56 pages • 1 hour read
Carmen LaforetNada
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1945A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Symbols & Motifs
Catholic Authoritarianism
Andrea’s Aunt Angustias is an extremely Catholic woman whose rhetoric is redolent of Falangism (a political philosophy that predominated during Franco’s rule over Spain). Many critics feel that Angustias serves as a stand-in for women’s experience living under Franco’s rule. For example, Angustias keeps a very large cross in her room, echoing the tradition for Francoist institutions to prominently display such crucifixes. Angustias is also critical of Andrea for being an orphan, echoing the rhetoric of priests and nuns who harshly rebuked the orphaned children of “Reds.”
Angustias also mimics the harsh authoritarianism that was indicative of Falangism, seeking to control the behavior and movement of household members (specifically, Andrea and Gloria). She likens the Barrio Chino neighborhood of Barcelona to “the devil’s glitter” (43), and claims that a woman can become contaminated simply by walking in the wrong area. Angustias also displays extremely heightened, threatening reactions to small provocations, as when she shouts to Andrea, “If I’d gotten hold of you when you were younger, I’d have beaten you to death!” (80).
Angustias faith has very little to do with genuine belief. Her Catholicism is motivated, instead, by a desire to control the behaviors and perceptions of those around her. As Gloria explains, “God hasn’t given Angustias any kind of understanding, and when she prays in church she doesn’t hear any music from heaven but instead she looks around to see who’s come into church in short sleeves and bare legs” (84).
The Treatment and Selling of “Things"
In the Calle de Aribau household, relics and reminders of the past haunt the family’s day-to-day interactions, from Gloria’s stories to Juan and Román’s fights. The piles of formerly fine furniture owned by Andrea’s grandmother are an extension of the house’s psychologically oppressive atmosphere. As Román aptly explains: “It seems the air is always filled with shouting…and the things are responsible for that, they’re asphyxiated, grief-stricken, heavy with sadness” (26). Surrounded by piles of mistreated memories, it is difficult for the family to move on from old resentments.
Angustias and Román make conscious efforts to establish independent spaces within the household. Angustias’s room is neat and orderly, whereas Román’s room is a well-curated space of artful objects. The novel subtly suggests, however, that these spaces of escape may prevent both Angustias and Román from facing the realities of their living situations.
Gloria, on the other hand, is not sentimentally attached to things in the Calle de Aribau household. Not related to the family by blood and coming from a poor family, she sees these things only as potential currency: objects whose value lies in their ability to procure food and other provisions needed for living. Thus, she sells the grandmother’s objects to the rag merchant and enables her family’s survival.
The ending of Nada establishes a complex resonance around things as an extension of life and humanity. Román’s death feels unreal to Andrea until, days later, she visits his empty room where the missing objects reify the finality of her uncle’s death: “[E]verything had been stripped, miserably. […] Not a single charming trinket, of all those Román kept, had survived him” (236).
Similarly, when Gloria sells Román’s piano, it feels to Juan as though she is selling the last vestige of his soul, removing his spirit from the house. The novel suggests, however, that there may be positive potential in this removal: a kind of cleansing that brings the possibility of renewal.
The Streets of Barcelona
In Nada, the streets of Barcelona are an important vehicle for Andrea’s self-discovery. Initially, her wanderings allow her to gain independence, transgressing the harsh limitations of her Aunt Angustias by exploring neighborhoods—such as the Barrio Chino—that Angustias has expressly forbidden her to enter. Eventually, the streets become avenues for socioeconomic and historical exploration, and Andrea begins to develop an awareness of where she fits into the surrounding landscape.
It is significant that the most meaningful scenes in Andrea’s romantic life revolve around street explorations. Gerardo introduces Andrea to the Miramar, where she sees “the rusted skeletons of ships sunk during the war” (116). Pons shows Andrea the Santa Maria del Mar, “an example of pure Catalan Gothic […] burned during the war” (124). Sites such as the Santa Maria del Mar serve as quiet suggestions of Andrea’s burgeoning Catalan pride and identity: “To my eyes, Santa Maria del Mar seemed endowed with singular charm, with its peculiar towers and small, ordinary plaza facing old houses” (124).
The city connects Andrea to the beauty of new experience, the sadness of disappointment, and the hunger of exploration. She thus turns to the streets whenever she needs to process ideas and experience in a way that extends beyond language. As Andrea explains, the physical exertion of her endless walking allows her to stop obsessing about family tension and find places where she feels like she can fit in unobtrusively:
To drive away the ghosts, I went out a great deal. I wandered the city, uselessly wearing myself out. […] I wandered instinctively, embarrassed by my shabby clothing, avoiding the expensive, well-tended neighborhoods in the city. I came to know the suburbs with their sadness of poorly made, dusty things. The old streets attracted me more (238).
