Open Access“Jugamos a la guerra”: Boys, Toys, and Military Masculinity in Galdós’s La desheredada
Author(s) -
Collin McKinney
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
revista canadiense de estudios hispánicos
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.1
H-Index - 6
eISSN - 2564-1662
pISSN - 0384-8167
DOI - 10.18192/rceh.v44i2.6131
Subject(s) - masculinity , tragedy (event) , militarism , problematization , representation (politics) , gender studies , storyboard , humanities , literature , history , art , sociology , visual arts , political science , law , politics
In the sixth chapter of Benito Pérez Galdós’s La desheredada, we find children at play in an impoverished neighborhood of Madrid. But what at first glance appears to be a simple representation of boys playing war is, upon closer inspection, a problematization of Spanish masculinity. This article suggests that the concepts of militarism and masculinity were synonymous throughout the second half of the nineteenth century. Galdós, however, critiques this conflation by converting the children’s game into a tragedy.