Beruflich Dokumente
Kultur Dokumente
SAMUEL AMAGO
Abstract
Sexual repression is a constant theme in Nada (1945), and in the absence of any sort of
traditional plot, Carmen Laforet’s characters seem to be searching to define themselves
socially and sexually in an atmosphere characterized by disorder. While scholars have
emphasized both Laforet’s use of an ambiguously constructed discourse and the overall
tone of sexual repression in the novel’s characters, aside from the obvious heterosexual
tensions of the novel, there exists in Nada a series of exceptionally suggestive homo-
erotic undercurrents that have remained largely unexamined. An important question has
remained unanswered: What is the function of the undeniably homoerotic undercurrents
of the novel, particularly insofar as Andrea’s physical obsession with Gloria and her
complex, deeply affectionate relationship with her friend Ena? Through an analysis of both
the highly charged female relationships and episodes of homoerotic desire and the con-
trasting instances of Andrea’s indifference, repulsion, and fear of heterosexual relationships
with men, it is the purpose of the present study to attempt to show that homosocial
desire is encoded in the social structures detailed in the novel, and that same-sex friend-
ship serves as a socially acceptable device through which Andrea can derive emotional
fulfillment independent of traditional heterosexual social constructs.
–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
tant aspects not only of her own personality, but also of her sexual
identity. Sexual repression is a constant theme in the novel, and in the
absence of any sort of traditional plot, Laforet’s characters instead seem
to be searching to define themselves socially and sexually in an atmos-
phere characterized by disorder and chaos. Aside from the obvious
heterosexual tensions of the novel, Barry Jordan has pointed to a homo-
erotic subtext exemplified in Juan’s relationship with his brother Román
(Laforet. Nada 44). Jordan further asserts that confessions play an impor-
tant role in the novel as the female characters reveal through these
confessions “a sexuality which has largely been repressed, which is
curiously infantile and sadistic and which has its darker side: compul-
sive voyeurism, hints of lesbianism, sadomasochism, etc.” (96). Jordan
suggests that such elements are unleashed by the seductive nature of
the male characters. In spite of these brief mentions of homoeroticism,
scholars have tended to gloss over the homoerotic elements of the novel
in favor of more traditional heterosexist readings. Largely unexamined,
there exists in Nada a series of exceptionally suggestive homoerotic
currents that lie just below the surface, reflected in the textual mirror that
is the novel. Through the analysis of both the highly charged female rela-
tionships and episodes of homoerotic desire and the contrasting instances
of Andrea’s indifference, repulsion, and fear of heterosexual relationships
with men, we will attempt to show that homosocial desire is encoded
in the social structures detailed in the novel, and that same-sex friend-
ship serves as a socially acceptable device through which Andrea can
derive emotional fulfillment independent of traditional heterosexual social
constructs.
Regardless of their critical or ideological stances, critics agree that
Nada is an ambiguous text at best. The paradoxical nature of the very
title is a commonly discussed theme, as the reader is immediately
impressed by the almost three hundred pages of a novel titled “Nothing.”
Both Robert Spires and John W. Kronik conclude that indeed the work
must be “something,” a conclusion supported by the fact that the novel
continues to receive much critical attention. Perhaps it is the novel’s
ambiguity that makes it such a rich ground for interpretation. Critics such
as Christopher Soufas and Sandra Clevenger emphasize the novel’s proto-
feminist underpinnings, while Ellen Mayock and Marcela del Río Reyes
have drawn salient parallels between Laforet’s fictive space and post-
Civil War Spain. More recently there has been a sustained debate as to
the novel’s pertinence to the bildungsroman. Marsha Collins and Alicia
Andreu argue that Nada is indeed a novel of education, while Jordan
has made convincing arguments to the contrary, pointing to the fact
that Andrea-as-protagonist does not develop independently, but rather
benefits from external forces upon her character and that ultimately,
“Nada is the story of the nonfulfillment of Andrea’s dreams” (“Laforet’s
Homoerotic Undercurrents in “Nada” 67
Nada . . . 108”). Even the novel’s overall tone is highly disputed, as Ruth
El Saffar reads the novel negatively, suggesting that Andrea’s time at
the house on Aribau is marked by failure, and that the narrator’s return
to the past through remembering those events is only a futile delaying-
tactic against death, while other critics such as Collins argue that “Laforet
sets good against evil with the representative of good winning out and
generating a more sympathetic and charitable attitude towards her fellow
man on the part of the heroine” (309).
