Pergamon Bull. Latin Am. Res., Vol. 16, No. 2, pp. 187-196, 1997

0 1997 Society for Latin American Studies Published by Elsevier Science Ltd. Printed in Great Britain

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PII: SO261-3050(96)00024-l

Symbiosis Between Slavery and Feminism in Gertrudis G6mez de Avellaneda’s Sab?

BRIGIDA PASTOR Department of Hispanic Studies, Hetherington Building,

University of Glasgow, Glasgow G12 8QQ, UK

Ahstract--Gertrudis G6mez de Avellaneda’s novel Sub (1841) has been subject to many interpretations. Early criticism considered it as little more than a sentimental and shocking romantic story: the impossibly unconventional love of a black slave for a white woman. Later critics‘have sought to establish Snb as a pioneering anti- slavery novel. This article will attempt to demonstrate that Avellaneda’s main purpose was not to narrate a doomed love, nor to present a denunciation of slavery, but to express her feminist ideology, establishing the parallelism between the situation of black slaves and the oppression of white women in the bourgeois society of her time. However, we cannot say that Avellaneda created a symbiosis between slavery and feminism; the theme of slavery is only a metaphor, doubly shocking because it exposes her own emancipating ideas in an oppressive society that did not forgive those voices ivhich dared to transgress its norms. 0 1997 Society for Latin American Studies

Key words-slavery, feminism, Cuba, Gbmez de Avellaneda, Sub, cultural studies

Gertrudis G6mez de Avellaneda’s novel Sab has been subject to many interpretations.’ Early criticism considered it as little more than a sentimental, if shocking romantic story: the impossibly unconventional love of a black slave for a white woman. Later critics have concluded that Sab had all the necessary ingredients for being catalogued as a pioneering anti-slavery novel. This article attempts to demonstrate that Avellaneda’s main purpose was not to narrate a conflictive love story, nor to present a denunciation of slavery, but to express her feminist ideology, establishing the parallelism between the situation of black slaves and the oppression of white women in the bourgeois society of her time. However, it would not be valid to say that Avellaneda created a symbiosis between slavery and feminism; for her, slavery was nothing more than a metaphor to convey her feminism, her prime and sole message in Sab.

Different approaches to Sab have resulted in diverse opinions among critics, who, by and large, have not praised this ‘novelita’, which according to the author had been written ‘por distraerse de momentos de ocio y melancolia’ [for amusement during moments of leisure and of melancholy12 (G6mez de Avellaneda, 1841: 127). The fact that Avellaneda decided to place these words in her prologue to Sab (‘DOS palabras al lector’) clearly indicates her intention to counteract some of the apparently subversive aspects of this novel, and to face the public censorship which she already anticipated before publication3 Some of the critics have considered that Sab lacks sufficient moral consciousness to belong to anti-slavery literature. Even Mary Cruz, a tireless researcher on Avellaneda, takes the ‘DOS palabras al lector’ as an honest revelation: ‘En Sab elfinpropuesto [. . .] espuramente artistico. No tenia

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otra finalidad que no fuese la de entretener sus propios ratos de ocio y el ocio de sus lectores’ [In Sab, the purpose is purely artistic. It did not have any aim other than to while away her leisure and that of her readers’] (Cruz, 1973: 120). Guillermo Diaz-Plaja considers that ‘Sab es la novela-tipo de la exaltacidn de1 hombre de la Naturaleza, el salvaje, el hombre de color, convertido en h&roe sentimental. [. . .] La raza blanca esta representada por el frio raciocinio; la negra por el sentimiento. Esta es la leccidn que se extrae de su lectura’ [Sab is the typical novel that exalts the natural man, the savage, the coloured man turned into a sentimental hero [. . .]. The white race is represented by cold reason, the black one by feeling. This is the lesson that can be extracted from this novel] (1936: 127). As Nicomedes Pastor Diaz notes, the abolitionist content of the novel is secondary and not essential to the plot, which he believes is centred on the dramatic conflict of the mulatto protagonist (cited by Barreda Tomas, 1978: 6 155616). However, some later critics have emphasised the abolitionist nature of Sab. Stacey Schlau insists on the anti-slavery characterof the novel: ‘Published in 1841, when opposition to slavery influenced writers in both Europe and America, the novel is clearly and irrevocably abolitionist’ (1986: 495). On the other hand, Emilio Pifieyro does not believe that Avellaneda’s book went so far as to mirror the tragic character of Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1940: 253).

