Clorinda Matto de Turner’s Herencia as the creation of an alternative social knowledge

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Clorinda Matto de Turner’s Herencia as the creation of an alternative social knowledge

Jennifer Fraser

Abstract

In this article I examine the broad discourse of private citizenship in Clorinda Matto de Turner’s Herencia (1895) to ask how she alters the existing hierarchy of values to create an alternative social knowledge (by social knowledge, I refer to the shared collective knowledge held within the social body that informs habits and practices). I argue that Matto de Turner reconfigures values by presenting two radical changes to social knowledge. First, she presents a secular framework, based in sociological thought, for making choices and understanding social and economic relations. Second, she uses these new principles to contest European and oligarchic ideas about miscegenation.

En este artículo examino el discurso de la ciudadanía privada en Herencia (1895) de Clorinda Matto de Turner para analizar el cambio de la jerarquía de valores existente con la intención de crear un conocimiento social nuevo (por conocimiento social me refiero al conocimiento colectivo y compartido que se encuentra en el cuerpo social que informa los hábitos y las costumbres). Sugiero que Matto de Turner reconfigura los valores por medio de la presentación de dos cambios radicales del conocimiento social. En primer lugar, presenta un marco secular, basado en el pensamiento sociológico, desde donde tomar decisiones y entender las relaciones sociales y económicas. En segundo lugar, usa estos nuevos principios para refutar las ideas oligárquicas y europeas sobre el mestizaje.

Article

In 1895 Clorinda Matto de Turner published her third and last novel, Herencia,

before leaving Peru to live in exile in Argentina. Compared to her first

iconoclastic novel, Aves sin nido (1889), this text received little critical attention

at the time and subsequent criticism has also been limited. Nonetheless, this is

an important text for its portrayal of Limeñan society during the

reconstruction period (1884-1895) that followed the War of the Pacific. At the

time, many Peruvian intellectuals struggled to come to terms with the heavy

social, financial and territorial losses resulting from the war and attempted to

influence the path of modernisation through their writing. Matto de Turner

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was a key figure in this movement. In this article, I propose to examine the

broad discourse of private citizenship in Herencia to ask how Matto de Turner

alters the existing hierarchy of values to change social knowledge and thus

bring readers into a new understanding of their role as citizens in a modern

nation.

Herencia depicts two families, the Maríns and the Aguileras, to illustrate

the social values of a new liberal elite and of the oligarchy respectively. Both

families have daughters of marriageable age and their love stories develop in

tandem to demonstrate the importance of the education they receive at home

in determining their future happiness; their social and economic values result

either in their daughters’ success or failure. For the Maríns, solid investment

in national industry allows them to create a low-profile, yet secure, social

standing, while for the Aguileras, the outward appearance of financial capital

permits them to preserve their position among Lima’s social elite. Through

these families Matto de Turner demonstrates how hierarchies of values pass

from one generation to the next and where these lead in creating productive

or unsustainable models of private citizenship. In particular, she uses the

bodies of Margarita Marín and Camila Aguilera as the territories on which the

battles for Peru’s future are fought.

Unlike Aves sin nido, Herencia does not contain an overt anti-Church

discourse. Instead of openly criticising the Church as an institution and its

priests, Matto de Turner creates a space of almost total absence for them. With

the exception of one observation made by Lucía Marín, there is no anti-clerical

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commentary (Matto de Turner 1974 [1895]: 124). By using this technique she

places the Church at the sidelines of the social body and as unimportant to the

practice of modern citizenship. In the place of social knowledge based on

religion and the counsel of priests, the novel presents a new way of thinking

that advocates rational choices, based on the positivist principles of sociology,

for bringing about economic and social wealth.

Ward observes that Peruvian authors were influenced by positivist

thinking about literature as a means to social change and that their novels

reflect this atmosphere (Ward 2001: 90). However, Matto de Turner moves

beyond this and openly declares the novel to be a site for sociological study.

In the prologue she writes that Herencia is ‘fruto de mis observaciones

sociológicas y de mi arrojo para fustigar los males de la sociedad, provocando

el bien’ (Matto de Turner 1974 [1895]: 23). Furthermore, in its original 1895

edition Herencia carries the sub-title of novela sociológica.i This emphasis on the

emerging science of sociology signals a new frame for writing fiction and its

role in creating social change. Suggesting that the novel was a scientific study

legitimised her social observations and allowed it to reach a broad audience

that cut across a variety of social groups. Readers could rest assured that the

arguments, although presented in a fictional form, were grounded in scientific

reasoning and were verifiable.

Matto de Turner uses the science of sociology as a new way of

approaching the construction of social knowledge, but begins with a term her

i In my study of nineteenth-century Peruvian novels authored by women, I have only found one other that carries this sub-title, La evolución de Paulina, novela sociológica, by Margarita Práxedes de Muñoz (1893).

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readers already can interpret, herencia. The term in English means inheritance,

or, in a biological sense, heredity. In the context of nineteenth-century Peru

this second meaning was only beginning to emerge. Its more usual meaning

referred to wealth passed from one generation to the next. As we will see,

Matto de Turner plays with this notion to layer the meanings so the word

opens up to refer to economic, social and physical inheritance, particularly

that which mothers pass to daughters in the realm of private citizenship. In

the rebautizo to her novel, Matto de Turner suggests readers already know

what she means by the term:

pongan Ustedes en los originales Herencia, que si con ello no alcanzo a decir mucho de lo que digo en el libro, por lo menos algo significará para mis lectores acostumbrados ya al terreno en que suelo labrar, y a la dureza de mi pluma (Matto de Turner 1974 [1895]: 26-27).

