La madre naturaleza

The appearance in 1886 of "Los Pazos de Ulloa" caused a formidable scandal in the literary world of the Restoration. Without waiting for the waters to calm down, Emilia Pardo Bazán (1851-1921) published another novel the following year, "Mother Nature", which is a direct continuation of the previous one. In it, the persistence of certain themes (such as the unveiling of the hidden dimensions of the soul, the conflict between instincts and reason, the retreat towards animality) and the way of treating them shows the depth of the author's commitment to the naturalism. On this occasion, however, the core of the story (the incestuous love affairs of the two adolescents who star in the novel) is imposed on the social elements that accompany its plot.