Some of the most astute critical analyses of Laforet’s novel have
been authored by Barry Jordan, most notably in his articles “Looks that
Kill: Power, Gender and Vision in Laforet’s Nada” and “Shifting Generic
Boundaries: The Role of Confession and Desire in Laforet’s Nada.” In
the former, he makes use of new feminist theories of the gaze and its
relation to desire in film to “link the operation of looking to the con-
struction of gendered identities in the novel and tease out the power
relations involved” (82). In the latter study, Jordan connects the novel
to the literature of desire and confession, which has to do with “illicit
passions, disruptive desire, guilt at bodily longings, hunger for human
contact” (414), and he asserts that the dark side of female sexuality is
shown to be unlocked and activated by the seductive charms of the
male.1 Jordan emphasizes both Laforet’s use of an ambiguously con-
structed discourse and the overall tone of sexual repression in the novel’s
characters, more specifically in the protagonist Andrea. However, he
leaves tantalizingly unanswered an important question that we will
discuss here: What is the function of the undeniably homoerotic under-
currents of the novel, particularly insofar as Andrea’s physical obsession
with Gloria and her complex, deeply affectionate relationship with Ena?
Scholars agree that the novel represents one pivotal year in the life
of the mysterious narrator in which she learns important lessons about
life and through her experiences discovers key aspects of her own per-
sonality. Andrea seems to exhibit heterosexual tendencies at the outset
– as exemplified by her initial attraction to her uncle Román – yet these
are curiously mild and are soon replaced by fear and disgust. If we regard
Andrea as heterosexual, she remains suspiciously asexual – particularly
when we examine her reactions to Gerardo and Pons. But if this is indeed
a pivotal year in which a young girl struggles for identity, the text
allows – and indeed requires – a reading that takes into account the young
protagonist’s struggle to discover and come to terms with her sexuality.
By looking first at Andrea’s relationships with the principal male
characters of the novel (Román, Gerardo and Pons) and later at her
highly affective relationships with Gloria and Ena, it should become clear
that her sexual preference is not as clearly heterosexual as most critics
have heretofore taken for granted. The contrast between Andrea’s
negative reactions to the men who surround her and her exceptionally
68 Samuel Amago
She calls him a “diablo” no less than three times in the next fifteen pages
(89, 92, 100). Critics agree that Román is an insidious character, but it
seems that for Andrea, his menacing nature is derived from his mas-
culinity. She is morbidly curious at first, but later this curiosity gives way
to repulsion, fear and disgust. The climax of the novel is a false one
caused by Andrea’s misinterpretation of her uncle’s intentions, but
nonetheless it gives the reader an important view of Andrea’s feelings
towards him. The fact that he is alone with Ena in his room represents
a possibility for violence and perhaps the sexual penetration of Ena by
Román. This fear of heterosexual violence against Ena is again sym-
bolically represented by Andrea’s fixation on the phallic image of the
pistol that he keeps in his room. Yet here, the rebellious Ena, who has
instead exacted an emotional violence upon Román that ultimately results
in his suicide, has reversed the power relation. His gun is absent (he
has been unmanned by Ena) but Andrea is still unaware of this devel-
opment and in a fit of romantic idealism she attempts to save her friend.
She is ridiculed by both Ena and Román for her youthful romanticism,
but the symbolic import of the episode is not lost upon the reader.
Andrea’s attitude toward her uncle Román is characterized by a simul-
taneous curiosity and repulsion, but her reactions to the other men with
whom she comes into contact are milder and nearly free of any erotic
undertones. Indeed, it is Andrea’s relationships with men such as Gerardo
and Pons that supply much of the disquieting ambiguity of the novel.