However, through the course of the novel she works with the term to move it

from established ways of knowing to a new hierarchy of values that includes

the scientific principles of heredity and, in doing so, turns readers pre-

conceived notions of the term upside down.

Most literary criticism of Matto de Turner focuses on her better known

novel, Aves sin nido. There is, however, a limited body of work on Herencia.

First, there are studies that discuss Herencia within the larger context of Matto

de Turner’s oeuvre or in comparison with other nineteenth-century novels

(Berg 1990; Bryan 1996; Denegri 1996; Voysest 1998; Arango-Keeth 1999;

Mannarelli 1999). The second smaller group of work provides more detailed

examinations of Herencia (Satake 1986; Tauzin Castellanos 1989; Cornejo Polar

1992; Sklodowska 1997). The majority of both types study the role Matto de

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Turner gives to women within the private sphere and their education. Some,

for example those by Cornejo Polar, Tauzin Castellanos and Voysest, engage

with her use of science. Cornejo Polar does this in the context of discussing

her use of the concept of inheritance and the contradictory message the novel

carries regarding its scientific and social aspects. Tauzin Castellanos examines

how Matto de Turner uses medicine to explain social behaviour. Voysest

considers how Matto de Turner uses elements of Emile Zola’s ideas about

naturalism to create a social study in her novel. None of these critics expand

their studies to consider how the scientific elements of the novel are used to

create a new field of social knowledge. While the themes studied above are

extremely important, we cannot apprehend them fully without analysing

Matto de Turner’s use of science as the framework for understanding reality

and as the foundation of an alternative social knowledge.

In the opening chapter of Herencia we are re-introduced to Lucía and her

adopted daughter Margarita, who, along with Fernando, make up the Marín

family and represent an enlightened liberal elite. All three reappear from Aves

sin nido, though they are now fully transplanted from rural Kíllac in the Sierra

to the coastal city of Lima. Here Matto de Turner begins a dialogue with

readers about the established values of Lima’s elite and the new ones these

characters embody. The novel opens as the two women leave their home and

venture into Lima’s shopping district. However, even before readers learn

their names, they are set apart from other shoppers for the social ideals they

personify and their patterns of consumption. These are two areas that become

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key ground in Matto de Turner’s new hierarchy of values for private

citizenship.

For fashion-conscious readers, as most nineteenth-century readers would

have been, the narrator provides a detailed description of Margarita’s

clothing: ‘Vestía la menor, princesa gris perla con botones de concha madre,

sombrero negro con pluma y cintas de gros lila’ (Matto de Turner 1974 [1895]:

33). ii The description ends by suggesting that Margarita represents:

la mujer nacida para ser codiciada por el hombre de gusto delicado, del hombre que, en el juego de las pasiones, ha alcanzado a distinguir la línea separatista entre la hembra destinada a funciones fisiológicas y la mujer que ha de ser la copartícipe de las espirituales fruiciones del alma (Matto de Turner 1974 [1895]: 33).

If Matto de Turner engages socially aware and fashionable readers with a

description of the outfit, she now draws on a different set of standards to lay

the groundwork for a discussion about the values of healthy relationships.

Here she asks female readers to aspire to be Margarita and male readers to

identify with the man who would find Margarita attractive. Establishing this

identification early on is important for the relationship Matto de Turner

creates with her audience. Those readers who can see themselves reflected in

these characters from the beginning are those who will identify with and

assimilate the new social values they represent.

While Margarita is presented as destined for a special type of shared

(copartícipe) relationship, both she and Lucía are also shown to stand out

against the materialism of the time. So great is their difference they are almost

ii Sklodowska provides a detailed analysis of Margarita’s education in three areas she suggests are the pillars of the bourgeois home: beauty, order and cleanliness. Her analysis includes these detailed descriptions of Margarita’s and other characters’ dress as signals to readers about the characters’ socio-economic status (1997: 11-50).

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otherworldly. As two young men follow the women, the narrator observes

that they are ‘cautivados por el dulcísimo timbre de voz que, así en la joven

como en la dama de treinta años, parecía un distintivo de familia con

abolengos celestiales; lo que era mucho decir en esta época de materialismo

helado y realismo crudo’ (Matto de Turner 1974 [1895]: 35). With this new

point of distinction readers are alerted to the practice of a different economy,

one based in fiscal and social moderation. Here Matto de Turner’s critique of

elite spending habits reflects her support for a platform of post-War national

recovery through fiscal reform. Both national and personal economies had

been devastated by the war and elites, such as Matto de Turner, advocated

restraint in spending and investment in infrastructure for recovering the

health of national and family economies.iii

From the beginning, the Marín family is presented as the embodiment of

moderation and as a counterpoint to the established hierarchy of values. In

the narration of the shopping trip, their difference is underscored:

En suma, aquel almacén era, desde la puerta, una serie de sorpresas que narcotizaba a las mujeres, las engañaba como a tiernas criaturas, y haciéndolas perder todo juicio, las obligaba a dejar el presupuesto de la casa, resignándose con verdadero heroísmo al ayuno del estómago. ¿Qué importaba, empero, el enflaquecimiento, la debilidad física, la tisis matadora, si a ella la veían sus amigas en los parques y paseos, ostentando las novedades de última importación de los almacenes gigantes? Esa era la resignación heroica de la mayoría de las mujeres; pero en las actuales compradoras predominaban sentimientos bien diferentes al deseo de aparentar ante el mundo luces de Bengala, cuando en casa solo hay noche lóbrega y eterna (Matto de Turner 1974 [1895]: 38).

iii Flindell Klarén exemplifies the changes in the post-War period for individual economies by citing a contemporary observer who estimated the number of millionaires went from 18 to 0, the rich from 11,500 to 1,725 and the middle class from 22,148 to 2,000 (2000: 192).

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In addition to marking the novel’s heroines as different, this section serves to

place the Maríns’ fiscal and social priorities above those of other members of

Lima’s elite. Here moderation leads to fiscal health and to social well-being

while decadence leads to corruption. Matto de Turner also begins to hint at

the way in which the physical body is an indicator of social and financial

moderation, a theme to which I will return. These differences between

moderation and excessive consumption and between transparency and the

maintenance of appearances reveal the changes in social values Matto de

Turner attempts to establish.

Although the Maríns exemplify moderation, Matto de Turner does not

suggest luxuries should not be enjoyed or do not form part of their lifestyle.

The narrator’s observations about Lucía and Margarita’s distinctiveness are

made while they are making considerable purchases for the sole purpose of

attending Camila’s birthday party, at which Margarita will be introduced to

Lima’s elite. When Margarita questions the cost of this outing, Lucía replies:

Es necesario, Margarita mía. Las de Aguilera son personas muy rumbosas, allí estarán las de Bellota, las Mascaro, las Rueta, las López todas, y si yo condesciendo en que asistas a un baile no ha de ser para que vayas de cualquier modo expuesta al repase de vista que las limeñas usan con las que llegan al salón. Ya me verás también salir de mis hábitos (Matto de Turner 1974 [1895]: 36).

In explaining this expense Lucía underlines its extraordinary nature and

implies that although their normal spending habits are not those of the

Aguileras, they can undertake them when necessary. The underlying message

here is not about the enjoyment of fine things but about the habit or moral

discipline of moderation.

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Financial spending is not the only practice Matto de Turner advocates in

moderation. Rather, these habits also include social activities. Unlike the

Aguileras and the other families Lucía refers to, the Maríns do not attend

parties on a regular basis. Camila’s birthday party is exceptional for the

expense incurred and for the change in their social life it signifies. After the

party Fernando comments to Ernesto, Margarita’s would-be suitor, ‘Es la

primera vez que en Lima me paso una noche en claro’ (Matto de Turner 1974

[1895]: 98). Ernesto subsequently reports to his mother, when she enquires if

the Maríns are new to Lima, ‘No tan nueva como tú crees; hace más de un año

que vive acá, pero retirada; no gusta del bullicio social’ (Matto de Turner 1974

[1895]: 140). This difference in routines points to a dissimilarity in underlying

social values. The Maríns prioritise moderation in all things, unlike the lavish

(rumbosas) habits of the Aguileras. This practice results in a health manifested

financially, socially and physically. They are not required to do without in

order to feign wealth through luxurious objects. However, they may choose

the pleasures of fine clothes and parties when they wish.

The power of choice and the ability to employ it well is another key

theme for Matto de Turner. Not only is Margarita the type of woman a man

should choose as a partner in a spiritual relationship, her adopted father also

embodies this type of citizen:

Don Fernando era uno de aquellos hombres nacidos para mandar y para que las mujeres le adorasen con el frenesí de los sentidos. Su alta estatura daba la frac toda la corrección de la elegancia, sus grandes ojos, de mirada firme y chispeante denunciaban al hombre que en juventud turbulenta jugó con el corazón de las mujeres tal vez menos de lo que gozó de ellas, estudiando todos los repliegues

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de la pasión pero recogiendo, en la hora precisa, ese caudal de dolores para convertirlo en la miel sabrosísima ofrecida a la mujer que eligió por esposa (Matto de Turner 1974 [1895]: 58).

Again, the question is not if one should not spend resources such as money

and love. Rather, Matto de Turner is interested in how they are deployed.

Fernando, with his elegance, strength and choices, exemplifies the new social

values she espouses.

For Matto de Turner the logic, or cause and effect, of how these choices

and values play out in the context of family relationships is equally important.

She emphasises the values underlying how choices are made for romantic

relationships and the ways in which the subsequent households are managed.

As Fernando reflects:

Estoy seguro de que mis negocios descansan sobre base sólida. Las acciones compradas a los mineros del Cerro de Pasco han triplicado el capital, y realizaremos nuestros ideales […] Mi mujer es de las pocas que conservan el buen fondo. ¡Qué contraste, Dios mío!… Las fortunas del vecindario se desmoronan a la luz del gas de las tertulias que obligan a sacrificios y que no son más que el fruto del anhelo de ostentar ante el mundo lo que no se tiene (Matto de Turner 1974 [1895]: 157-158).

Fernando’s original choice to spend his romantic energies on his wife bears

fruit in her household management. For the Maríns, wealth results from good

fiscal and social economies and, not least of all, the proper type of investment.

