Melodrama and Villainy in Margarita (1875) by Josefina Pelliza de Sagasta

Abstract

This work offers a critical reading of the melodramatic novel Margarita (1875), written by Josefina Pelliza of Sagasta. It considers as a theoretical framework Peter Brook´s study on melodrama in some Nineteenth-Century European novels. Specifically, this essay focuses on those melodramatic aspects taken by Pelliza from this narrative mode, as well as in the adaptations of such a model to the Argentine concerns. In addition, this study aims to demonstrate that the representation of the Italian immigrant offered in this novel -though paranoid and pejorative as the ones configurated in the works of writers such as Eugenio Cambaceres and Antonio Argerich- derives, due to the melodramatic structure, not in the exclusive determinism of naturalist prose, but rather in acceptance of the Other ethnic as the only way towards a future society. We believe that the contribution of this study lies in giving to know one of Josefina Pelliza´s works (until now marginal), it also offers as a framework of analysis the melodramatic mode (unusual in Argentine literature of the 19th century studies). In third place, it extends the discussion of the italofobia of the Argentine literature (so far focused on the naturalistic works of the 1880s). Without claim of completeness analytical about this novel, we seek to break the almost inexistent critical bibliography about Sagasta Josefina Pelliza.