Gerardo is seen not just as unattractive, but as someone who represents
the danger of an utter loss of independence and happiness. Throughout
the novel, Andrea seems most happy when she is outside, free of the
confines of Aribau. When Gerardo tracks her down one evening, she
responds negatively, but the acerbity of her tone is surprising: “ ‘¡Maldito!
– pensé –; me has quitado toda la felicidad que me iba a llevar de
aquí’ ” (116). She tells him that she prefers to be alone, calling him an
imbecile. Much later, only when she has been snubbed by Ena, Andrea
telephones him, thinking, “tal vez esto podría distraerme de mis ideas”
(141). Gerardo only serves as a negative alternate to Ena – feeling both
resentful and loving towards Ena, Andrea decides to seek an alterna-
tive source of attention – but very quickly she is put off by him. She
is first “un poco intimidada” (142) by his brusque, chauvinistic manner,
and when she learns that he shares Schopenhauer’s belief in the intel-
lectual inferiority of women, her opinion of him sinks even lower. She
finds him pleasant for only a second when he cleans the lips of a statue
of Venus, but he soon becomes “fastidioso” (143) and even “aborrecible”
(144). The touch of his hand makes her want to cry – perhaps because
she does not share his intimate feelings – and their kiss is met with her
emotional and physical rigidity. She even relates the experience to a
macabre sort of darkness: “Tuve la sensación absurda de que me corrían
70 Samuel Amago
Andrea does not find a man. Why not? The answer seems to be that she is not in a position,
as yet, to make that step. She genuinely desired a romance with Pons, but showed fear
of making a commitment and of having to give up the fantasies of childhood romance
. . . She thus breaks the marriage cycle and settles for female friendship . . . Andrea is
thus unable to break into adulthood and this is arguably because she is still a victim of
literary fantasies, still a casualty of the genre of romance. (421)
Andrea then laughs at her impulse, but the initial effect of this highly
suggestive imagery is not lost upon the reader. The languor she repeat-
edly experiences – “me sobrevino un cansancio tan espantoso que me
temblaban las rodillas” (130) – is perhaps as a result of malnutrition,
but it is often an important characteristic of the female vampire.
Exemplified in the canonical Dracula by Bram Stoker, the vampire in
literature has traditionally represented heterosexual fear of uncontrollable
sexual desire, and more recently, the vampire has also been linked to
homoerotic themes by critics such as Craft, Stephenson, Zschokke and
others. The vampiric act is connected to both nourishment and to repro-
duction, as the transfer of blood converts the victim to vampire status
while simultaneously nourishing the vampire. The vampire is an ambigu-
ously gendered figure, possessing both female and male characteristics,
as the sharp, pointed (masculine) teeth of the vampire, which function
as a sort of phallic device which penetrates the victim in order to repro-
duce, are usually set in an inviting, voluptuous, red (feminine) mouth.
John Allen Stephenson synthesizes the vampiric process, describing it
as a “condensed procedure in which penetration, intercourse, conception,
gestation, and parturition represent, not discrete stages, but one undif-
ferentiated action” (143). In “ ‘Kiss me with Those Red Lips’: Gender
and Inversion in Bram Stoker’s Dracula,” Christopher Craft indicates
that Stoker inverts traditional patterns of sexuality, as the virile protag-
onist Jonathan Harker “enjoys a ‘feminine’ passivity and awaits a
delicious penetration from a woman whose demonism is figured as the
power to penetrate . . . A swooning desire for an overwhelming pene-
tration . . .” (109). Thus, “an implicitly homoerotic desire achieves
representation as a monstrous heterosexuality, as a demonic inversion
of normal gender relations. Dracula’s daughters offer Harker a feminine
form but a masculine penetration” (110). Stephenson points out that the
74 Samuel Amago
This certainly seems to be the case with the young protagonist of Nada,
as her imagination is filled at times with heterosexual fantasies such as
the Cinderella fable, while she simultaneously expresses her homoerotic
attraction to some of the women who surround her. It is important to
emphasize the naturality of Andrea’s sexual impulses. Although the
gothic episode in which she fantasizes about biting Gloria and drinking
her warm, red blood is superficially explained by her extreme hunger,
it is also possible that this impulse also belies Andrea’s repressed sexual
attraction to her aunt. Her desire to bite Gloria’s neck can be read as a
sublimation of same-sex desire as it would represent both a sensual
penetration and the sharing of vital fluids.
