matute is one of the greatest contemporary Spanish novelist and short story writers that survived and experienced the Spanish civil war living through the horrors and the repression of Franco’s dictatorship. Known for her critical approach against Franco regime she used many of her writings to protest against oppression, prejudice and hypocrisy-a reaction to her own experience of the civil war. The beginning of her literary career emerged in 1940s, in a period when the literary censorship has been a major issue for Spanish writers. Matute was part of a ‘wounded generation’ as she describes the times when the literary censorship was tough ‘Our generation grew without writers to emulate….Dostoevsky was forbidden, as were Balzac and Ana Karenina’ . Ana María was born in Barcelona in 1926, the second of five children, in a conservative middle class family. Her father owned a business and because of this she had to spend a fair amount of her time during her childhood between Madrid and Barcelona. The civil war broke out when she was ten and the childhood experiences of the war and her own marginal, outsider status-‘she was feeling herself an outsider both in Madrid, where she was “la catalana”, and in Barcelona, she was “la castellana”-deeply affected her writings, generating feelings of loneliness, sadness and isolation. This influence can be observed in the anthology Historias de la Artamila published in 1961, a collection based on her experiences living with her grandparents. This collection of short stories is basically a book of return to infancy and it is counted as it is seen through the eyes of a girl, Matute herself. Most of the protagonists of Matute are children or adolescents whose ability to dream and to flee from reality is contrasted to cruelty and incapability of adults to understand them, as the author reveals ‘cuando escribes para niños no tienes
Ana María Matute is one of the greatest contemporary Spanish novelist and short story writers that survived and experienced the Spanish civil war living through the horrors and the repression of Franco’s dictatorship. Known for her critical approach against Franco regime she used many of her writings to protest against oppression, prejudice and hypocrisy-a reaction to her own experience of the civil war. The beginning of her literary career emerged in 1940s, in a period when the literary censorship has been a major issue for Spanish writers. Matute was part of a ‘wounded generation’ as she describes the times when the literary censorship was tough ‘Our generation grew without writers to emulate….Dostoevsky was forbidden, as were Balzac and Ana Karenina’ . Ana María was born in Barcelona in 1926, the second of five children, in a conservative middle class family. Her father owned a business and because of this she had to spend a fair amount of her time during her childhood between Madrid and Barcelona. The civil war broke out when she was ten and the childhood experiences of the war and her own marginal, outsider status-‘she was feeling herself an outsider both in Madrid, where she was “la catalana”, and in Barcelona, she was “la castellana”-deeply affected her writings, generating feelings of loneliness, sadness and isolation. This influence can be observed in the anthology Historias de la Artamila published in 1961, a collection based on her experiences living with her grandparents. This collection of short stories is basically a book of return to infancy and it is counted as it is seen through the eyes of a girl, Matute herself. Most of the protagonists of Matute are children or adolescents whose ability to dream and to flee from reality is contrasted to cruelty and incapability of adults to understand them, as the author reveals ‘cuando escribes para niños no tienes
Bibliography: Primary text: Matute, Ana María, Historias de la Artamila, comentado por Alicia Redondo Goicoechea, (Barcelona: Ediciones Destino, 1997). Secondary resources: Fernández, A Michael,’ Temas bíblicos en la obra de A.M.M.: su expresión y significado’, Ann Arbor, (Michigan: University Microfilm International, 1986), in Historias de la Artamila. Pérez, Janet, ‘The Fictional World of Ana Maria Matute: Solitude, Injustice and Dreams’, in Women Writers of Contemporary Spain: Exiles in the Homeland, ed. by Joan L. Brown (London: Associated University Presses, 1991), pp.93-115. Winecoff, Janet,’ Style and Solitude in the Works of Ana Maria Matute’, Hispania, Vol.49, No.1 (Mar., 1966), pp.61-69. Wythe, George, ‘The World of Ana Maria Matute’, Books Abroad, Vol.40, No.1 (winter, 1966), pp.17-28. [ 2 ]. Ana Maria Matute, ‘A Wounded Generation’, translation by A. Gordon Ferguson, The Nation, 201(November 29, 1965), 420-440, (p.423). [ 3 ]. Janet Pérez, ‘The Fictional World of Ana Maria Matute: Solitude, Injustice and Dreams’ in Woman Writers of Contemporary Spain. Exiles in the Homeland, ed. by Joan L.Brown (London: Associated University Presses, 1991), pp.93-95. [ 6 ]. Janet Winecoff, ‘Style and Solitude in the Works of Ana Maria Matute’, Hispania, Vol.49, No.1 (Mar., 1966), pp.61-69(p.62). [ 8 ]. Ana María Matute, ‘Historias de la Artamila’, comentado por Alicia Redondo Goicoechea, La chusma, (Barcelona: Ediciones Destino, 1997) p.51. [ 10 ]. George Wythe, ‘The World of Ana Maria Matute’, Books Abroad, Vol.40, No.1 (winter, 1966), pp.17-28, (p.19). [ 14 ]. Michael A. Fernández, Temas bíblicos en la obra de A.M.M.: su expresión y significado, Ann Arbor, (Michigan: University Microfilm International, 1986), p.XXXI., in Historias de la Artamila. [ 15 ]. Janet Winecoff, ‘Style and Solitude in the Works of Ana Maria Matute’, Hispania, Vol.49, No.1 (Mar., 1966), pp.61-69(p.62).