L’últim vaixell a la Universitat de Swansea
L’últim vaixell ha estat objecte d’estudi per part d’una professora de la Universitat de Swansea
Image and Reality: Constructing Womanhood during the Franco Regime
Edwards, Sian Swansea University
The aim of this paper is to examine the conflict between constructing
images and the reality of women during the Franco regime. The paper focuses on Esther
Tusquets Habíamos Ganado la Guerra and
Gemma Pasqual L’últim vaixell. It analyses in particular the role
that young women saw was constructed for them and their own shifting concerns
in an age of transition from republicanism to authoritarianism.
més..
Tusquets‘s work has already been considered from many theoretical
perspectives, from psychoanalytical to translation studies. Pasqual‘s book
provides an example of a different genre, introducing issues of Francoism to a
new generation of readers. This paper however is concerned with a
politico-historical approach to the construction of images of womanhood during
the Franco regime to appeal both internally to the Spanish population and
externally in its international reputation. It will delineate several issues,
including the influence of education, the relationship with religion, and
women‘s roles in Francoist associations such as Educación y Descanso and
the Sección Feminina of the Falange.
The article will then compare the experiences
portrayed in Tusquets and Pasqual‘s work with the experiences of visitors
invited from Wales to Francoist Spain. Their reports of their visit provide
illuminating insights into Franco‘s campaigns to project images of Spanish
women abroad and inadvertently provide contemporary historical evidence of
women in a state of transition.