Unlike the dreaded female vampires of Bram Stoker’s Dracula, Andrea
is not a menacing threat to the patriarchal, heterosexual order, but
represents instead a more mild and sympathetic figure. Indeed, Magdalena
Zschokke has asserted that in more recent female-authored novels with
female vampire protagonists, “the vampire becomes the figure which
encapsulates autonomous lesbian desire, self-determination and subjec-
tivity” (6). Zschokke concludes her study on the lesbian figure in
literature with a chapter devoted to the analysis of the female vampire
in recent American fiction. Her observations serve to illuminate our study
of Laforet’s novel:
Sympathetic vampires have mostly been written by women . . . as long as the vampire
is seen in terms of its power, it is not surprising that an uncanny predator who cruelly
takes from man what is rightfully his becomes ideal subject matter for a horror story. In
feminist rethinking, power can be allocated differently, and the focus is on cooperation
and endurance so that vampires become “super-survivors” instead of “super-killers.” (213)
looks, which are described in delicious detail. She admires Ena’s “bien
cortado traje” and the “suave perfume de su cabello” (62). Ena’s charms
push Andrea to almost foolish extremes: “Mi deseo de hablar de la música
de Román, de la rojiza cabellera de Gloria, de mi pueril abuela vagando
por la noche como un fantasma, me pareció idiota” (63). It is obvious
that some of Andrea’s desire to connect with her friend stems from her
isolation and solitude as an orphan and the unpleasantness of her living
situation, but the minute detail of her physical descriptions of Ena suggest
a more sensual intention. She notices and describes everything from
the scent of her hair and the color of her eyes to her playful demeanor
and personal idiosyncrasies. She is even the object of Andrea’s dreams.
The young protagonist’s relationship with Ena is on the one hand a
profound platonic relationship, as the narrator suggests in the opening
paragraphs of chapter six – “Mi amistad con Ena había seguido el curso
normal de unas relaciones entre dos compañeras de clase que simpa-
tizan extraordinariamente” (68) – while simultaneously exhibiting many
of the characteristics of a romantic relationship – “Todas mis alegrías
de aquella temporada aparecieron un poco limadas por la obsesión de
corresponder a sus delicadezas” (69). The narrator feels so blessed by
Ena’s attentions that she rifles through her few material possessions in
order to give something in return. Andrea’s solution to this desire to
reciprocate is to give her the embroidered handkerchief given by her
grandmother for her first communion, perhaps her most valued item.
After giving the handkerchief to her friend, Andrea confesses that she
was unable to ever forget her happiness on that day. Indeed, the hand-
kerchief episode suggests a romantic subtext. Given the importance of
such gifts in the chivalric tradition, in ceremonies in which the lady gives
to her chosen knight a handkerchief representing her (chaste) romantic
devotion, this gift takes on a symbolic charge. Erotic tension is mediated
and displaced by the significant piece of cloth, thereby sublimating
romantic desire.
Such idealistic tendencies are not isolated to this episode, however,
as Andrea has already shown her inward romantic impulses at Pons’s
party, where she wishes she were Cinderella, prepared to be swept off
her feet. Ena becomes another important part of Andrea’s romantic
fantasy life in the climactic chapter twenty, in which she imagines Ena
as a damsel in distress needing salvation from the villain Román. Her
apparently impulsive behavior in this episode is not without precedent,
however, as she has already fantasized about such a moment on the
evening of the day of San Juan:
Desperté soñando con Ena. Insensiblemente la había encadenado mi fantasía a las palabras,
mezquindades y traiciones de Román. La amargura que siempre me venía aquellos días
al pensar en ella, me invadió enteramente. Corrí a su casa, impulsiva, sin saber lo que
iba a decirle, deseando solamente protegerla contra mi tío. (209)
Homoerotic Undercurrents in “Nada” 77
Here, it is Andrea who would save her friend from the threatening enemy,
a romantic impulse to protect her from harm that is once again based
largely upon her overactive imagination.4 Even considering cultural
constructions of female friendship, her feelings for Ena seem much
stronger than one might expect.
