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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,
page 19
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:
page 20
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
page 21
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
page 22
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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