LO MONSTRUOSO EN DOS NOVELAS CONTEMPORÁNEAS: UNA ...

en brindar, a través de falsas ilusiones, satisfacción a ciertos deseos y necesidades
infantiles.
Psychoanalysis has made us aware of the intimate connection between
the father-complex and belief in God; it has showed that,
psychologically, the personal God is nothing other than an exalted father,
. . . We thus recognize that the need for religion has its roots in the
parental complex: the almighty, just God and kindly Nature appear to us
as grandiose sublimations of father and mother, or rather as renewals and
restorations of the young child’s images of them. In biological terms,
religiosity can be traced back to the small child’s prolonged helplessness
and the need of help; later, having realized how forlorn and powerless he
really is in the face of great forces of life, he feels that his situation is
much the same as it was in his infancy, and he seeks to deny its
wretchedness by the regressive revival of the forces that protected him
then. (Leonardo Da Vinci and a Memory of his Childhood 94)
Ahora sigamos el rastro de estas ideas sobre la religión en la novela. Uno de los
discípulos más próximos del Consejero, el ex comerciante AntonioVilanova, le explica
al Beatito lo que le inspira el líder religioso: “Yo vivía agitado, con los nervios a punto
de romperse y la sensación de que mi cabeza iba a estallar. Ahora, basta saber que está
cerca para sentir una serenidad que nunca tuve. Es un bálsamo, Beatito” (230). En otro
95