This article argues that neither the romantic nor the abolitionist argument manages to see clearly the novel’s main purpose: to express Avellaneda’s feminist thought. Thus, the allusions to black slavery only constitute the author’s vehicle for communicating her frustrations as a woman in a society where the female role was unquestionably inferior. In Sab, Avellaneda attempts to express a biographical complaint since she herself had to face many of the obstacles that were imposed on her gender. Thus, she identifies with the slave because their respective destinies ‘no [les] [abrian] ninguna senda, b] [. . .] el mundo no [les] concedia ninglin derecho’ (Sab: 312) [left no paths open to them, and the world conceded them no rights] (p. 142). Colour, for slaves, and gender, for women ‘era[n] el sello de una fatalidad eterna, una sentencia de muerte moraP (Sab: 312) [[were] the mark of an eternal fate, a sentence of moral death] (p. 142). Although the author had experienced the injustices that women suffered in society, she realised that such a situation was rooted in the morality of the time, and that it was very dangerous to rebel openly against social norms. However, she knew that the servitude of slaves was a social injustice recognised by many and was in the process of being abolished; accordingly she dared to expose her disagreement with this social institution as an erroneous and unbearable reality in order to present, though seemingly as a form of sub-theme, the similarly unjust servitude of women. As Susan Kirkpatrick observes: ‘In the imagined expression of a slave’s outrage speaks, in fact, the anger of a young colonial woman who aspired to pour out her own subjectivity in writing capable of captivating the great writers of civilisation and culture, but who was told to be silent and resign herself to the self-abnegating virtues of the angel of the hearth’ (1989: 157).4

Nevertheless, as we shall see, an examination of Sab reveals several anti-slavery passages. But the fact that none of Avellaneda’s later works shows any reference to black slavery makes us think that she was not an author obsessed by abolition. Furthermore, her obsession could be defined by the analogy marriage-slavery, a theme which is constructed more explicitly in her other early novel DOS mujeres.5 Unlike Sab, DOS mujeres has not been the object of much debate and has been clearly defined as a critique of the institution of marriage, disguised under a traditional form (Guerra, 1985: 716). But this novel goes further than that. In fact, it constitutes an attack against all those social values that

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undermined women as individuals. As with Sub, the author decides to add some apologetic words in the prologue of the novel, foreseeing the unpopularity of some of the liberal ideas expressed in it. Thus, Avellaneda declares that ‘ningtin objet0 moral ni social se ha propuesto al escribirl[a] Iv] [. . .] no se tree en laprecision deprofesar una doctrina’ [she did not have any moral or social purpose in writing it and does not have the need to profess a doctrine] and that she has written it as ‘a mero pasatiempo’ [mere pastime] (Gomez de Avellaneda, 1842: I, 6).

Once again through the fictional characters of DOS mujeres, she expresses themes such as the oppression and limited education of women. Through the main character Catalina, Avellaneda protests against the oppressive social rules that were assigned to women and the strict condemnation applied to them if they did not follow those rules. Catalina states her rejection of censorious social norms, thus: ‘Huyamos de esta sociedad que hate un crimen de 10s sentimientos que ella no autoriza’ [Let’s escape from this society that makes a crime of any feeling that it does not authorise] (1842: III, 75). Avellaneda knew that both Sub and DOS mujeres were far from conforming to the tastes and canons of the society of her time, precisely because both works attempted to advance her ideology. There is no doubt that Avellaneda was a progressive woman for her time. In 1843 she wrote: ‘Mi familia pertenece a la clase llamada nobleza, pero yo no pertenezco a ninguna. Trato al duque coma al bufdn. No reconozco otra aristocracia que la de1 talento’ [My family belongs to the class called the nobility, but I do not belong to any class. I treat the duke the same as the buffoon. I do not recognise any aristocracy other than that of talent] (Portuondo, 1968: 3). Thus in Sub, the problem of slavery allowed the author to affirm the rights of women and her desire for social equality.

