Las Buenas Chicas

Although attenuated -happily- with the passing of the years, the opposition between saint and lost woman has marked the condition of women in literature and in life since ancient times. It is a deep-rooted dichotomy between the angelic, kindly image and the perverse, dark and, above all, dangerous one embodied by the woman who deviates from the canon imposed by the society in which she lives. Based on the novels of ten Spanish women writers - Rosa Chacel, Carmen Laforet, Carmen Martín Gaite, Ana María Matute, Josefina Aldecoa, Clara Janés, Ana María Moix, Soledad Puértolas, Nuria Amat and Irene Gracia - 'Las buenas chicas' outlines some of the recurring themes that are collected in a literary genre known as novel of formation or apprenticeship, which has as its axis the moment in which one leaves childhood behind, enters the adult world and assumes a position in it. In this essay, Aranzazu Sumalla unravels with singular amenity the keys of the apprenticeship novel in Spanish narrative written by women. The central thesis is based on the idea that 'the apprenticeship novel written by women is essentially the search for a voice of its own, condemned, beforehand, to be silenced, to remain in the throat choked and unsaid'. Thus, she highlights the similarities between very different works and authors when it comes to narrating this transition to adulthood and discusses the pitfalls they have to overcome in order to project their voice in a world that is usually inhospitable, and thus reach the rank of women writers. The Good Girls' is a personal approach to the study of narrative written by women and, undoubtedly, a valuable contribution to a subject that continues to arouse the interest of those who aspire for it to be sustained in the necessary normality.