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Anales galdosianos [Publicaciones periódicas]. Año XII, 1977
think of the two men in comparative terms, we can now see that they are, in fact, variations on a single
character configuration that recurs in Galdós' work. The structuralistic: resonances of such an insight
can then lead us to group other characters in the novelas contemporáneas as multiple incarnations
of a single actant . 109
When, with his first words, Manso claims « Yo no existo » (9) and shortly thereafter « carezco de
buena barba » (12) 110 , the metaphoric elaboration of his name begins, just as the ramifications of
the word Miau begin their growth in Chapter I of that novel and by the end have branched out into the
entire world of the work, taking on more and more meaning with each new use. Leaving aside, for the
moment, the narrator's relationship to the novel's creator, it is illuminating to note that the character's
novelistic «life» begins when, for the first time, he ceases being a philosopher. He leaves his vida
sosegada ( sosegada = mansa ) for the purpose of attempting a direct and personal impact on society
through his pupil Manuel (= «God with us»). Very shortly, with the arrival of José María Manso
and family from Cuba, the spatial focus of the novel moves to that household, to remain there until
sosiego returns after the marriage of Manuel and Irene. It is typical of Galdós' novelistic structures
for the action to begin with the introduction of an agent of change into the central character's life, his
or her true nature being a given which the author tells us about but does not dramatize. The action
of the work then portrays the character struggling to achieve what will be seen as impossible, either
because of his own true nature or that of society -or a combination of the two. We are not shown
109 The term is that of A. J. Greimas in his Sémantique structurale (Paris, 1966) and is discussed in
Frederic Jameson's The Prison-House of Language (Princeton, 1972), pp. 123-129. Although separate
attempts have been made to relate both Máximo and Maximiliano to Galdós' personal life (without
seeing a relationship between the two characters) such possibilities would not seem to relate to the
concerns of the present study. (See Walter T. Pattison, « El amigo Manso and El amigo Galdós »,
Anales Galdosianos , II, (1967), 135-153, and J. C. Ullman and G. H. Allison, «Galdós as Psychiatrist
in Fortunata y Jacinta », Anales Galdosianos , IX, (1974), 7-36.
110 Suggestive evidence that Galdós intends this statement to relate to mansedumbre (lack of virility,
vital force) can be found in his El caballero encantado (Chapter 3) when the following words, with a
contrary intent, are said of the father of the Infantes de Lara: « Eso es un hombre, eso es un caballero,
un español de cuerpo entero y con toda la barba ». ( Obras completas , ed. F. C. Sáinz de Robles,
2nd ed. (Madrid: Aguilar, 1951), VI, p. 230). The novelist is, of course, using a traditional symbolism
already prominent in the Poema de mío Cid .
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