Subversive Seduction: Darwin, Sexual Selection, and the Spanish Novel

6. Heirs and Errors—Benito Pérez Galdós

156 c h a p t e r si x Heirs and Errors— Benito Pérez Galdós With this, the final chapter of part 2, the outcomes, or “heirs and errors,” of Darwinian sexual selection become the focus. As nebulous as it is troublesome for Darwin, heredity raises unique concerns in The Descent. Without genetic science, he must conjecture on a wide range of potential problems, from degenerative reversions to disadvantageous reproductive practices among the various social classes, and at one point even resorts to the “hypothesis of pangenesis , whether or not it be true” to explain the transmission of traits from one generation to the next according to which “every unit or cell of the body throws off gemmules or undeveloped atoms” to the offspring of both sexes (The Descent, 1:280).1 Such imaginative imprecision mirrors analogous liberties in literature during the same period, and in the case of Benito Pérez Galdós, Spain’s most iconic realist, the enigmatic laws of inheritance reflect the indeterminate course of a nation, its people, and the novel itself. Given the title of Galdós’s La desheredada (1881), interest in the novel’s use of heredity is to be expected, whether as a tableau for characterization, a key to the social stratification of nineteenth-century Spain, or any number of like readings.2 Yet there is also unique synergy between this work by Galdós and The Descent, and neither evolutionary science nor Galdosian realism is clear-cut with respect to the overlap between the two. Indeed, no feature of the realist novel enjoys the infamous reputation of heredity in equal measure, since the representation of characters determined by birth undercuts free will to the extent that their behavior is shown to be conditioned by Heirs and Errors—Benito Pérez Galdós 157 the family line rather than personal volition. Nevertheless, unresolved issues of agency in Galdós’s fiction, particularly with respect to his female protagonists, reflect Darwin’s own ambivalent appeals to the imagination for his substantiation of the laws of inheritance. The theory of sexual selection, in addition, brings to the fore social anxieties about heredity, namely, that reproductive errors resulting from unfavorable matches will have far-reaching consequences for the welfare of the community. Darwinian sexual selection thus points to why Galdós, from a cultural standpoint, would take up disinheritance as a central problem; the plight of Spain, in moral and political disarray during the Restoration, cannot be divorced from the patriarchal limitations placed on female choice as Darwin understood it in evolutionary terms. By the same token, Darwin’s own preoccupations about heredity remain only partially intelligible absent the type of reformist ideology promoted by Galdós in fiction concerned with the ugly realities of the day. His writing is charged with political significance that operates in tandem with his push toward the novelistic innovations one finds in La desheredada, which delivers a host of destabilizing narrative approaches, including dramatic dialogue, second-person framing , and free indirect discourse. Moreover, the ambiguities of The Descent regarding heredity make Darwin’s evolutionism a real question mark, and Galdós therefore constructs and later erases the identity of Isidora Rufete, the hapless protagonist of La desheredada, with an understanding that heredity of the sort is an inexact science. Her life is a tale of disillusionment, as she believes herself to have been orphaned and denied an aristocratic bloodline by mysterious circumstance . Rather than take an “inferior” husband, even if hardworking, she falls for a rake, endures abuse as the courtesan of a brutal politician , and ultimately turns to prostitution. However, her tragic flaw, the heredity hubris she never overcomes , does not translate to tragedy without difficulty; the novel warns in the end not to fly with the “false wings” of empty ambition and envy.3 In other words, since Isidora refuses to relinquish claims of noble birth, her rejection of multiple suitors and corresponding fall represent a critique of romantic idealism. Darwinian sexual selection thus at once underwrites the sentimentalism of Isidora and frames the fatalism behind her abject end. Extended to questions of genre, this tension illuminates unforeseen implications; the condemnation of illusion on the part of Galdós hides the attraction Adaptations 158 of an illusory reality. With her final renunciation of name, Isidora abolishes patriarchal lineage dependent upon the law, because pater semper incertus, and reconfigures maternal heritage on...