Title: Romulo Gallegos's 'Dona Barbara': toward a radical reading Author(s): Claudette Rosegreen-Williams Source: Symposium. 46.

4 (Winter 1993): p279. From Literature Resource Center. Document Type: Article Bookmark: Bookmark this Document IN THE HISTORIOGRAPHY OF SPANISH AMERICAN LITERATURE, Romulo Gallegos's Dona Barbara has been canonized as one of the great novels of this century. Its appearance in 1929 was greeted with critical acclaim almost equal to that accorded the novels of the Boom of the 1960s. It is still regarded as Gallegos's most outstanding work and one of Spanish America's best regionalist novels. As recently as 1979, at the XIX Congreso Internacional de Literatura Iberoamericana held in Caracas, the dominant critical response was vindication and celebration of the Gallegan masterpiece. Although the theme of this conference was "Relectura de Romulo Gallegos," the majority of the reappraisals of Dona Barbara mainly reconfirmed its original critical reception. Dona Barbara is a work of social, cultural, and aesthetic import. It was one expression of Spanish American nationalism of the 1920s, and it evinces the leading intellectual role assumed by the educated elite and their desire to correct the ills of their societies. In addition, it reflects a movement among writers of the first half of this century to represent American reality in its own terms and to define an American identity. The focus of novels such as Dona Barbara bespeaks the regionalist reaction against the Modernist ethos, particularly against its deliberate avoidance of American themes and its cosmopolitan orientation. Not only did it fill a cultural vacuum, but Dona Barbara also made a clear optimistic prediction about the great future of a new Venezuela, which would be ushered in by the triumph of the forces of progress over the prevailing lawlessness and primitivism. Its graphic realism is one of the most frequently noted features of the novel in addition to its compelling story line, its human interest, and brilliant descriptions. From both the thematic and aesthetic perspectives, it is said to mark the coming of age of the Spanish American novel, a fact that is reflected in its largely favorable international critical recognition. Although it is important to stress the positive achievement that it signified (and still signifies), it must also be noted that there are levels of meaning that have tended to be overlooked in the predominantly appreciative readings of this novel. These meanings can be released by a more radical reading than the novel has received so far. Contemporary critical theory is demonstrating increasingly the unstable nature of literary values, thus undermining the foundations of absolutist designations such as "classic works" or "great works of timeless value. " The new interpretative possibilities that have been opened by recent deconstructive critical practices allow us to submit to a more skeptical kind of critical enquiry many of the works of the Spanish American literary canon. By viewing meaning as what is constructed in the act of reading (i.e., by a reader who reads from a specific position) rather than what the author intends or something inherent in the text, new dimensions may be apprehended in a novel such as Dona Barbara that hitherto might have appeared to have been exhausted by more traditional critical approaches.

With the rise of the new Spanish American novel and the bedazzlement of the Boom (since the 1950s), the value and meaning of Dona Barbara and other Regionalist narratives of the 1920s have been reassessed by critics and writers alike.1 From the vantage point of the transgressive aesthetic of the New Novel, the recent criticism of these earlier narratives has pointed to their technical deficiencies, lack of subtlety, schematicism, superficiality and didacticism, etc. Although Dona Barbara may be seen to escape such damning judgments, there are certain facets of its thesis that are disquieting to the skeptical reader. In a recent reexamination of the novel, Carlos Alonso demonstrates convincingly that the overuse of allegory is a strategy by which the author seeks to limit the novel to a single interpretation. An important suggestion in Alonso's essay is that this is a preemptive procedure betraying the author's awareness that there are other meanings that may be uncovered in the text.(2) The validity of Alonso's assertion has been demonstrated by Sharon Magnarelli, whose feminist critique of the work has foregrounded some of the meanings (male/female oppositions, equation of woman and nature) that are submerged under the civilization/barbarism paradigm.(3) In the various reassessments of Dona Barbara, its ideological dimension has been alluded to either tangentially or in passing.(4) Most traditional critical commentaries have either accepted the ideological position from which the novel is written or have treated it as ideologically neutral. The illusion of transparent realism created by the novel, and noted repeatedly by critics, contributes in no small measure to this tendency. This essay will explore some of the effects of the limitation of the interpretation of the novel and, by foregrounding some of the ideological undergirdings of its thesis, demonstrate the plurality of meanings that it can accommodate. By resisting complicity with the author's ideology, this analysis will seek to release the novel's suppressed meanings from the dominance of the overarching concepts of civilization and barbarism. My primary aim is to draw attention to the complex web of assumptions about race, class, and gender that have shaped these two concepts. Catherine Belsey's definition of ideology may be usefully invoked as a framework for the evaluation of the authorial stance in this novel: Ideology obscures the real conditions of existence by presenting partial truths. It is a set of omissions, gaps rather than lies, smoothing over contradictions, appearing to provide answers to questions which in reality it evades, and masquerading as coherence in the interests of the social relations generated by and necessary to the reproduction of the existing mode of production.(5) The coherence which Gallegos seeks to impose on Dona Barbara resides primarily in his attempt to reduce the national