For nineteenth-century readers, Fernando’s involvement in mining would

have signalled a different source of income than the oligarchy’s heavy

investment in land. Here Fernando, with his fiscally and socially healthy

household, represents the type of citizenship featured on the front pages of

reforming family journals of the time, such as El Perú Ilustrado. However, in

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this novel what is important is not so much the source of the income as the

way that it is managed.

Through the social and financial choices the Maríns make they create an

alternative to the lavish appearance-oriented world of Lima’s oligarchy. This

is the key to their happiness and success, as Fernando suggests in his

wedding-day toast to Margarita and Ernesto:

Por la felicidad de ustedes, hijos míos; sean tan dichosos como yo, y gocen de la ventura del hogar sin ocuparse de las apariencias del mundo que, casi siempre, suelen poner oropel donde hay llagas que cubrir y deformidades que disimular (Matto de Turner 1974 [1895]: 232).

The choice for moderation is fundamental to the new hierarchy of values

Matto de Turner puts forward through the Maríns. It is this which secures

their daughter’s happiness in marriage and makes them into productive

citizens.

As a contrast to the Maríns, Matto de Turner represents the oligarchy

through the Aguileras. By way of introduction, readers are offered their

lineage and the apparent prestige of the family name:

Don José Aguilera emparentado con los Aguilera de Valencia, de Málaga y de Madrid, fue militar en los primeros años de su juventud y alcanzó hasta el grado de Sargento Mayor de Caballería; retirado del servicio merced a su matrimonio, por asalto de honor, con doña Nieves Montes y Montes, oriunda de los Montes de Camaná, cuya dote respetable ofreció cómodo vivir al señor de Aguilera, bien que a trueque de la pérdida de su libertad; porque, en la casa, doña Nieves era el sargento y don Pepe el cabo (Matto de Turner 1974 [1895]: 39).

Although the ironic tone of the narrator undermines as much as builds up the

Aguileras, nineteenth-century readers familiar with the social importance of

this genealogy would have known how to interpret these details to establish

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the Aguileras as a premiere family among the elite. This introduction differs

with that of the Maríns where the reader is presented with a description of

moral and physical attributes. We learn nothing about the Maríns’ lineage

because it is not important to what they represent, while for the Aguileras it

encapsulates their system of values, which places social connections and

money above all else.

In addition to establishing the Aguileras’ lineage, this introduction also

alerts readers to an inversion of the traditional power structure in their

marriage. In this household it is Nieves who leads while Pepe follows and

suggests ‘casarse era suicidarse […] que el matrimonio era la tumba del amor

y la cuna de los celos, de las impertinencias y del hastío’ (Matto de Turner

1974 [1895]: 39). This picture of their marriage begins to reveal all is not well

under the Aguileras’ carefully presented façade. In fact, it is the construction

of an outward appearance that betrays nothing of the reality lying beneath,

which occupies the majority of Nieves’ time and energy. The narrator

suggests she is ‘engolfada en su eterno pensamiento de engañar a las gentes

por las apariencias’ (Matto de Turner 1974 [1895]: 103). Nieves’ concern with

maintaining appearances represents a hierarchy of values that relies on a

constant remaking of reality to serve her social purposes.

As the dominant character in the family, Nieves carefully orchestrates

the fiction of their financial wealth and social position to continue her present

and secure her daughters’ futures. She is described as ‘la hija legítima y

predilecta de la vanidad y del orgullo. Engolfada en el principio de que no

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hay caballero más poderoso que don Dinero, aspiraba a casar a sus hijas con

personajes acaudalados’ (Matto de Turner 1974 [1895]: 40). Money and

position are the motivating forces behind Nieves’ actions. The importance of

money is highlighted further when Nieves explains how they will solve the

problem of Camila’s premarital pregnancy by a socially unacceptable man: ‘Si

tal ha sucedido, Pepe, mi plata lo remediará todo, ¿oyes, Pepe? ¿O acaso

dudas, como niño inexperto, de que la plata todo lo tapa, lo disculpa, lo

abrillanta, lo rectifica, lo ennoblece? […] mira, hombre, solo las pobres son

unas perdidas’ (Matto de Turner 1974 [1895]: 194). Nieves’ words reveal

Matto de Turner’s criticism of the social elite. For those with financial power,

money could cover and fix a myriad of problems and create the illusion of

social acceptability and integrity. Matto de Turner’s portrayal of the Aguileras

exposes this false social and economic practice as detrimental to personal and

national well-being.

For all outward intents and purposes Nieves’ money does maintain the

appearances necessary for the Aguileras to remain at the top of Lima’s elite. In

their circle, the marriage is cited as exemplary (Matto de Turner 1974 [1895]:

103-104). However, behind all of this lies a criticism about the

untrustworthiness of appearances. In reality the Aguileras’ marriage is based

on mutually beneficial lies and the projection of something which does not

exist. This idea about a lack of clarity is emphasised by Pepe’s relationship to

his glasses, which become symbolic of seeing without seeing. Until he

happens upon his daughter in the garden with Aquilino, Pepe never sees

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anything clearly. In that moment, his glasses fall and shatter.iv Although his

now useless glasses mean Pepe cannot identify her lover, he does see for the

first time that Camila is repeating a pattern he and Nieves began, and how

their original cover up for the sake of appearances has created the present

problem.