The slave Sab, protagonist of the novel that carries his name, does not represent in any sense the mistreated slave of nineteenth-century Cuba. He confesses: ‘Jamas he sufrido el trato duro que se da generalmente a 10s negros, ni he sido condenado a largos y fatigosos trabajos’ (Sub: 139) [I have never suffered the harsh treatment which is generally meted out to slaves, nor have I been condemned to long and arduous labour] (p. 31). Sab is foreman of the sugar mill: ‘Su suerte [era] menos digna de histima que la de otros esclavos’ (Sub: 139) [He seem[ed] less deserving of pity than the other slaves] (p. 31). Furthermore, ‘no pare&a un criollo blanco, tampoco era negro ni podia creersele descendiente de 10s primeros habitadores de Las Antillas. Su rostra presentaba un compuesto singular en que se descubria el cruzamiento de dos razas diversas, y en que se amalgamaban, por decirlo asi, 10s rasgos de la casta afiicana con 10s de la europea, sin ser no obstante un mulato perfecto’ (Sub: 133) [he did not appear to be a white criollo; neither was he black nor could one take him for a descendant of the indigenous inhabitants of the Antilles. His face was a singular composite which revealed the mingling of two distinct races, an amalgam, it could be said, of the features of the African and the European yet without being a perfect mulatto] (p. 28). Schlau says that Sab is a symbiosis of what we could call ‘the noble black and the romantic hero’ (1986: 619). The slave also had an education similar to a white man’s and seems to be a blood relation of his masters. Carlota, his owner, says: ‘Mipadre le ha tratado siempre con particular distincidn, y atin ha dejado traslucir a la familia que tiene motivos poderosos para creerlo hijo de su dtjiinto hermano don Luis’ (Sub: 159) [My father has always treated him with special consideration and has let on to the family that he has compelling reasons to believe him the son of his late brother Don Luis] (p. 45). Even for Carlota, Sab is like a brother: ‘Sub no ha estado confundido con 10s otros esclavos [. . .], se ha criado conmigo coma un hermano, tiene suma ajkion a la lectura y su talent0 natural es admirable’ (Sub: 158) [Sab has never mixed with the

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other slaves [. . .], for he has been raised with me like a brother, has an immense love of reading, and his natural talent is astonishing] (pp. 4445). The protagonist of the novel is thus different from other blacks in birth, appearance, education and behaviour.

However, Sab describes himself and feels like both a ‘mulato y esclavo’ [mulatto and slave] who belongs to ‘aquella raza desventurada sin derechos de hombres . . . ’ (Sab: 137) [that unhappy race deprived of human rights. . .] (p. 30). Paradoxically, this mulatto slave proclaims himself to be a champion of freedom, but he does not rebel and he is only subjugated to the slavery of his love for Carlota: ‘Desde mi infancia fui escriturado a la sefiorita Carlota: soy esclavo suyo, y quiero vivir y morir a su servicio’ (Sab: 140) [As a child I was signed over to Miss Carlota; I am her slave, and I wish to live and die in her service] (p. 32). Here Sab seems close to being a feminine character, who reflects the social condition of women in a bourgeois society that deprives them of all the rights that are granted to men, and leads them to idealise their subordination to men. Through the character of Teresa, Carlota’s orphan-cousin, the author censures the restrictions to which women were subjected and criticises implicitly an upbringing that permits happiness only within love and marriage. Thus, when Sab decides to confess to Carlota the fallacy of her relationship with Enrique, Teresa adds: ‘i,Quien te da el derecho de arrancarla sus ilusiones, de privarla de 10s momentos de felicidad que ellas pueden proporcionarla? iquk habras logrado cuando despiertes de ese sueno de amor, que es su unica existencia?iqut le daras en [sic] cambio de las esperanzas que le robes?’ (Sab: 256) [Who gives you the right to snatch her dreams from her, to deprive her of the moments of happiness that these can give her? What will you have attained when you awaken her out of this dream of love that is her sole existence? What are you going to give her in exchange for the hopes of which you rob her?] (p. 106).