problem to the dialectic of barbarism and civilization. Rarely has a Spanish American novel orchestrated character, events, and literary devices so organically to ensure that the reader see only one meaning in the work. Barbarism describes Venezuela's socio-cultural (and implicitly political) malaise, and civilization is the prescribed cure. The mode of existence of the Ilano violence, lawlessness, irrationality) is the sign of barbarism. For progress to be achieved, barbarism must give way to civilization (law, order, and reason). The reader is seduced into viewing the problem in abstract terms such as underdevelopment, primitivism, and ignorance, versus technological progress, modernization, and education. To avoid a schematic formulation of his thesis and to convey his optimism about the country's future, Gallegos has made certain concessions to mitigate the dominant image of barbarism as negative, stressing its potential for civilization. Similarly, he seems to recognize the inevitability of recourse to barbaric measures in the eradication of barbarism. But, whatever the means used to achieve it, civilization remains throughout the unquestioned ideal. Whereas much has been written about the stated theses of the novel, few critics have commented on its silences, on what it does not say but assumes and implies. Although race is apparently given little prominence in this work, it is a fundamental facet of the author's thesis. In general, the racial views expressed in the novel are retentions of nineteenth-century thinking. Gallegos reproduces the racial myths and stereotypes that were still common currency of his time. For example, one finds the idea that there are certain characteristics and ways of being associated with race in the following reference to one Ilanero type: el Ilanero cantador vierte la alegria jactanciosa del andaluz, el fatalismo sonriente del negro sumiso y la rebeldia melancolica del indio.(6) A racial thesis is also used to explain Dona Barbara's surrender to the superior strength of Santos: "el fatalismo del indio que Ilevaba en la sangre la hacia mirar ya, a pesar suyo, hacia los caminos de renunciacion" (274). Although the barbarism/civilization paradigm is not applied slavishly along racial lines, racial hierarchy (with the suggestion of white superiority) lies implicitly in the novel's argument. Gallegos's racial ideology is signalled early in the novel with an apparently passing reference to El Brujeador (who later turns out to be one of Dona Barbara's henchmen) as uno de esos hombres de facciones asiaticas, que hacen pensar en alguna semilla tartara caida en America quien sabe cuando ni como. Un tipo de razas inferiores, crueles y sombrias completamente diferente del de los pobladores de la Ilanura." (10) In this instance the prejudice inherent in the notion of racial hierarchy is expressed in xenophobic terms. But in the course of

the novel, the concept of racial inferiority is also used in references to the native Amerindian. The novelist reproduces the ideology of racial determinism which had been disseminated by predecessors such as Domingo Sarmiento in Facundo (1845) and Alcides Arguedas in Pueblo enfermo (1909). A connection between barbarism and race is made at both the surface and subtextual levels of the novel's discourse. An example of the first is an almost parenthetical comment made by Santos in response to Antonio's objection to cross-breeding of cattle: Sofismas--replico Santos--justificaciones de la indolencia del indio que Ilevamos en la sangre. (190) The backwardness of the ilaneros, their primitivism and resistance to civilized change is, therefore, a function of their racial make-up. Gallegos's belief that barbarism and civilization are concepts associated with race is also manifested in his creation of the two main characters. No explicit reference is made to the racial identity of Santos Luzardo, but it seems reasonable to assume that he represents the Europeanderived, White/Latino ruling class which forms some 10% of the Venezuelan population. The validity of this assumption is borne out by Andre Michalski who, in his analysis of the fantastic elements in the work, refers to Santos as a figure of "el Principe Rubio."' Dona Barbara, on the other hand, is explicitly constituted as mestiza. As such, she may be viewed as a neutral racial symbol of the Venezuelan population, two thirds of which are of mixed Spanish and Indian ancestry. But it is not fortuitous that Gallegos has made his prime symbol of barbarism specifically mestiza, for by so doing, he has established that race, as much as environment, is the determinant of barbarism, and more specifically that barbarism is to be directly attributed to the Indian heritage. It is therefore not merely a racial, but more specifically a racist ideology which he articulates to support his thesis about civilization and barbarism. The social-class aspect of Gallegos's thesis must be sought at an even deeper level of the novel's subtext. This dimension tends to be obscured by the national implications assumed by the theme. The Ilano is the specific context chosen by Gallegos, but the problems and their proposed solutions apply to the entire country. Although he deplores some aspects of the mode of existence of the Ilano, he also recognizes in it much that is valuable. For example, it is here, he suggests, that elements of an authentic Venezuelan culture have been preserved. The Ilanero is a national type in whose spirit he finds much to celebrate: el alma recia y risuena . . . fuerza . . . para resistir . . . su alegria para ponerle buena cara al mal tiempo ... la voluntad de pasar trabajos ... (194) Much of the novel also seeks to underplay the class assumptions of the civilizing project undertaken by Santos. He formulates his civilizing project in altruistic terms. His, we are led to believe, is an unselfish crusade against caciquismo:

penso muchas cosas: meterse en el hato a luchar contra los enemigos, a defender sus propios derechos y tambien los ajenos, atropellados por los caciques de la Ilanura, puesto que Dona Barbara no era sino uno de tantos. (25) De que serviria acabar con el cacicazgo de Dona Barbara en el Arauca? Reapareceria mas alla bajo otro nombre. Lo que urge es modificar las circumtancias que producen estos males. (25) es necesario civilizar la Ilanura: acabar con el empirico y con el cacique. (190) These preemptive statements help to cast Gallegos's hero in the role of a social reformer who is embarked on a path of fundamental transformation. His opposition to Dona Barbara is construed less as a personal conflict than as an expression of a struggle against political tyranny such as that practised by the dictator Juan Vicente Gomez. An oblique pragmatic indicator of this aspect of Santos's task is provided by his reference to Dona Barbara as "criatura y personificacion de los tiempos que corrian" (25). Verbally, Santos subordinates his personal motive to a more ostentatiously nationalistic impulse: luchar contra Dona Barbara.... no seria solamente salvar Altamira, sino contribuir a la destruccion de las fuerzas retardatarias de la prosperidad del Llano. (25) el deseo de consagrarse a la obra patriotica, a la lucha contra el mal imperante, contra la naturaleza y el hombre, a la busqueda de los remedios eficaces, proposito desinteresado hasta cierto punto, pues lo que menos contaba en el era el ansia de reconquistar la riqueza dedicandose a restaurar el hato. (49, my emphasis) The image of himself which Santos projects (and which many critics have accepted) is that of the traditional Messianic hero. Santos's eventual recourse to brute force in his fight against Dona Barbara may seem to stem from his realizing the futility of trying to eradicate barbarism by resorting to civilized methods, not from his succumbing to, or his unwitting perpetuation of, the process he sets out to negate. His had been a deliberate plan to use violence to control barbaric caciques:

no se habia propuesto, acaso, cuando resolvio internarse en el hato, renunciando a sus suenos de existencia civilizada, convertirse en el caudillo de la Ilanura para reprimir el barbaro senorio de los caciques .... ? (248) Santos's professions of disinterested patriotism and his claims that he is motivated to save the region and the country from anarchy are part of a strategy for positive self-presentation, and they are designed to exert a heavy influence on our analysis of his character. But while this view that he is opposed to caciquismo is sustained for a considerable portion of the novel, a major contradiction is introduced inconspicuously toward the end, when a new nuance is given to the nationalistic impulse. When he imposes his will and triumphs over Dona Barbara, he thinks: Un golpe aqui, otro alla, en seguida una afirmacion de fuerza en cada oportunidad que se le deparara, y el ancho feudo seria suyo para la futura obra civilizadora. Era el comienzo del buen cacicazgo. (233, my emphasis). Here it appears that Santos is not seeking essential change. His discrimination between the good and the bad cacique is analagous to the arguments about humane versions of slavery and benevolent forms of political dictatorship. Thus, by formulating his project in primarily national terms, Santos underplays its class implications. What his repeated assertions suppress is the fact that he is one of the landowning elite, and he feels a strong allegiance to that class and its values. It is therefore possible to conclude that there is no conflict between the national interest and his personal interest. He has cleverly dissimulated the ulterior motive behind his stated nationalistic intentions, and his whole project becomes tainted with more than a little hypocrisy. He is concerned about the national interest mainly because it coincides with his personal and class interests. A. Dessau has referred to Santos's aim as "la liquidacion del estancamiento feudal."' But the progress that he advocates is to be confined within the boundaries of the existing feudal system. He will merely replace feudal anarchy with feudal order. In one of the most rhetorically powerful passages of the novel, Lorenzo Barquero urges Santos, who has been portrayed as "enemigo de las represalias," to resort to violence in his struggle against Dona Barbara: Matala y conviertete en el cacique del Arauca. Los Luzardos no fueron sino caciques, y tu no puedes ser otra cosa, por mas que quieras (164, my emphasis) Lorenzo's prophecy is fulfilled at the end of the novel, with the added boon that Santos does not have to resort to the suggested use of violence. On

