Benito Pérez Galdós: A Deep Dive into His Literary Works

Posted on Feb 25, 2025 in English Studies

• In Doña Perfecta, Galdós studies the fictional city of Orbajosa, steeped in a close-minded tradition of inaction. Progressive engineer Pepe Rey, naively planning to marry Doña Perfecta, the woman who gives the book its title, finds himself entangled in a series of intrigues orchestrated by the city’s reactionary clergy. The play ends tragically.

• Marianela tells the story of a poor, deformed, and blind orphan who falls in love with the young bourgeois man she guides. Set in a mining town, the narrative explores their relationship and the impact of science when he regains his sight. The play concludes tragically.

• Fortunata and Jacinta, a realistic novel, centers on the love triangle between two women of different social classes and Juan Santa Cruz, a wealthy man. Jacinta, his sterile, upper-class wife, eventually marries Santa Cruz and adopts the child he fathered with Fortunata, a woman of lower social standing. A secondary character, the usurer Torquemada, features in four other Galdós works: Torquemada en la hoguera, Torquemada en la cruz, Torquemada en el purgatorio, and Torquemada y San Pedro.

• Several of Galdós’s novels grapple with religious themes. While Doña Perfecta showcases Galdós’s anti-clerical stance and the provincial conservative hostility towards modern ideas, Angel Guerra and, especially, Nazarin reveal a deep Christian sentiment, albeit one at odds with the Church’s temporal and social commitments.

• Miau chronicles the struggles of a Treasury official who, after losing his job, clings to hope while his family desperately maintains a facade of well-being. Misericordia delves into Madrid’s lower classes, contrasting them with the well-off but declining. It features two compelling characters: Benina, a blind Moorish woman, and Almudena, a maid who embodies charity. Other notable novels include Tormento, exploring the conflict between imagination and reality, and La Desheredada, which examines the tension between personal destiny and societal constraints.

• Galdós also wrote for the theater, sometimes revisiting themes from his novels, as in El Abuelo. Some of his plays achieved considerable popularity.

Verb Conjugation of “Agarrar” (To Grab)