In spite of the fact that Sab does not reflect the stereotypical image of the slave, Avellaneda makes him a spokesman for the injustice of black slavery and a vehicle for revealing the ‘slavery’ of white women. Both blacks and women, ‘[estan] condenados a ver hombres coma ellos, para 10s cuales la fortuna y la ambicidn abren mil caminos de gloria y de poder; mientras que ellos no pueden tener ambicidn, no pueden esperar un porvenir’ (Sab: 258) [[are] condemned to see fortune and ambition facilitate a thousand ways to glory and power for men no better than themselves, while they may harbour neither ambition nor hope for the future] (p. 107). Although Avellaneda did not propose the abolition of slavery, she was aware of its cruelty. Sab says: ‘Bajo este cielo de fuego el esclavo casi desnudo trabaja toda la manana sin descanso, y a la hora terrible de1 mediodia, jadeando, abrumado bajo elpeso de la lena y de la cana que conduce sobre sus espaldas, y abrasado por 10s rayos de1 sol que tuesta su cutis, llega el infeliz a gozar todos 10s placeres que tiene para Cl la vida: dos horas de sueno y una escasa ration’ (Sab: 135-136) [Under this fiery sky the nearly naked slave works all morning without rest, and at the terrible hour of midday, painting, crushed under the weight of the wood and the sugarcane he bears on his shoulders, scorched by the rays of the sun that burn his skin, the unhappy soul at last gets a taste of all the pleasures which life holds for him: two hours of sleep and a frugal meal] (p. 29). This was the degrading situation of the slave, of those coloured human beings who did not share Sab’s luck. Some pages later, the mulatto protagonist says: ‘Pero jah!, al negro se rehtisa lo que es concedido a las bestias feroces, a quienes le igualan; porque a ellas se les deja vivir entre 10s montes donde nacieron y al negro. se le arranca de 10s suyos’ (Sab: 257) [But, ah! the black is denied that which is granted the wild beasts to which he is compared, for they are permitted to live in the place where they were born, whereas the black is torn from it] (p. 107).

Although Sab does not suffer from the physical chains of servitude, Avellaneda describes

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her compassion for his character, in order to express the feeling that he experiences when he realises that he will never win Carlota’s love because of his condition as mulatto ‘slave’. In this way, torn between two realities, Sab does not belong to either: he is not a slave like the others, but neither is he integrated in the white society. Feeling completely isolated in that society, he confesses to Teresa: ‘Soy solo en el mundo: nadie llorara mi muerte. No tengo tampoco una patria que defender, porque 10s deberes de1 esclavo son 10s deberes de la bestia de carga, que anda mientras puede y se echa en tierra cuando ya no puede mas’ (Sab: 257) [I am alone in the world; no one will weep at my death. I have no homeland to defend, because slaves have no country. I have no obligations to perform, because the obligations of a slave are those of a beast of burden who walks while he is able and collapses when he can go no further] (p. 107).

All these allusions to black slavery can explain the confusion among scholars who have concluded that Sab is an abolitionist novel. However, as the action moves forward, Avellaneda, through the protagonist Carlota, balances and reinforces the parallelism between the situation of the black slave and the servitude of the white woman, allowing herself to express her longing for freedom in a more explicit way. The author makes her character a defender of the indigenous race extinguished by civilisation; Carlota idealises Nature in its primitive state in contrast to a society that makes human beings enslave others: ‘Lloro sial recordar una raza desventurada que habit6 la tierra que habitamos, [. , .] y que ha desaparecido de esta tierra de la que fue pactj%ca poseedora. Aqui Vivian felices e inocentes aquellos hijos de la naturaleza: este suelo virgen no necesitaba ser regado con el sudor de 10s esclavospara producirles’ (Sab: 203) [I do cry when I remember an unfortunate people who once dwelt on the lands we live on now, [. . .] and who have disappeared from this country, of which they were the peaceful owners. Here those children of nature lived in happiness and innocence: this virgin soil did not need to be watered with the sweat of slaves to be productive] (p. 73). And even Sab, the slave, recognises in Carlota, the woman, the only being that ‘[comprende] la vida y la felicidad de 10s salvajes’ [understands the life and happiness of the savages]. He insinuates that the destiny of both would have been different if they had been born ‘en 10s abrasados desiertos de Africa o en un confin desconocido de la America’ (Sab: 204) [in the burning deserts of Africa or in some unknown corner of America] (p. 74). This quotation carries an implicit critique of the oppressive values of society, since ’10s abrasados desiertos de Africa’ like ‘un conjin desconocido de la America’ represent, according to the author, free and immaculate places, far from the oppressive and materialist bourgeois society. Sab, in his condition as slave, and Carlota, in her condition as woman, appear like ‘ser[es] degradado[s], proscrito[s] por la sociedad, envilecido[s] por 10s hombres. . .’ (Sab: 248) [debased being[s], outlawed by society, reviled by men. . .] (p. 100).