When Andrea is invited to Pons’s house for a party, she is ashamed
of her shabby appearance, thinking that “Quizás lo había estropeado
todo la mirada primera que dirigió su madre a mis zapatos” (221). From
the outset, she is convinced that she could never belong in such an
upper-class social context, and makes little effort to fit in. Yet if one
compares this later instance with Andrea’s first visit to Ena’s house, it
begins to seem that perhaps she never sincerely desired a relationship
with Pons.
Había cobrado aquel día mi paga de febrero y poseída de las delicias de poderla gastar,
me lancé a la calle y adquirí en seguida aquellas fruslerías que tanto deseaba . . . jabón
bueno, perfume y también una blusa nueva para presentarme en casa de Ena, que me había
invitado a comer. Además, unas rosas para su madre. (119)
The reader might ask why Andrea spends so much time and money on
her first visit to Ena’s house, bringing flowers for her mother, buying
perfume and a new blouse for herself, while she appears at Pons’s house
dressed shabbily with no gift for her hosts. While it is true that she has
little money, and she does spend some time ironing her dress for Pons’s
party, Andrea’s efforts to please her hosts are quite different, as are the
receptions she receives from them. Both Pons’s and Ena’s families belong
to the upper middle class, but her efforts to fit in are painfully unbal-
anced. Barry Jordan has stated that Andrea “genuinely desired romance
with Pons, but showed fear of making a commitment and of having to
give up the fantasies of childhood romance” (“Shifting Generic
Boundaries” 421), but it seems more likely that perhaps the protago-
nist would prefer instead a romance with Ena, however chaste it may
be, to a relationship with Pons (or any man for that matter). It does not
seem the case that Andrea fears commitment, as we have seen that Andrea
is not afraid of committing to Ena. She spends all of her meager funds
to please her and continually frets about the relationship, while she makes
almost no effort to ingratiate herself with Pons.
For Andrea, Ena represents all light and goodness, in spite of her occa-
sional malicious tendencies. Placed almost at the center of the novel’s
twenty-five chapters, chapter twelve explicitly details Andrea’s homo-
erotic infatuation with Ena.
Estos chorros de luz que recibía mi vida gracias a Ena, estaban amargados por el sombrío
tinte con que se teñía mi espíritu otros días de la semana . . . A veces me enfadaba con
Ena por una nadería. Salía de su casa desesperada. Luego regresaba sin decirle una palabra
78 Samuel Amago
Empecé a mirar a mi amiga, viéndola por primera vez tal como realmente era. Tenía
los ojos sombreados bajo aquellas grises luces cambiantes que venían del cielo. Yo
sentí que nunca podría juzgarla. Pasé mi mano por su brazo y apoyé mi cabeza en su
hombro. Estaba yo muy cansada. Multitud de pensamientos se aclaraban en mi cerebro.
(267–268)
Ena is again linked to the light of the heavens, and Andrea languidly
places her head on Ena’s shoulder while her confusion gradually vanishes.
Ena’s departure from Barcelona towards the end of the novel is described
by the narrator with a highly charged, almost romantic, language:
El día en que fui a despedir a Ena me sentí terriblemente deprimida. Ena aparecía, entre
el bullicio de la Estación, rodeada de hermanos rubios, apremiada por su madre, que parecía
poseída por una prisa febril de marcharse. Ella se colgó de mi cuello y me besó muchas
veces. Sentí que se me humedecían los ojos. Que aquello era cruel. (272)
That Ena and Andrea are good friends is undeniable, but her previous
erotic reactions to Gloria and her overall negative responses to almost all
male characters facilitates the reading of episodes such as this as homo-
erotically suggestive. Ena is seen here as a stable central figure amidst
the “bullicio” of the train station, and her departure seems to represent
a return to chaos. Andrea has clung to her friend as a savior from the
tumultuous events of her home, and she experiences an extreme emo-
tional reaction to her leaving. She is “terribly” depressed by such a
“cruel” turn of events. The many kisses of her friend seem to exacer-
bate the dejection caused by her departure.
