En defensa de Jacinta: a propósito del protagonismo de la heroína galdosiana

Abstract

Throughout the years, the majority of critics of the Galdosian literary corpus, with the exception of scholars such as Harriet Turner, have chosen to minimize and even ignore the co-protagonistic role of Jacinta, Juanito Santa Cruz‘s wife and Fortunata‘s love rival, in the novel Fortunata y Jacinta. This study pretends to expose this tendency, as well as to refute it in favor of the aforementioned Galdosian character. The proposition is that in this novel, both women are protagonists and do in fact complement each other. Fortunata could not be Fortunata without Jacinta and vice versa. In other words, these two women represent both sides of the coin of this story.