When we consider all these examples of anti-slavery passages, and examine the socio- historical context in which the novel appeared, it is not surprising that Sab was prohibited by the authorities in Cuba, since it was considered to be ‘una subversion de todos 10s valores sociales y morales y, en tiltima instancia, econbmicos ypoliticos, establecidos’ [a subversion of all social, moral and, in the end, all established economic and political values] (Cruz, 1973: 140). But the interpretation of Sab in nineteenth-century Cuba, similar to the later critical evaluations which considered it a pioneer of anti-slavery literature, ignored the feminist message that the author attempted to convey in her book. We should not forget that Sab was written at the same time as other anti-slavery novels, such as those of Cirilo Villaverde, Felix Tanco and Anselmo Suirez y Romero, who also addressed the subject of passion as the central theme. In all these works a white man loves a black or mulatto

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woman (Crux, 1973: 35). In contrast to these authors, Avellaneda, besides being the only woman who wrote a novel of the kind during the period, also transgressed the tradition by reversing the relationship in order to serve her feminist purpose: a black man dares to desire a white woman. The author tried to create a double impact on her audience by presenting an inversion that broke the existing social and literary canons and disclosed a glimpse of the liberationist message underlying such an unusual relationship.6

The author goes beyond an attempt to amalgamate the noble slave with the admirable qualities of women; she creates a character like Sab, who, in spite of the fact that he is both male and slave, shows typically feminine characteristics (see Williams, 1993). In this way, Avellaneda changes the conventional role of the male character for the female one: Sab, like most women in novels of the time, is ruled by passions and emotions, in contrast to the more rational masculine stereotype. On the other hand, Teresa, the other female protagonist, appears as a stronger character who is in control of her feelings, unlike the submissive and resigned female demanded by patriarchal society. Sab says to Teresa: ‘Es que en mi hay una fact&ad inmensa de amar: [. . .] es que a vos OS sostiene la razdn y a mime devora el sentimiento. Vuestro sentimiento es de1 maspuro oro, el mio es de fuego’ (Sab: 311) [It is that within me there is an immense ability to love: you are upheld by reason, and I am devoured by emotion. Your heart is of the purest gold, mine of fire] (p. 141). Avellaneda’s feminist views led her to have the mulatto protagonist express words of admiration for Teresa: ‘ Y, sin embargo, vos sois una debil mujer: jcual es esa fuerza que OS sostiene y que yo pido en vano a mi corazdn de hombre? (Sub: 209) [And yet, you are a weak woman: what is this strength which sustains you and for which I vainly ask my virile heart?] (p. 140). Doris Sommer has concluded with regard to the subject: ‘Aquiel hombre real es, por supuesto Sub o la Avellaneda misma, tan apasionados coma Carlota y tan dados a principios altruistas coma Teresa, ElIella es elpersonaje mas masculine [. . .] porque es el mas feminizado’ [Here the real man is, of course, Sab or Avellaneda herself, who are both as passionate as Carlota and as prone to altruistic principles as Teresa. He/she is the most masculine character because he/ she is the most feminised] (Sommer, 1987: 35).

In the last chapter of the novel, the flow of the plot clarifies the marriage-slavery analogy which was already suggested earlier in the book. Carlota, like Sab, realises her condition as a marginal being, but she does not rebel against the social oppression of which both are victims. She decides to obey the social norms which are assigned to her, thus becoming a victim of her class. Her unsuccessful destiny represents the strongest critique of marriage in the novel. When she discovers that her husband is a product of the mercantile world, Carlota ‘[se siente] desgraciada [en su matrimonio] y lo [es] tanto mas cuanto que todos la creian feliz’ (Sub: 301) [feels unhappy in her marriage, and the more the others believe her to be happy, the more wretched she becomes] (p. 135). Society imposes as a norm: ‘[no] desaprobar con justicia la conducta de su marido, [no] quejarse de su suerte [apesar de] todo lo que tenia de serio y material aquella vida de1 comercio’ (Sub: 302) [do not by rights disapprove of her husband’s conduct nor complain of her lot, despite feeling oppressed by all the harshness and materialism of business life] (p. 136). The image of Carlota is similar to the slave’s; she is rendered incapable of deciding her own destiny. Instead of accepting that women’s happiness relies on the passive role imposed by society, Avellaneda converts this belief into a fallacy. Thus Sab says referring to the destiny that awaits Carlota when she marries Enrique Otway: ‘iPodra ser Lfeliz] cuando despues de algunos dias de error y entusiasmo vea rasgarse el velo de sus ilusiones, y se halle unida a un hombre que habra de despreciar? . . .’ (Sub: 260) will she be happy? Can she be when after a few days of