Among Pepe’s responses to the situation is to retrieve a second inferior

pair of glasses made of nickel. He comments:

Creo sin embargo, que por esta noche nadie notará la falta, mañana habrá que buscar otros montados en oro… la gente observa tanto… lo critica, lo tergiversa… no vaya a suponerse decadencia en la fortuna… ya corrida la voz… malas trazas habíamos de echar… (Matto de Turner 1974 [1895]: 196).

Pepe’s reaction to losing and gaining sight is to find alternate glasses and

hope no one notices the difference until he can re-establish appearances, thus

allowing him to continue to fool his social circle. While Pepe finds a strategy

designed to maintain the status quo, Nieves puts into action a plan to

transform Aquilino into a respectable moneyed suitor. In the end, both the

glasses and the money blur reality.

In actuality, Nieves creates the outward display of money as much as

she uses it to maintain social appearances. In order to pay for Camila’s

birthday party and her marriage, Nieves must twice heavily mortgage her

ranches. The irony is that the original mortgage to pay for the party was to

secure a rich husband. Instead, Camila enters into a relationship which Nieves

must now make over and fund into the foreseeable future. This section of the

iv Berg suggests this scene is part of blindness on the part of all characters who see only what they wish (1990: 16).

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novel reveals the household’s insecure financial and moral foundation. Until

this point, readers are made increasingly aware of the family’s inverted power

structure, the loose sexual morals Camila learns from her mother and Nieves’

need to maintain social appearances at all costs. However, until the revelation

of the mortgages, Nieves’ money always is cited as the solution to any

problem. With this new turn the façade crumbles to reveal a household with

serious fiscal problems. Just as Fernando earlier contemplated his growing

money, Nieves is forced to face her depleted financial resources. This

continued parallel between the Maríns and the Aguileras demonstrates how

Matto de Turner views the connection between the social and financial wealth

of a household, and its moral consequences.

During the nineteenth century in Peru and elsewhere, writers,

physicians and politicians argued for a strong link between sexuality and

fiscal and social economies.v Many posited the relationship between these

elements as central to individual, familial and, ultimately, national success.

The conservation of capital resources required for personal thrift and the

personal economy of virility were seen to be the same. Good healthy citizens

were to show sufficient self-resolve and control to channel their sexual

impulses in a conservative and appropriate fashion. Citizens were to

sublimate excess impulses into fraternal, economic or creative energies, so as

not to squander resources. Otherwise, just as a business might fritter reserves

v The best work on this area in Peru is by Mannarelli, who examines the discourses of Peruvian hygienists and physicians regarding women’s bodies and citizenship (1999). Bederman (1995), Gallagher and Laqueur (1987), Russett (1989) and Sicherman (1976) study similar themes in American and British social history, which are also relevant to this topic in Peru.

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of capital on frivolous activities, a person whose behaviour was overly sexual

wasted a limited life force, which should be used to further financial and

physical growth. Key to this theory is the understanding that a person’s

energies were finite. Thus, moderation in spending became crucial for

procreation and economic development and energy was to be deployed

carefully so as to produce sexual and financial health (Sicherman 1976: 890-

912). As Russett demonstrates, this conservation theory became so popular in

the nineteenth century that it even surpassed the scope of Darwinism (Russett

1989: 105-106).

In her portrayal of Margarita and Camila, Matto de Turner develops and

exemplifies these arguments about the connection between sexual and fiscal

economies. First, she demonstrates that their management is correlated.

Where financial capital and sexuality are conserved and well deployed

individuals and households flourish. Conversely, where wealth is squandered

or feigned, lives are ruined. One leads to virtue and viability while the other

brings degeneration and insecurity. Matto de Turner also creates a

relationship between individual, family and national health. Individuals who

are socially, sexually and fiscally healthy reproduce the same in their families,

which leads to a robust nation. While most of the nineteenth-century

arguments were based on the health of male citizens, Matto de Turner’s focus

is primarily on women whose bodies and values she inserts into a masculine

discourse.

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As her name implies, Margarita is presented consistently as an innocent

and pure character and, as we have already seen, from the onset the narrator

distinguishes the type of relationship she will have from those based on

purely physical factors. Her innocence and her lack of artifice and

flirtatiousness create respect in her suitor. In the carriage home from Camila’s

party:

Ernesto aprovechó más de una ocasión para oprimir entre las suyas la rodilla de Margarita, libertad que ni fue notada por la niña, con ese candor propio de la que todo lo ignora y no tiene los ardides del atrevimiento.

–¿Le he sido simpático, y por qué no corresponde?… Otras mujeres han resuelto aquí el problema… aquí en el apiñamiento del carruaje, con los vapores del sarao, con el hervor de la sangre –pensaba [Ernesto] (Matto de Turner 1974 [1895]: 89).

Once again the Maríns’ habits are set apart as exemplary. This time it is

Margarita’s artlessness that reveals how a young woman educated in an

environment of moderation will not notice when Ernesto pushes the

boundaries of flirting. This reaction, or lack thereof, again distinguishes her

from Camila, whose response to Aquilino’s advances is to succumb.

