Introduction

In this book I am exploring Carmen Martín Gaite's depiction of characters whose religious or spiritual perspective varies considerably from her own, along with her presentation of what Salustiano Martín describes as the ‘otro camino’ [different way] she tries to offer her readers, one that supports the development of an outlook that perceives and responds to the interaction between the day-to-day and the supernatural worlds, between consciousness and the unconscious. The last chapter concluded that, while the protagonist of Balneario did not see dreams as a way of reuniting the two worlds, as a way to wholeness, Martín Gaite typically left open the possibility that at some future date Matilde might return to the long corridors and draw on the dream in order to engage more meaningfully with her inner life. This chapter will explore two secondary characters who appear in the writer's last two complete novels, Lo raro es vivir and Irse de casa. The relationships of these characters with their inner worlds is so poor that it seriously threatens their ability to live fully and, in one case, threatens life itself.

The importance of fairy tales to Carmen Martín Gaite is well known. Over time she seemed to modify the attitude to traditional fairy tales that she had set out in critical comments in several essays in El cuento de nunca acabar regarding the predictability of such tales and the inadequacies of their protagonists, along with their apparent inability to teach a child anything about the world around her. Her own fairy tales – Castillo, Pastel and Caperucita – address some of those criticisms through their strong heroes and somewhat inconclusive endings. They also retell or reflect well-known fairy tales: Caperucita makes overt reference to one of the most retold of the traditional tales, Little Red Riding Hood, while Castillo and Pastel reflect aspects of Snow White and Sleeping Beauty respectively. The role of fairy tales and their meaning for protagonists in her later novels are presented much more positively than her earlier reactions. Her 1994 novel for adults, Reina, often included by critics among her fairy tales, illustrates the importance of these stories in guiding and inspiring readers of the tales – represented in the novel by its thirty-year-old protagonist Leonardo Villalba – to take hold of their lives and develop the qualities displayed by their fairy tale heroes.