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misconceptions and rapture she will see the veil of her illusions rent and find herself joined to a man that she must come to despise?] (p. 109). Under the mask of this feminine character, the author presents the image of a trapped woman in an unhappy marriage, forced to accept her role as a marginalised figure in a society controlled by men. Carlota is a representative of the women of her class: ‘Guard[aba] silencio y [parec[iu] resignurse. Puru ellu todo hubiu ucubudo. Vio a su murido tul cuul era: comenzd a comprender la vidu. Sus suen”os se disipuron, su umor huyd con su felicidud, Entonces toed todu la desnudez, todu la pequerlez de lus reulidudes’ (Sub: 304) [She kept silent and appeared to have resigned herself to it. For her everything was over. She saw her husband as he really was: she began to understand life. Her dreams faded; her love, and with it her happiness, vanished. Then she came to know all the starkness, the pettiness of reality] (p. 137). Furthermore, she envies her cousin Teresa, who decided to escape from resignation by living in a convent.7 Thus, Carlota, ‘la mujer hermosu, ricu y lisonjeudu, la que teniu esposo y pluceres veniu a buscur consuelo en la pobre monju muertu puru el mundo’ (Sub: 301) [the beautiful, rich, and admired woman, who had a husband and many comforts, came seeking consolation from the poor nun who had renounced the world] (p. 135). And in spite of the fact that ‘de nudu cureciu [. . .], comodidudes, recreuciones y uun lujo, todo lo teniu’ [lacked for nothing: comforts, pleasures, and even luxury-she had it all], she could not be happy while knowing that ‘uquellus bellus upuriencius, y uun lus ventujus reules de la vidu, estubun fundudus y sostenidus por la incesunte uctividud, por la perenne especulucidn y por un futigunte desvelo’ (Sub: 302) [those beautiful appearances and even real advantages of life were all founded upon and sustained by ceaseless activity, perennial scheming, and an exhausting watch- fulness] (p. 136). This woman is immersed in the world of convention; incapable of violating social norms, she resigns herself to oppression in spite of her unhappiness.

With Sub, Avellaneda seems to be determined to attack the absurdity of the social canons that oppressed and subjugated women. She, in her condition as a woman, had experienced this oppression. In a letter of 1845, she confessed that she felt ‘vilipendiudupor la escluvitud de la sociedud’ [vilified by the slavery of society] (Cotarelo y Mori, 1930: 130). This society had formed the inevitable destiny of the black race and the white woman, allowing them no alternative but to serve and obey their masters. Sab says, referring to the destiny of black people which is implicitly applicable to women in bourgeois society: ‘En vuno sentirbn en su cubezu unu fuerzu pensudoru, en vuno en su pecho un coruzdn que pulpite. iE1 poder y la voluntud! En vuno un instinto, unu conviccidn que les grite, alevuntuos y marchad>>; porque puru ellos todos 10s cuminos es&n cerrudos, todus lus esperunzus destruidus’ (Sub: 258) [In vain will they feel in their minds the capacity for thought, in vain in their breasts a heart that beats. Power and will! In vain an instinct, a conviction which cries out to them ‘Rise up and walk!’ because for them all roads are barred, all hopes dashed] (p. 107). Similarly, Avellaneda conceives of marriage as a blind alley and a false dream that oppresses women and subjugates them to the degrading values of a patriarchal society. Sab says about the marriage of Carlota to Enrique Otway: ‘Tunto vuldriu ligur al uguilu con la serpiente, o a un vivo con un cudciver. i Y ellu hubrci de jurur a ese hombre umor y obedienciu! ile entregurd su coruzdn, su porvenir, su destino entero! . . . jellu se hard un deber de respeturle! Y e’l iPI la tomurri por mujer, coma a un gPnero de mercunciu, por ciilculo, por convenienciu . . . huciendo unu especulucidn vergonzosu de1 luzo mhs sunto, de1 empen” mcis solemne!, iu ellu, que le dark su alma! iy kl serci su murido, el poseedor de Curlotu’ (Sub: 260-261) [It would be like joining the eagle to the serpent, or a living being to a corpse. And she must vow love and obedience to that man! She will make it her duty