the literary level, Dona Barbara's surrender, Marisela's inheritance of her mother's estate and her subsequent marriage to Santos serve as an appropriate fairy-tale ending for the novel's romantic subplot. On the political level, this denouement translates into an endorsement of the prevailing power structure. Not only is there a restoration of the former power of the Luzardos, but the amalgamation of the two properties implies a legitimizing of the expansion of latifundismo under the control of the traditional ruling class, and a fortification of their power base. Santos has become the cacique of Arauca, albeit by a more civilized route than that used by Dona Barbara. The personal conflict between Dona Barbara and Santos can therefore be seen as an expression of a broader social conflict; as a jostling for power between a newcomer and the established ruling class. Dona Barbara is an upstart who does not know her place, a mestiza, an outsider who has dared to usurp the power that has been controlled by traditional ruling families like the Luzardos. She represents a serious threat to the existing social-class structure, the preservation of which is another hidden function of the novel. Legitimacy is given overtly to the class structure, and specifically to the hegemony of the ruling class that Santos represents, through the presentation of the peasant class. Two instances may be singled out where the complicity of the peones of Altamira with the status quo is explicitly demonstrated. An effusive demonstration of loyalty to the Luzardos is given to Santos by the Sandoval family upon his return to Altamira at the beginning of the novel. In the following exchange between Melesio Sandoval and Santos, the former expresses an affection bordering on reverence: Se presento luego uno de los muchachos con la taza de cafe, que nunca falta al Ilanero para obsequiar a sus huespedes. Va usted a beber en la misma taza en que bebia su padre, a quien Dios tenga en su gloria-dijo Melesio-Desde entonces nadie mas lo ha usado. Y en seguida: Conque no me mori sin ver al nino Santos! (42)(9) On a subsequent occasion, when Santos is being lured into a trap that could have led to his death at the hands of Melquiades, Dona Barbara's most notorious henchman, Pajarote, one of the long-serving peones of Altamira follows him secretly to the place of ambush. Santos discovers him and orders him to leave. The peon gives the following response: Peon es peon y le toca obedecer cuando el amo manda; pero permitame que se lo recuerde: el Ilanero no es peon sino en el trabajo.

Aqui, en la hora y punto en que estamos, no habemos un amo y un peon, sino un hombre, que es usted, y otro hombre, que quiere demostrarle que esta dispuesto a dar su vida por la suya. (245) In this case, the author is anxious to present the peon's loyalty as based on human, rather than class, considerations; but it is supremely ironic that Pajarote is not made to express his human equality with Santos without first affirming his acceptance of the latter's social superiority. One theory of the social production of art, advanced by Louis Althusser, the Marxist ideologue, includes literature among the number of ideological state apparatuses whose function is "to contribute to the process of reproducing the relations of production, the social relationships which are the necessary condition for the existence and perpetuation of the capitalist mode of production."(10) This formulation is eminently applicable to Dona Barbara, which does not merely reflect or describe the semifeudal class structure but can be seen as more actively discouraging "full understanding of this system and of the ways in which people are socially constituted within it."(12) Gallegos's novel lends credibility to the Althusserian notion that literature may be classified as one of those institutions "whose existence helps to guarantee consent to the existing mode of production."(12) The two incidents quoted earlier assume, in effect, an absence of discontent among the peasant masses and seem intended to legitimize the existing social order. The peasant masses have therefore been coopted into legitimizing caciquismo. The disappearance of El Miedo allays the fear of a social threat which Dona Barbara represents. With the elimination of this threat, the interests of the ruling class remain intact. As in a typical political coup in Latin American history, power has changed hands, but there is no perceived need for transforming the social structure. The final paragraph of the novel points to the reinstatement of the old order: with the marriage of Santos and Marisela and the disappearance of Dona Barbara, "desaparece del Arauca el nombre de El Miedo y todo vuelve a ser Altamira" (279, my emphasis). Power has merely passed back to the hands of those who have held it traditionally. Dona Barbara's sin is that she dared to encroach on this power. It is reasonable to deduce, therefore, that from Gallegos's perspective there is no power for the class that she represents, and Venezuela's hope for the future (expressed clearly in the final paragraph of the novel) therefore lies specifically in the agency of that nation's Santos Luzardos. This conservative social vision was perhaps, in part, responsible for the initial favorable reception of the novel in Venezuela and the rest of Latin America. It was not perceived as designed to question but rather to create complacency and satisfaction with the prevailing system of power relations. The right of the ruling class to private property is never called into question but taken as given. There is no perception of the need for equitable distribution of land and no advocating of the total elimination of caciquismo. In the view of Gallegos, civilized change must not disturb the social order, and it applies to the attitudes and behavior of the people and even to some of the material conditions of their existence, but not to the system of power relations.

Class considerations also assume primacy in the education of Marisela. For Gallegos, education emblematizes the process of civilization and implies the transformation of human behavior. In Marisela's case, the signs of her transformation from savage to civilized are the adoption of good manners, "correct" speech, civil behavior, acceptable dress, and learning to read and write. Although Marisela's transformation by Santos is presented in a favorable light, this civilizing project has a questionable side. It is a doubly political undertaking, involving both deculturation and the imposition of the alien hegemonic culture. Marisela's growing alienation is powerfully obvious at the dance where, like Santos, she remains apart from la peonada: Solo Marisela se ha quedado sentada. Santos que era el unico que podia sacarla, porque a tanto no se atrevian los peones. . . . tampoco baila. (175) The civilized values held up for our approval are those of the ruling class. The standard Spanish of this class that Marisela learns is privileged over the natural, spontaneous Ilanero speech, which is depreciated and considered inferior. The young ladies from Caracas are to be the models for Marisela's grooming and refinement. Only when she has been transformed from a coarse peasant into an elegant, sophisticated seniorita can she be worthy of a Santos Luzardo. This foregrounds the political intent of the civilizing project: to ensure the dominance of the mode of existence of the urban bourgeoisie.(13) Marisela has been reincorporated into the class to which she belongs, in part. A mestiza, she is related by blood to the Luzardos and so is more readily assimilated into their class. She has been rescued not from an abstract barbarism," but from barbarism defined in class terms. The binary opposition used to define the relationship between civilization and barbarism also underpins the discourse through which gender is constructed in the novel. Not only male and female but two polarized images of the woman function as correlates of the concepts of civilization and barbarism. Marisela and Dona Barbara provide the novel with its two stereotypes of womanhood, each helping to constitute the other through contrast. The "civilized" Marisela is the stereotype of the feminine woman-the traditional ideal-domesticated, sophisticated servant, submissive to Santos. She exists only to serve him and subordinates all her needs to his. Santos's perception of her also reinforces this image. He considers her util para un hombre que haya de Ilevar indefinidamente esta vida de soledad y de asperezas entre peones y ganados. Hacendosa, valiente para afrontar situaciones dificiles. (181) That her value derives primarily from her domestic services is clearly reflected in Santos's response to her departure from Altamira: una mujer que apestaba a pringue de cocina fue quien le sirvio la