These differences indicate the lessons Camila learns at home. The

Aguileras have a history of sexual practices outside of the social mores

espoused by Matto de Turner. On the surface there is Pepe’s observation that

if Nieves gave herself to him before marriage then it is only natural Camila do

the same with Aquilino (Matto de Turner 1974 [1895]: 181). However,

according to the narrator, Camila’s inability to control her sexual impulse has

other roots. After her birthday party, Camila remembers:

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escenas que la vida íntima de la madre había dejado grabados en la mente infantil de la hija; citas misteriosas en ausencia del señor Aguilera, más sigilosas presente él; y, un cosmos hereditario, con tendencias irresistibles, actuaba en la naturaleza preparada de Camila (Matto de Turner 1974 [1895]: 102).

Thus the social struggle, and ultimately the financial one, played out over

Camila’s body is one that reflects the family’s sexual mores. This is a family in

which social, fiscal and sexual excess mirror one another. Unfortunately for

Camila, it is her body that suffers the cost of her parents’ misconduct. At the

end of the novel, her pregnant body, already having been the site of a battle

between her mother and Aquilino for social power, is also beaten by Aquilino

for imaginary infidelities (Matto de Turner 1974 [1895]: 243).

In this novel, their parents’ financial and physical management go

together to affect the girls’ lives directly and it is their sexuality that becomes

an indicator for the families’ overall health. What determines sexual

behaviour is the question Matto de Turner uses to insert women into the

debate around the economics of private citizenship. She plays on the

scientific, social and economic aspects of the novel’s title to answer the

question. As the narrator sums up in the novel’s final lines, herencia

determines their lives:

En el curso de la vida, a través de los sucesos, Margarita y Camila habían entrado en posesión de lo que les legaron sus madres: su educación, su atmósfera social y más que su sangre era pues, la posesión de la HERENCIA (Matto de Turner 1974 [1895]: 247).

Matto de Turner’s representation of herencia is complex and based in multiple

factors such as education, social atmosphere and biology. Critics, such as

Cornejo Polar, suggest that how she employs the concept is ambiguous,

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sometimes contradictory and reveals the basic conflicts between idealism and

positivism (Cornejo Polar 1992: 95). Instead of interpreting these different

aspects of herencia as contradictory, I read them as a complex response to the

arguments of the time. Matto de Turner’s refusal for herencia to be based

solely on biology permits her to enter into the debate and give women an

active and multi-faceted role in the realm of private citizenship. As we have

seen, she places a great deal of emphasis on how a household’s social and

financial patterns of consumption shape a daughter’s future. It is this

education and atmosphere combined with their physical inheritance that

determines their ability to act as private citizens.

While the novel’s discussion of the social and financial aspects of

herencia involves a significant change to hierarchies of social values, it is Matto

de Turner’s portrayal of a biological herencia that represents the most dramatic

change to social knowledge. The novel contains a prominent discourse about

a biological herencia centred on sexual behaviour, that is based on the

Lamarckian idea that acquired or learned traits can be passed from one

generation to the next through blood inheritance. It is here that Matto de

Turner employs a scientific language that completely denies any way of

knowing other than a secular one. Thus, science becomes the overt framework

for understanding modern relationships, particularly in relation to how

women’s behaviour should be understood. Various characters and the

narrator comment upon the inevitability that women pass sexual behaviour

on to their daughters through blood:

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La impulsaba aquella herencia fatal de la sangre. (narrator)

Por eso las esposas y las madres libidinosas dejan a las hijas la herencia fatal. (Dr. Pedreros)

Es ley que se cumple con rigorismo doloroso; ley fatal de trasmisiones de sangre que se cumple en las familias. (narrator)

¡Perra!… ¡perra!… sí señor… la madre… y se me entregó a mí… la hija; es natural que se entregue a otro… ¡la ley hereditaria!…. (Pepe) (Matto de Turner 1974 [1895]: 102, 115, 153, 181)

The effect of this constant reiteration is to underscore a new way of

understanding relationships that removes them from a morality prescribed by

religion and brings them into a scientific law of cause and effect: sexual

promiscuity leads to an unhealthy social body.

Matto de Turner also has a didactic purpose behind the repetition of

these ideas. The fact that only male characters discuss this aspect of herencia

suggests scientific knowledge was limited to a masculine realm and that it

had not moved into broader social knowledge. The following comment by

Fernando with reference to Margarita’s clean blood confirms this:

La muchacha tampoco les llevará a las hijas de usted la herencia que llevan en su sangre las hijas de las mujeres aperradas. ¡Oh! si supieran que eso se transmite, muchas serían buenas mujeres por amor a las hijas (Matto de Turner 1974 [1895]: 207).

Understanding relationships from within a scientific framework reflects

Matto de Turner’s bid to change readers’ values and to teach them how to

choose differently. By using a novel to discuss these issues she mobilises this

new knowledge, removes it from an exclusively masculine domain and brings

it to all readers. Furthermore, science as a way of understanding the world is

normalised and female citizens’ participation in scientific knowledge is

legitimised. It should be noted, though, that this second aspect is somewhat

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contradictory as it is the female author who participates while the female

characters act out science’s results but do not give it voice.

Although the main focus of Matto de Turner’s herencia is young women,

through the choices made by the Maríns and the Aguileras for their daughters

she highlights the role a son-in-law’s biological herencia plays in founding

healthy relationships. Within this discourse, the example of Fernando once

again is important for portraying the new standards for private citizenship.