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to respect him! And he, he will take her as his wife like a piece of merchandise, calculatingly, for profit, transforming into shameful speculation the most holy bond, the most solemn pledge! She, who will give him her soul! And he will be her husband, the one who possesses Carlota] (p. 109). Avellaneda rebels against the mercantile theory which was applied to marriage at the time. The male character, Jorge Otway, symbol of the cultural values of the period, says concerning his son’s marriage to Carlota: ‘Un marido [. . .], ya te lo he dicho cien veces, se casa con una mujer lo mismo que se asocia con un companero, por especulacion, por conveniencia. La hermosura, el talent0 que un hombre de nuestra clase busca en la mujer con quien ha de casarse son la riqueza y la economia’ (Sub: 183) [A husband [. . .], I’ve told you a hundred times, [. . .] becomes associated with a firm: for investment, for profit. The beauty and the talent that a man of our class looks for in a woman to marry is wealth and thrift] (p. 61). Undoubtedly, these quotations transmit the author’s progressive voice. It is possible that, as Mary Cruz states: ‘1~s propias convicciones de la Avellaneda y su inteligencia para captar 10s conflictos planteados en la sociedad donde se movian sus personajes, la llevaron a pintar un cuadro mucho m&s atrevido de lo que ella misma se propuso, y de lo que fueron capaces de hater sus contempo&eos’ [Avellaneda’s own convictions and her ability to capture the existing conflicts in the society in which her characters lived, led her to paint a much more daring picture of what she herself had in mind, and of what her own contemporaries were capable of doing].8

The cultural values that undermine both black people and women are reinforced by the prevailing reality of religion in society, which demands the abnegation of both groups. Avellaneda criticises the religious values that perpetuate both the abominable reality of black slavery and the frustrating subjugation of women. In the conclusion of the novel, Sab exclaims: ‘Me acuerdo que cuando mi amo me enviaba a confesar mis culpas a 10s pies de un sacerdote, yo preguntaba al ministro de Dios qt.& haria para alcanzar la virtud. La virtud de1 esclavo, me respondia, es obedecer y callar, servir con humildad y resignacidn a sus legitimos duenos, y no juzgarlos nunca’ (Sab: 309) [I remember that when my master sent me to confess my sins at the feet of a priest, I asked God’s minister what I should do in order to attain virtue. The virtue of the slave, he replied, is to obey and be silent, serve his awful masters with humility and resignation, and never to judge them] (p. 140). This quotation represents, once more, an example of the clear parallelism between the author’s censure of black slavery and her feminist philosophy. Women, like slaves, have only one mission in life, which is to listen to ‘[la voz] de 10s fuertes que dice a 10s de’biles: Obediencia, humildad, resignacidn . . . &a es la virtud’ (Sub: 316) [[the voice] of the strong who say to the weak: obedience, humility, resignation . . . that is virtue] (p. 145).

The metaphor of black slavery that pervades the novel becomes explicit in the conclusion, when Sab, alluding to his love for Carlota, writes a letter to Teresa: ‘iOh, las mujeres! ipobres y ciegas victimas! Como 10s esclavos, ellas arrastran pacientemente su cadena y bajan la cabeza bajo el yugo de Las leyes humanas. Sin otra guia que su corazon ignorante y cre’dulo eligen un dueno para toda la vida’ (Sab: 316) [Oh, women! Poor, blind victims! Like slaves, they patiently drag their chains and bow their heads under the yoke of human laws. With no other guide than an untutored and trusting heart, they choose a master for life] (p. 144). But Avellaneda goes beyond a simple comparison between women and slaves, She dares to say that woman’s destiny is worse than the slave’s, because ‘en su calidad de texto que ilumina retroactivamente toda la novela, esta carta propone a Sab coma un recurso paradigmtitico que permite reinterpretar la figura de Carlota con el auxilio complementario

Symbiosis between slavery and feminism 195

delpersonaje negro’ [as a text that illuminates the entire novel retroactively, this letter makes Sab a paradigmatic device that allows us to reinterpret the role of Carlota with the help of the black character] (Guerra, 1985: 714). The letter that Sab writes to Teresa before his death allows us to realise that his reflections on slavery turn out to be a discourse on the destiny of women.

