Female Objectification in Two Short Stories by Emilia Pardo Bazán

In two short stories by the canonical author Emilia Pardo Bazán, “Primer amor” and “La argolla” we find a double-voiced discourse, which Elaine Showalter has suggested is very common in women’s fiction (1981: 204). In both of Pardo Bazán’s tales there are small objects that symbolically allude to women’s objectification in the patriarchal society of the time. The dialogue created between these two tales is noteworthy for a number of reasons, including their critical portrayals of romantic relationships, their symbolism, descriptive language and the narrative techniques employed. In this study I posit that both tales critique the objectification of women by the patriarchal society of the time by linking society’s tendency to objectify women with symbolic references to confinement.