Silence in the novels of Carmen Martín Gaite

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This book explores how silences in Carmen Martín Gaite’s novels affect narrative communication and the reader. Focusing on Entre visillos (1957), El cuarto de atrás (1978), and Nubosidad variable (1992), this study shows how silences inhere in Martín Gaite’s narrative style, especially in the distinctive ways that her novels create interlocution and communicate feminist messages. It also probes how silences in the author’s narrative relate to historical and social conditions in Spain and to various literary periods and genres. «Silence» as a literary term can be ambiguous because critics give it many different meanings and often without specifying types of silences. Accordingly, the book typologizes narrative silences and their roles in narrative communication. This study reveals that in Martín Gaite’s novels, women’s silences become over time more a means for creative expression and personal growth than a result of oppression.