Galdós - Amazon Web Services

Anales galdosianos [Publicaciones periódicas]. Año XII, 1977
anything, therefore, it is surely an overdose of pathos. Moreover, is it entirely true to say that Galdós
attacks Don José's dignity as a person? The hostile, dehumanising stance implicit in such a procedure
is surely contradicted, to take but one example, by the manifest sympathy and compassion which
Galdós shows towards his character at the latter's death. The reality is that Galdós' portrait of Don
José is much more finely balanced than this criticism would tend to suggest.
Galdós portrays Don José, as he portrays Isidora, in a fundamentally dualistic manner -a dualism
neatly expressed in the initial description of Don José, when Galdós tells
Era el hombre mejor del mundo. Era un hombre que no servía para nada.
(p. 123)
Don José's character is made up of two conflicting strands: on the one hand, his uselessness,
ridiculousness and inadequacy, and, on the other, certain more positive qualities, among which
inoffensiveness and selflessness occupy a prominent position. The same dualism characterises his
relationship with Isidora. If his vision of himself as a kind of romantic paladin is incongruous, and
therefore ludicrous, the fact remains that Don José acts out his self-imposed role with a selflessness
and nobility which makes his dog-like devotion touching in spite of everything. There are two obvious
ways in which such a character could develop. By emphasising Don José's inadequacy -in other words
by effectively ridiculing or vilifying his character- Galdós could underscore the ludicrousness of his
illusions. Alternatively, by stressing the nobility of Don José's conduct, he could play up the pathos
inherent in his personal inadequacy. Galdós, however, eschews both of these obvious scenarios and
manages instead to strike a balance between them, pointing out the unreality of Don José's illusions
without denigrating him as a character and arousing sympathy for his positive qualities without
provoking an excess of pathos. Here Galdós' use of humour and irony is at its most effective, the
warmth and indulgence of the humour retains our sympathy for the character, while the insulating
effect of irony guards against the obvious pitfall of sentimentality, this restraint making possible the
controlled pathos of his death scene.
Don José's insanity, ostensibly a mixture of senile dementia and alcoholism, is brought on by the
burden of his frustrations, disappointments and humiliation. This much clearly recalls many of the
victims of psychological frustration in the primera época (e. g. Daniel Morton in Gloria or Martín
Muriel in El Audaz ). There is, however, a fundamental difference in the case of Don José. Characters
like Morton and Muriel are essentially social casualties whose aspirations or natural psychic drives
are thwarted by the prevailing social system or ideology and whose tragic fate, therefore, implicitly
stresses the need for a new and more fulfilling social order. The tragedy of Don José, on the other hand,
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