Franco and Austen: three 1945 translations of Northanger Abbey and their gender components

• Published in: Persuasions : the Jane Austen journal (Print version) 2015-01 (37), p.244
• Main Author: Lopez, Isis Herrero
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Austen, Jane; Austen, Jane (1775-1817); British & Irish literature; Censorship; Criticism and interpretation; Dictators; English literature; Ideology; Interpreters; Morality; Novelists; Novels; Publishing; Translation; Translations; Women; Works
• ISSN: 0821-0314

The Francoist ideology limited women to die domestic sphere, without voting rights and with a very restricted access to the working world. Since women were socially and individually subordinated beings, the contents of Austen's novels were, as Romero Sánchez points out, consonant with "the moral code of Spanish society, where women's destiny was marriage, and where values were based on a traditional Roman Catholic morality." Two of the three 1945 translations distort Austen's ironic image of Mrs. Morland to adjust the character to the standards of the Dictatorship. [...]Mrs. Morland is no longer "a very good woman" (NA 15) but "an excellent mother" ("una madre excelente" [(Ruiz de Larios 5(]) or, even more, "an exemplary mother" ("una madre ejemplar" [(S.L.C. 7(]).4 Although the model that Mrs. Morland suddenly turns into in these translations was already present in the 1921 Oyarzábal rendition-in fact, S.L.C. copies Oyarzábal's exact words-the 1945 translations emphasize her motherly characteristics either by concealing her possible defects or by including additional virtues. Of the three, the Ruiz de Larios version is most effective in reinforcing the Francoist ideology through its additions to the Oyarzábal translation. Since the performance of Austen's Mrs. Morland as a mother leaves much to be desired, the translator has manipulated the text by introducing his own comments to turn her maternal deficiencies into positive terms. According to Masoliver's translation, quite neutral in relation to gender issues, "It is supposed that the man must provide for the support of the woman; the woman must make the home agreeable to the man" ("se supone que el hombre ha de proveer al sostenimiento de la mujer; la mujer debe hacer el hogar agradable al hombre" £85]).