In Sab, the concepts of race and gender appear closely linked. Avellaneda, who from a young age had clashed with the conventional ambience of her time, became conscious of the marginal role of women within the oppressive patriarchal system. Because of that, she found a way to express a strong protest against the prejudices and social canons of the existing male tradition, juxtaposing the parallel theme of black slavery with her embryonic feminist philosophy. The last lines of the novel underline the author’s essential message: ‘iHabrri podido olvidar la hija de 10s Trdpicos [Carlota] al esclavo [Sab] que descansa en una himilde sepultura bajo ague1 hermoso cielo ?’ (Sab: 320) [will the daughter of the tropics [Carlota] have been able to forget the slave [Sab] who rests in a simple grave under that magnificent sky?] (p. 147). This rhetorical question leads us to conclude that Carlota was only a symbol that the author used to refer to all women ‘cualquiera que [fuese] su destino, y elpais de1 mundo donde [habitasen]’ (Sab: 320) [whatever [might] be their fate and the nation of the world in which they [were] residing] (p. 147). It is evident that the answer expected by the author would be a reaction against the prevailing patriarchal values which required the passivity and submissiviness of women. As has been suggested in this article, Gertrudis Gomez de Avellaneda did not employ a true symbiosis between her desire for abolishing slavery and her feminism: the theme of slavery is only a metaphor, doubly shocking because it exposes her own emancipating ideas in an oppressive society that did not forgive those voices which dared to transgress its norms.

NOTES

1. Avellaneda had an extensive literary output as a lyrical poet, dramatist and novelist. Sub was the first novel published (1841) following her nostalgic period after leaving Cuba.

2. Gomez de Avellaneda, G. (1993) Sub and Autobiography, translated and edited by Nina M. Scott, University of Texas Press (Austin), p. 26. All future English translations of Sub will be from this edition.

3. Myriam Diaz-Diocaretz explains the popularity of prologues used by women writers to ‘justify’ their ideas, which might be interpreted as subversive for that period, and to ensure that their novels could enjoy general acceptance (1993: 105).

4. See Cixous’ notion of Pcrituse feminine in Cixous and Clement (1986: xv). 5. In her novel DOS mujeres (1842) considered her most feminist work, Avellaneda reveals a stronger

critique of the institution of marriage. Similarly, the author herself excluded both novels from the final edition of her works in 1869-1871 because of her growing conventionalism. English translations of Dos mujeres are mine.

6. According to Antonio M. Lazcano: ‘La unidn de negro y blanca [. .] estaba vedada, sin duda motivadapor el sentimiento de proteccidn que el espaiiol da a la mujer. a la que iden tifica con la Virgen Maria, por lo que siendo asi no podria permitir que en su sociedad se uniera el negro inferior con la blanca’ [The marriage between a black man and a white woman was banned, undoubtedly motivated by the feeling of protection that the Spanish man gives women, whom he identifies with the Virgin Mary. In this way society would not be able to allow the bond between the degraded black man with a white woman]. (1978: p. 92)

7. In the nineteenth century, those women who wanted to escape from the assigned disadvantages of their sex, could ‘opt’ to become nuns. Even in the seventeenth century, the Mexican writer sor Juana In&s de la Cruz (1651-1695), feeling frustrated in a society where the use of the mind was an exclusive privilege of men, chose to enter a convent to be able to write. See the critical edition of Electa Arena1 and Amanda Powell (1994).

196 Brigida Pastor

8. Cruz (1972: 13). Mary Cruz also points to the possible influence of Victor Hugo’s Bug-Jurguf, as a direct antecedent to Sub. Likewise, critics have noted in Avellaneda’s prose the influences of different authors like Rousseau, George Sand, Madame de Stael, Lamartine, Byron, Walter Scott and Goethe. The possible influences of Chateaubriand, Goethe and Rousseau in Sub are studied in the article by Albert0 J. Carlos (1965) Rem?, Werther y la Nouvelle Heloise en la primera novela de la Avellaneda. Revista Iberoamericana 31.

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Carlos, A. J. (1965) RenP Wether y la Nouvelle Heloise en la primera novela de la Avellaneda. Revista Iberoamericana 31.

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