comida a Santos Luzardo. Apenas probo unos bocados de los feos guisos de Casilda, y como no podia permanecer dentro de aquella casa, donde, a los tristes reflejos de la lampara, las cosas que antes brillaban limpias tenian ya una patina de polvo y estaban cubiertas de moscas, se salio al corredor. (231) Marisela represents femininity in the traditional, "acceptable" sense. As such, she is the antithesis of Dona Barbara, who represents deviance in many ways. Neither weak nor submissive, she is the stereotype of the aggressive, strong woman, the Iron Lady. She defies rigid sexual categorization. Her encroachment on the power of the ruling class is paralleled by her assumption of the roles, postures and modes of being that have been held as the exclusive preserve of men. She is a cacica in a world where caciques are generically male. In the early sections of the novel she is never referred to neutrally but always in a pejorative language that stresses her lack of femininity: "marimacho," "mujerona," "amazona repugnante de pantalones hombrunos," "mujer de pelo en pecho." Her lack of maternal instinct (traditionally perceived as quintessentially female) is regarded as a monstrous aberration: respecto a ella [Marisela], ni siquiera habia experimentado el amoroso instinto de la bestia madre por el hijo mamanton. (135) Through a subversive reading of the novel, however, one can construct a different image of Dona Barbara. At the beginning of the novel, before her encounter with Santos, she appears as a radical feminist involved in a power struggle with the male. She rejects all the putative signs of female inferiority: "le repugnaba la idea de que un hombre pueda Ilamarla su mujer." (33) No acostumbrababa tolerarle chanzas al amante en presencia de terceros, como tampoco le consentia ternezas ni nada que pudiese ponerla en condiciones de inferioridad.(52-3) She is condemned because she dares reject the stereotype of the submissive woman, which is indispensable for the perpetuation of the patriarchal order. Santos, the chief exponent of patriarchal ideology in the novel, constitutes her as an androgynous being, an enigma and a monstrosity because she does not conform to the ideal female stereotype: La voz de Dona Barbara, flauta del demonio androgino que alentaba en ella ... tenia un matiz singular ... por un momento habia

experimentado la curiosidad. . . . de sondear el enigma de aquella mezcla de lo agradable y lo atroz, interesante, sin duda, como lo son todas las monstrosidades de la naturaleza. (141) One intuits a sexist motive in Santos's hostility toward Dona Barbara, a motive perhaps hidden from his conscious mind as he is overtaken by "un subitaneo sentimiento de repulsion por la compania de aquella mujer, no porque fuera su enemiga, sino por algo mucho mas intimo y profundo, que por el momento no pudo discernir (141)." This deep, inexplicable aversion derives, in all probability, from the fact that the phenomenon he opposes is expressed in this strong woman. Andre Michalski has studied the mythic dimensions of the characterization of Dona Barbara, analyzing different mythic females that are evoked through her.(14) Sexuality is the realm in which she is most vigorously mythified. Dona Barbara embodies the archetypal misognyist myth of the dangerous woman, which is supported by a longstanding tradition and found in almost every culture." A reflection of male fear and sexual insecurity, this myth has produced the stereotype of the beautiful and seductive, but destructive and castrating, woman: Esa es una mujer que ha fustaneado a muchos hombres, y al que no trambuca con sus caratonas, lo compone con un bebedizo o se lo amarra a las pretinas, y hace con el lo que se le antoje, porque es faculta en brujerias. (14) Once reduced to an "ex-hombre," the emasculated Lorenzo Barquero illustrates the effects of her evil power. Her disappearance may therefore be seen as a form of wishfulfilment, as a desire for the removal of female sexual danger. The issue of race is also tacitly imbedded in this sexual discourse, for Dona Barbara represents specifically non-White sensuality. She is described as " fruto engendrado por la violencia del blanco aventurero en la sombria sensualidad de la india" (26). She is a figure of the mythically sensual "dark woman" and the antithesis of the equally mythical, desexualized "fair lady." The characterization of male and female also exemplifies the sexual polarization which underlies all patriarchal ideology. For example, the opposition of Santos/civilization and Barbara/barbarism is linked to the old idea of a schism between the mind and the intellect, and the body and the emotions. Santos's superiority to Dona Barbara resides in his dominant intellect, whereas she is a creature of passion and impulse: visto por dentro,. dona Barbara resultaba incapaz de concebir un