In contrast to the highly affective relationships she shares with Gloria
and Ena, the only positive reaction Andrea has to the company of men,
aside from her brief visit to Román’s room in the second chapter, comes
with her visits to Guíxols’s house, where she feels completely comfort-
able among Pons’s bohemian friends: “Me encontraba muy bien allí; la
inconsciencia absoluta, la descuidada felicidad de aquel ambiente me
acariciaban el espíritu” (159). Perhaps she feels as if she were among
equals, although a close reading of these episodes indicates the subor-
dinate position she occupies there. She prepares and serves the coffee
while her male friends discuss art. Given her homosocial tendencies,
perhaps a more plausible explanation of her feelings of comfort at
Guíxols’s house is the one offered by Jordan: “Andrea is happy because
these ‘hijos de papá’ make absolutely no demands on her as a sexual
being” (Laforet. Nada 23). Regardless, as she had already noted in chapter
five, Andrea finds the men that surround her to be on the whole emo-
tionally insufficient: “Comprendí en seguida que con los muchachos
era imposible el tono misterioso y reticente de las confidencias, al que
las chicas suelen ser aficionadas, el encanto de desmenuzar el alma, el
roce de la sensibilidad almacenada durante años” (59). The sentiments
reflected here are only reinforced throughout the novel, and it becomes
80 Samuel Amago
clear that Andrea’s overall feelings towards the men with whom she
comes in contact tend to be characterized by indifference, boredom,
disgust and fear, while her relationships with women are most frequently
fascinating and fulfilling. This is not to say that women represent a
mere alternative to threatening males, but rather seems to point to an
innate tendency on her part to seek comfort, solace and emotional ful-
fillment in women.
In order to better understand the suggestive homosocial tensions we
have outlined above, it might be helpful to mention briefly some recent
critical theories articulated by lesbian cultural critics. The emergence and
development of feminism paved the way for several subsequent fields
of gender studies, and among these lesbian cultural criticism has enjoyed
a growing popularity. Approximately ten years after the appearance of
feminism, lesbian critics began to articulate their own discourse, marking
their difference from the previous movement while at the same time
taking advantage of the linguistic and philosophical advances, new critical
methodologies and bodies of work pioneered by feminist theorists and
critics. One important coincidence between the feminist and lesbian
movements is that it is now generally agreed upon that sexuality and
gender are not natural or inherent qualities, but rather that they are the
product of a complex combination of social, economic and political
factors that work together to form a variety of possible identities. As
Judith Butler suggested in her now well-known Gender Trouble (1990),
sex and gender are not biological givens, but should be viewed as the
discursive products of cultural construction.
Most lesbian theorists have found it necessary to break with traditional
feminisms because of implicit assumptions the latter movement has had
about gender. Most notable is the problematic reliance on a binary system
of conceptualization – black-white, good-bad, man-woman – since
lesbianism finds itself outside of such oppositions, particularly that
comprised of binary conceptions of gender. This is an issue discussed
by Anne Charles in chapter two of Sexual Practice/Textual Theory, “Two
Feminist Criticisms: A Necessary Conflict?” in which she concludes
that before lesbian studies can be taken up by traditional feminists,
“Non lesbian feminists must be particularly rigorous in identifying and
resisting heterosexist notions in themselves” (65). For biological and
social reasons, current trends in male “gay” criticism, although helpful,
are often deemed inadequate by lesbian critics. Indeed, the lesbian has
historically found herself excluded from the masculine power structures
to which gay men might have had access, and has been simultaneously
and consistently excluded by the feminist (but heterosexual) sphere of
inquiry and influence.