When Ernesto seeks permission to marry Margarita, Fernando first ascertains

there is no history of suicide, mental instability, epilepsy, hysteria or syphilis

in his family. He explains the reasons for the interrogation as follows:

Los preciosos descubrimientos de la ciencia, cuyos progresos son cada día más milagrosos, se preocupan grandemente del hombre futuro, tratando de asegurar la felicidad humana. La ciencia ha demostrado y patentizado la herencia directa de los males que he enunciado, así como la herencia perruna de la hembra, y toca al hombre honrado precaver su descendencia, pues, crimen, y crimen inaudito es el de dar vida a hijos enfermos, con la conciencia de su desgracia perdurable y transmisible, crimen que los ortodoxos le cuelgan al buen Dios y que sostienen no sólo las mujeres dispensadas a sus errores en consideración de su ignorancia, sino los hombres aviesos que echan a los cuatro vientos las pomposas frases de progreso e ilustración (Matto de Turner 1974 [1895]: 206).

Here, the new values for productive private citizenship are focused entirely

on scientific understanding and choices based on it. This is opposed to sacred

knowledge or discussions about progress, which are not followed by actions

informed by the laws of cause and effect. If Fernando does not ensure no

physical impediments exist between Ernesto and Margarita for reproducing

healthy children then he is not fulfilling his obligations as a father and an

honourable citizen. Only after establishing Ernesto’s clean bloodline can

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Fernando give permission for the marriage to take place. In this model all

negotiation about joining financial and social capital through marriage is

predicated on a scientific understanding of physical capital. Without this

there is no possibility of securing the future of Margarita and Ernesto’s

children.

Fernando’s approach stands out against Nieves’ who settles Camila’s

future by turning to money and appearances. Between Nieves and Aquilino

there is no interview regarding his background nor are there any questions

about what he will bring to the relationship. Rather, in order not to destabilise

the fiction of their social standing, Nieves offers Aquilino a sum of money as a

dowry, which will make him appear prosperous and tells him ‘yo y ella

[Camila] deseamos que usted haga un viaje a Tacna […] y regrese con otro

nombre, con otra posición, una figura completa’ (Matto de Turner 1974 [1895]:

218). Nieves’ lack of attention to who Aquilino is and what his past brings to

the relationship means Camila is married to a womanising alcoholic gambler,

who within Matto de Turner’s positivist Lamarkian understanding of

relationship will pass these characteristics on to their children.

The herencia determining Margarita and Camila’s paths in the nation is

the capital which they are given to build their own lives as private citizens.

One is well equipped and has a positive balance, so to speak, while the other’s

legacy is appearances that hide bankruptcy. The ability or inability to

accumulate and manage social, sexual and financial economies properly is the

capital women bring to a relationship and is what Lucía and Nieves transmit

page 23

to their daughters. Throughout the novel we see how they manage this

differently. Lucía is moderate in her household administration and her social

sphere, which contributes to the Maríns’ growing wealth. Nieves is lavish and

her spending on parties and appearances wastes the Aguileras’ already

unstable financial base, while her unrestrained sexuality affects her daughters

and her relationship to her husband. Margarita and Camila’s differing

reactions to the advances of men demonstrate this herencia and, ultimately,

their choice of who to marry reveals the capital they inherit from their

mothers and becomes the basis of their private citizenship.

In the novel’s closing scene, as Margarita and Ernesto consummate their

marriage, Ernesto repeats three times ‘¡Poseer es triunfar!’ (Matto de Turner

1974 [1895]: 247). As the final words from any character they suggest his

partnership with Margarita, a woman of social capital, sexual virtue and

financial significance, will allow Ernesto to succeed. In the period of loss and

reconstruction after the War of the Pacific (1878-1883) Matto de Turner argues

that to triumph as a member of the social body is to possess the solid

economies of virtue and financial wealth, both of which Ernesto gains in the

novel. His possession of Margarita’s body is a metaphor for the young

outstanding citizen who represents a new generation conquering Peru. And

thus, astute readers would learn that the socially, financially and sexually

productive relationship Matto de Turner creates is not between two members

of the Creole elite or Europeans but between a Creole and a mestiza. Matto de

Turner’s second critique of the elite’s social values is thus made evident as the

page 24

body the triumphant Ernesto takes as his own is that of a social sector

devalued by elite anti-miscegenist values.

Matto de Turner’s arguments about economies of moderation and

consumption represent the moral messages of this novel and, as such, it is a

fairly schematic social and political allegory. However, as with most

allegories, there is also a deeper meaning to Herencia which is about the base

on which to build a healthy national body. In this novel women’s bodies are

the physical sites of national reproduction and serve as metaphors for the

larger social body. What their bodies represent and what happens to them

allows Matto de Turner to deliver a message unthinkable and unsayable to a

Creole Limeñan audience whose pro-European and anti-miscegenist attitudes

were very strong.vi Camila, a member of the traditional social elite, is seduced,

shamed, beaten and emotionally deserted by a European while Margarita, a

mestiza fully incorporated into the liberal element of the elite, is loved by a

Creole who enters into a spiritual and physical partnership with her. Read at

a symbolic level these two bodies represent a subtle intervention into

nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century debates about European immigration

and the viability of Peruvian bodies for successful citizenship. It is this hidden

counter discourse, as well as the engagement with science, which make this a

novel worth returning to critically.