verdadero plan. Su habilidad estaba unicamente en saber sacarle en seguida el mayor provecho a los resultados aleatorios de sus impulsos. (111) Santos's rationality is more than an attribute of civilization. It is a male" attribute. The eleventh chapter of Part 2 contains an important episode in which the author makes skillful use of action to indicate character: Con la fria imparcialidad de que se revestia para analizar sentimientos suyos y situaciones dificiles que de ellos dependiesen, se planteo el caso, sentandose al escritorio, despejandolo de la barahundo de papeles y libros que sobre al habia dejado poco antes, poniendolos en orden, uno sobre otro y separados Estos de aquellos, como si se tratase de distinguir y analizar lo que eran. (181) Rather than elicit the expected admiration, this illustration of the disciplined mode of conduct, which is here being associated with the civilized/ male ideal, may have a negative significance." Santos appears here to be analytical, cold, and dispassionate. Fear leads him to a rationalization of his emotions-he refers to his feelingsforMariselaas "deseo desinteresado," "necesidad puramente espiritual de compania feminina" 181)-and to stem the tide of love when it threatens to influence his behavior. Civilization becomes, therefore, the repression of those natural instincts defined elsewhere in the novel as barbaric (such as violence and the tendency to lawlessness), and, by extension, of the more desirable instinct to love. (It is useful to compare Santos's studied behavior with the spontaneity of Marisela's responses.) Ironically, the same Santos who struggles to suppress emotion needs a show of it as a prerequisite for falling in love with and eventually marrying Marisela. In commenting on Santos's preeminence, one critic has noted that, though she provides the title of the novel, Dona Barbara is not the protagonist." The same critic notes the equation of woman with nature defined as evil. Further evidence of an ariti-female bias is the author's consistently favorable disposition toward Santos and his frequent vilification of Dona Barbara. There are many subtle and not so subtle indices of sexist discrimination and bias on the author's part. The structural balance that the author tries so obviously to achieve in the novel by focusing alternately on the two chief characters seems to create the illusion of equal treatment. Such an illusion dissipates, however, in the face of a detailed inspection of the vocabulary used to constitute each character. Chapter 2 of Part I is entitled El descendiente del cunavichero." This title, which alludes to Santos, is a neutral designation of his ancestry. In the following chapter, the caption "La devoradora de hombres" is applied, in part, to Dona Barbara and casts her immediately in the role of villain. The machista assertiveness which is so stridently censured in her is acceptable,

even desirable, in Santos. In fact, Santos may also be seen as a version of the dominant male stereotype. His transformative influence on the lives of the two principal female characters is the chief vehicle through which the author gives legitimacy to male supremacy. Marisela's submission to Santos arises out of an inexorable sequence of events. From the outset, he is placed in a position of superiority. On their first meeting he is riding on his horse, while she is lying on the ground like an animal. During the acculturation process, Santos perceives Marisela not as a human subject, but as his handiwork. As he contemplates sending her to have her training completed by his old aunts in San Francisco, he reflects: Acabarian de educarla, completarian la obra emprendida por mi, con esos toques que a un alma de mujer solo manos de mujer pueden darle: esa tenura que le falta, ese fondo del corazon hasta donde yo no he podido Ilegar. (182, my emphasis) After being saved from barbarism by Santos, Marisela becomes his savior. By convincing him that he could not logically have killed Melquiades, she relieves him of his guilt over his regression into barbarism. But even this possibility of presenting Marisela's insight as that of an autonomous individual is studiously preempted. The narrator goes to great lengths to give Santos the credit and to show how successful he has been in his civilizing project: Era la luz que el mismo habia encendido en el alma de Marisela, la claridad de la intuicion en la inteligencia debastada por el, la centella de la bondad iluminando el juicio para llevar la palabra tranquilizadora al animo atormentado, la obra-su verdadera obra-que le devolvia el bien recibido . . . la tranquiladora persuasion de aquellas palabras habia brotado de la confianza que ella tenia en el, y esta confianza era algo suyo, lo mejor de si mismo, puesto en otro corazon. (263-4, my emphasis) What makes this claim even more remarkable is the complete denial of female agency, the will to objectify Marisela by viewing her demonstration of intelligence as a mere return on his investment. She is nothing but what he has made of her. Marisela's response to Santos is but a corroboration of his own assessment of events:

ante el suyo se abria un mundo luminoso, poblado de formas risuenas, resplandecientes hasta deslumbrarla. Este mundo, que era su propio corazon ilusionado, fue Santos quien se lo mostro, y solo el lo Ilenaba. (238) His success culminates in that triumphant moment when, at her dying father's bedside, Marisela shows the tenderness which Santos had looked for so long in her. As spectacular as this achievement may seem, it pales in comparison to the development of Dona Barbara's attitude to Santos. In this case, the discourses of power and sex are tightly interwoven. The feminization" of Dona Barbara progresses through two phases. When she first receives reports about Santos, she assumes a feminine guise as part of her sexual power play. At this stage she is in control and acts autonomously, using a deceptively conciliatory stance to lure him into her sexual domain. The second phase of her response occurs during her first encounter with Santos. This marks the abrupt beginning of a shift in the balance of sexual power. In spite of herself, Dona Barbara loses her customary control, her strength begins to flag, and she feels an inexplicable respect for Santos (122). After that, it is repeatedly suggested that she is being propelled by some superior force, such as Fate: sintio, una vez mas, pero ahora con toda la fuerza de las intuiciones propias de los espiritus fatalistas, que desde aquel momento su vida tomaba un rumbo imprevisto. (138) todo venia siendo obra de de unos sentimientos nuevos en su vida, sobre las cuales aun no tenia dominio. (147) In the final analysis, however, Santos may be said to be the author of Dona Barbara's destiny. Only when she yields to him does she become a woman," and she is referred to as such: Por primera vez se habia sentido mujer en presencia de un hombre . . .(147) La mujer que habia aparecido en ella la manana de Mata Oscura queria obtenerlo todo por artes de mujer. (148-9) Dona Barbara is immediately attracted to Santos because she recognizes a superior power in him, his machismo. She feels an awe which, though it might translate into an affirmation of the superiority of civilization, is expressed as her perception of his superiority as male: Caramba, doctor! Que hombre tan dominante es usted!-exclamo

la mujerona, recuperando su expresion risuena, no por adornarse con zalamerias, sino porque realmente experimentaba placer en hallar autoritario a aquel hombre. (150) Sexual power has shifted from her to Santos. In contrast to the Dona Barbara who had been described thus far as mujerona," "marimacho," "hombruno," she now submits to his strength: La subyugaba aquel insolito aspecto varonil, aquella mezcla de dignidad y delicadeza que nunca habia encontrado en los hombres que la trataran, aquella impresion de fortaleza y de dominio de si mismo que trascendia del fuego reposado de las miradas del joven. (138) She celebrates his fortitude in resisting her sexual attraction: La trastornaba la idea de llegar a ser amada por aquel hombre, que no tenia nada de comfin con los que habia conocido. . . . se avergonzaba de haberse brutalizado a si misma en brazos de amantes torpes y groseros, cuando en el mundo habia otros como aquel, que no podian ser perturbados con la primera sonrisa que se les dirigiera. (148) She surrenders totally to the point of self-degradation: al verse desairada una y otra vez por aquel hombre que ni la temia ni la deseaba, sintio . . . que queria pertenecerle, aunque tuviera que ser como le pertenecian a it las reses que Ilevaban grabado a fuego en los costillares el hierro altamireno. (148, my emphasis) This is a predictable end to the sexual contest: civilization must triumph over barbarism and male superiority depends for its existence on female submission. The patriarchal assumptions of this development are clear. In her new subordinate role, Dona Barbara seems a more pleasant character. After her "conversion"; the novelist sets about rehabilitating her image and humanizing her character.

In the end, he imposes a view of her as victim, and finally, as legendary heroine in the popular imagination. Donald Shaw has suggested that "the gradual emergence and final predominance of Barbara's repressed better self is not produced by actual happenings. It is an internal psychological process. This Gallegos was not equipped to portray."(18) What Shaw attributes to the inadequacy of Gallegos's literary skill for the development of the psychological dimension of the character seems, however, to be better explained as a part of a conscious authorial strategy. It is true that beneath her "hibito de mal," Dona Barbara had carried "la ansia de bien." But it is also clear that Gallegos wished to attribute the reactivation of her goodness not to any independent internal psychological evolution but to Santos's agency. In his response to Dona Barbara, Santos remains the perfect hero: impervious to her sexual charms, which have been the downfall of so many before him. Where others have succumbed to her sexual allure, she tempts only the mind of Santos who experiences, only for a moment "la curiosidad, meramente intelectual, de asomarse sobre el abismo de aquella alma" (141). The challenge to male supremacy has therefore been successfully withstood and the patriarchal order is reinforced. At the beginning of the novel the breakup of the original Luzardo family is alluded to as a change from "la apacible vida patriarcal" (19), from the days when males (Luzardos) were the ones who ruled the area. Dona Barbara has disturbed this specifically patriarchal peace. Luis B. Prieto recognizes the importance of the value-transmission role of Gallegos's fiction: Sus novelas y sus cuentos mas que obras de ficcion son textos de orientacion de la mente del venezolano, para que mirandose en el espejo de una realidad insatisfactoria busque transformarla en otra que de a la mente y al corazon los valores indispensables para tornar la vida mejor y mas humana.(19) While this observation expresses the critic's approval of the norms of a civilized mode of existence formulated in Gallegos's thesis, it ignores the less desirable values which the novel disseminates in the process. Dona Barbara is the epitome of the authoritarian text. Gallegos's narrative strategy is one which imposes closure on the novel, making the reader into a consumer and fostering an unquestioning acceptance of his thesis. The reader must consciously assume a critical distance from the author's ideology to find other meanings. Despite the good nationalist intentions and the author's liberal progressive stance, his thesis is racist, sexist, and conservative insofar as it is designed to maintain the supremacy of the ruling class. In his time Gallegos was considered an unequivocal opponent of the politics of dictatorship, and when he assumed the presidency, he became associated with one of the earliest attempts in post-colonial Venezuela to establish a democratic political tradition. Whereas the novel might seem to only exalt civilization and deplore barbarism (or culture