Adrienne Rich, in her classic “Compulsory Heterosexuality and
Lesbian Existence,” has articulated the concept of an elastic lesbian
Homoerotic Undercurrents in “Nada” 81
If we consider the possibility that all women – from the infant suckling her mother’s breast,
to the grown woman experiencing orgasmic sensations while suckling her own child,
perhaps recalling her mother’s milk-smell in her own; to two women, like Virginia Woolf’s
Chloe and Olivia, who share a laboratory . . . to exist on a lesbian continuum, we can
see ourselves as moving in and out of this continuum, whether we consider ourselves as
lesbians or not. It allows us to connect aspects of woman-identification as diverse as
the impudent, intimate girl-friendships of eight- or nine-year olds and the banding together
of . . . the Beguines . . . to live independent both of marriage and of conventual restric-
tions. (158–159)
Sexual preference, once felt to be the essence or “kernel” of personal identity, is now
held to be a cultural or historical category, called into being by the medical and legal
discourses of the late nineteenth century. Scholars may debate the exact moment of appear-
ance of the “modern homosexual,” but they agree that in this disciplinary model . . .
homosexuality is not repressed but is rather called into being by those social structures
which cause it to be ever of the margins of visibility: neither completely hidden (and there-
fore impossible to control) nor wholly apparent (and thus socially sanctioned). (Entiendes?
9)
Working with data from lesbian psychologists, Riddle and Morin (1977) report the mean
ages at which women reached various points in the process: awareness of homosexual
feelings, 13.8; understanding of word “homosexual,” 15.6; first same-sex experience, 19.9;
first homosexual relationship, 22.8; considered self “homosexual,” 23.2; acquisition of
positive “gay” identity, 29.7. (96)
no one can know in advance where the limits of gay-centered inquiry are to be drawn,
or where a gay theorizing of and through even the hegemonic high culture of the Euro-
American tradition may need or be able to lead. (53)
the differences between the homosexuality “we know today” and previous arrangements
of same-sex relations may be so profound and so integrally rooted in other cultural dif-
ferences that there may be no continuous, defining essence of “homosexuality” to be
known. (44)
In the same vain, Paul Julian Smith paraphrases Diana Fuss, stating
that identity “may be multiple and contradictory; and . . . identity need
not be collapsed into essence” (17). Indeed, there will always be a tension
between the identity that has been repressed and the identity that is still
to be developed; a struggle that plays an important role in Nada.
Regardless of the problematic nature of such inquiries, and whether or
not Andrea ultimately identifies herself as lesbian, we can certainly
conclude that the novel’s depiction of the narrator’s sexuality is much
more complicated than scholars have traditionally allowed. Andrea’s
highly affective same-sex relationship with Ena – and to a lesser degree
with Gloria – plays an important discursive role, as it functions as a
counterbalance to the destructive nature of the heterosexual relation-
ships that surround her at Aribau. In the absence of positive models of
acceptable heterosexual love, the protagonist often finds in women a
fulfilling emotional alternative.
Homoerotic Undercurrents in “Nada” 85
Notes
1. Some of Jordan’s observations on this theme are also found in his critical guide
to the novel, published in the same year.
2. This is not the only gothic aspect of the novel. Darkness, degeneration and decay
characterize the atmosphere throughout, and Andrea is not the only character with
vampiristic tendencies. Jordan notes that Román repeatedly compares his victims – among
them Antonia and Juan – to dogs. Thus, we can see that his vampiric urges find a
release in Trueno, the family dog, who receives the physical attentions that Román only
symbolically affords his human victims, whom he sucks dry with his domineering,
overwhelming nature. Andrea is shocked to see the poor dog who “traía en la oreja la
marca roja de un mordisco . . . por los dientes de Román” (210–211).
3. Jordan offers an alternate reading of the episode, suggesting that Andrea’s desire
to bite Gloria, aside from echoing gothic vampirism, might be “suggestive of a fantasy
in which Andrea wishes to penetrate and merge with a protective figure” (Laforet. Nada
43). In other words, he offers that the impulse comes from Andrea’s desire to regress to
infancy and seek maternal protection.
4. In light of later turns of events, Andrea’s impulse does not seem quite so foolish.
Román kills himself, but he could just as well have killed someone else.
Works Cited