There are two ways for a reader to access the allegory’s deeper meaning.

The first is through the information offered in Herencia about Margarita’s

vi For an exploration of these attitudes, see Flores Galindo (1991), Portocarrero M. (1998) and Cueto (1986 and 1989).

page 25

social position. Readers learn from Fernando that Margarita is his adopted

daughter from the Sierra and her birth is the result of an assault (Matto de

Turner 1974 [1895]: 207). Apart from Margarita’s otherness as a serrana, she is

not distinguishable on the surface from the other young women at Camila’s

birthday party. On this basis, readers can access a message that the best

marriages for national prosperity are those between two Peruvians and can

interpret this as a response to ideas about European superiority. However,

readers of Aves sin nido would know the Maríns adopt Margarita from an

indigenous couple in Kíllac. They would also be aware the assault was

committed by the village priest, although Fernando suggests:

Esa muchacha es nacida de accidente, no de corrupción, y usted sabe que del asalto armado a la lujuria en desarrollo intencional hay la misma distancia que del vicio a la virtud […] El corazón de Margarita es tan puro como su sangre (Matto de Turner 1974 [1895]: 207).

Thus, Margarita is not the Creole serrana readers might have thought her to

be, but the daughter of an indigenous woman and a priest. The extra

knowledge about Margarita’s parentage from Aves sin nido combined with

Fernando’s assertion about her purity of blood in Herencia allows readers to

enter deeper into Matto de Turner’s response to the dominant anti-

miscegenist discourse of the time.

Matto de Turner’s portrayal of Margarita is of a mestiza serrana who,

through a proper education which she gains from her adoptive mother,

makes a successful union with a Creole. While her assimilation and cultural

whitening run counter to our current thinking, in the nineteenth century

basing a prosperous future on Peruvian mestizaje, as opposed to European

page 26

immigration, was revolutionary. By positioning Margarita as the heroine, it is

the mestiza body in this novel that represents the most viable way forward

and thus undermines the fixedness of Creole identity and shifts it to the

unspeakable otherness of mestizaje. By using this slightly obscured level of

the allegory to deliver her message, Matto de Turner bypasses social

censorship and asks readers who might aspire to successful relationships to

sympathise with a mestiza and to pity the Creole oligarchy.

Through Camila’s misfortune in marriage to Aquilino, Matto de Turner

further criticises dominant racial thought. At the time many in the elite

viewed European immigration as one of the keys to rebuilding the national

body (Cueto 1986 and 1989; Portocarrero M. 1998). However, the only

European immigrant in this novel is an Italian who is irrational, out of control

physically and an economic drain. Although Aquilino claims to be of noble

descent and Nieves makes him over to be socially presentable, he does not

become a productive member of the family or the national body. This

depiction of European immigration as a degenerative force socially,

financially and physically overtly contrasts with elite views and makes the

content of the novel far more controversial and subversive than it has been

given credit for. This is particularly the case if this overt message about

Aquilino is combined with the hidden one about Margarita. A marriage with

a mestiza brings success for young citizens and exponentially for the larger

national body, while one with a European brings failure to members of the

oligarchy. By placing the mestiza body at the centre of the reconstruction

page 27

project, Matto de Turner looks internally for solutions and prosperity that are

specifically Peruvian.

In the context of post-war intellectual questioning of Peru’s loss in the

War of the Pacific, Herencia provides a depiction not of the military factors

leading to loss, but of the social and moral state of decay affecting the nation’s

ability to triumph. In this context Herencia fulfils the role of diagnosis and

prescription for an ailing national body, one that has become socially,

physically and financially bankrupted through mismanagement. Matto de

Turner’s remedy for renewed national health involves two fundamental

changes to how social knowledge is ordered. First, she advocates the use of

science to understand the organisation of family and national economies and,

second, she uses these principles to contest anti-miscegenist discourses and to

found the nation on a radically new body. In contrast to dominant beliefs that

racial mixing caused degeneration, she suggests it results from the improper

use of social, physical and fiscal economies. Thus Matto de Turner moves

away from the hierarchy of values of the oligarchy to that of a new capital, in

which men bring character, profession and money to marriages of choice

while women provide education and the values of moderate economies. If

nineteenth-century capitalism is based on the idea of the survival of the fittest,

in post-war Peru Matto de Turner projects a nation whose glory is not tied to

military prowess but to the successful management of the three components

of capital, culminating in Ernesto’s declaration ‘poseer es triunfar’ (Matto de

Turner 1974 [1895]: 247).

page 28

Read on both these levels Herencia is a better novel than a standard

nineteenth-century romance – something Matto de Turner herself claims in

the prologue – because its plot and symbolic meanings require the audience to

re-read it against their own initial relationship to the text. The character they

are to aspire to, Margarita, does not in fact coincide with their Creole social

and racial realities though they may relate emotionally to her. However, the

way Matto de Turner plays with the mediation of family to reveal conflicting

social and financial economies allows readers into Margarita and Camila’s

lives and to simultaneously accept and reject their own values in these

characters. In the collision between the ideal, near saintly, lives of the Maríns

and the real disorderly lives of the Aguileras, readers can recognise

themselves. Thus, in these fissures between ideal and real identities,

hierarchies of social values can be re-negotiated.

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