over nature), it also implicitly disseminates the theory of white superiority and explicitly depreciates non-White races; it gives legitimacy to the dominance of the ruling over the peasant class, and it affirms the notion of the supremacy of. male over female. That Dona Barbara is a landmark novel is indisputable, but the reasons for this may be found in its positive, as well as its less commendable achievements. Commentators commonly use historical factors to explain various aspects of the novel. But an understanding of the novel's historical meaning does not justify Gallegos's position or make it any more acceptable. Historical considerations ought not to be allowed to obscure the fact that Gallegos wrote both as an individual and as a representative of a certain sector of his society with aspirations to power. The members of that society knew that they had more in common with the Santos Luzardos than with the Dona Barbaras of Venezuela. The University of the West Indies (1.) See, for example, Mario Vargas Llosa, "Novela primitiva y novela de creacion en America Latina," Revista de Bellas Artes 10 (June 1969): 29-36; and Carlos Fuentes, La nueva novela hispanoamericana (Mexico: Joaquin Mortiz, 1976). (2.) Carlos Alonso, "Otra seria mi historia: Allegorical Exhaustion in Dona Barbara," MLN 104.2 (1989). This rereading of Dona Barbara is part of a larger work, The Spanish-American Regional Novel: Modernity and Autochthony (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1990) by the same author. (3.) Sharon Magnarelli, The Lost Rib: Female Characters in the Spanish-American Novel (New Jersey: Associated University Presses, 1985), Chap. 2. (4.) A noteworthy exception is A. Dessau's Realidad social, dimension historica y metodo artistico en Dona Barbara de Romulo Gallegos," in Relectura de Romulo Gallegos (Caracas: Centro de Estudios Latinoamericanos Romulo Gallegos, 1980) 57-71. While acknowledging its literary merits, Dessau also foregrounds the bourgeois character of the novel's model of civilization, its ideological anachronism, and the contradictions to which this gives rise. (5.) Catherine Belsey, Critical Practice (London: Methuen, 1980) 57. (6.) Romulo Gallegos, Dona Barbara (Madrid: EspasaCalpe, 1975) 195. All page references are to this edition and will hereafter be included parenthetically in the text. (7.) Andre S. Michalski, "Dona Barbara; un cuento de hadas," PMLA 85 (1970): 1016. (8.) Dessau 66. (9.) Melesio's words contain echoes of an utterance by a Biblical character, Simeon, "a devout man of Jerusalem," to whom it was revealed that he should not die before seeing Christ. When the child Jesus was brought to him he said, "Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace ... for mine eyes have seen they salvation" Luke 2:22, 25-30). (10.) Belsey 56. (11.) Belsey 57. (12.) Belsey 58. (13.) A. Dessau (63) has also noted that Gallegos's vision of history is one which assumes that the masses cannot be the protagonists of history and that they need the educated elite to free and guide them. (14.) Michalski, op. cit. (15.) H. R. Hays, The Dangerous Sex. The Myth of Feminine Evil (New York: Pocket Books, 1966). (16.) With regard to the civilized ideal that Gallegos seems to embrace so unreservedly, Dessau has observed that it had already been questioned and rejected by his contemporaries such as Jose Eustaquio Rivera in La voragine (1924) and Ricardo Guiraldes in Don Segundo Sombra (1926). (17.) Magnarelli, op. cit. (18.) Donald Shaw, Dona Barbara (London: Grant and Cutler, 1971) 49. (19.) Luis B. Prieto, Romulo Gallegos, educador" in Relectura de Romulo Gallegos (Caracas: Centro de Estudios Latinoamericanos Romulo Gallegos, 1980) 40.

Venezuelan author Romulo Gallegos's novel 'Dona Barbara' (1929) presents his ideological position in terms of civilization versus barbarism, a stance which tends to obscure its racist, sexist and class-related undertones. The hero, Santos Luzardo, represents the interests of the dominant white ruling class. Dona Barbara, the character who represents barbarism, is a mestiza, as Gallegos associates Indian heritage with barbarism. Dona Barbara contrasts with another female character, Marisela, who represents the submissive female. Source Citation: Rosegreen-Williams, Claudette. "Romulo Gallegos's 'Dona Barbara': toward a radical reading." Symposium. 46.4 (Winter 1993): p279. Literature Resource Center. Gale. UMET Universidad Metropolitana. 2 Nov. 2009 <http://go.galegroup.com/ps/start.do?p=LitRC&u=umet>.