Marginal Subjects

Late nineteenth-century Spanish fiction is populated by adulteresses, prostitutes, seduced women, and emasculated men - indicating an almost obsessive interest in gender deviance. In Marginal Subjects, Akiko Tsuchiya shows how the figure of the deviant womanand her counterpart, the feminized man - revealed the ambivalence of literary writers towards new methods of social control in Restoration Spain. Focusing on works by major realist authors such as Benito Prez Galds, Emilia Pardo Bazn, and Leopoldo Alas (Clarn), as well as popular novelists like Eduardo Lpez Bago, Marginal Subjects argues that these archetypes were used to channel collective anxieties about sexuality, class, race, and nation. Tsuchiya also draws on medical and anthropological texts and illustrated periodicals to locate literary works within larger cultural debates. Marginal Subjects is a riveting exploration of why realist and naturalist narratives were so invested in representing gender deviance in fin-de-sicle Spain.