SOURCE: "Of Spinning Wheels and Witches: Pardo Bazán's 'Afra' and La bruja" in Letras Femeninas, Vol. 18, Nos. 1-2, 1992, pp. 108-18.

In the essay below, Ashworth details similarities between one of Pardo Bazán's short stories and the drama La bruja, shedding insight on Pardo Bazán's narrative technique.

Pardo Bazán's short story "Afra" begins in a theater where the narrator and his friend are watching a performance of La bruja, a zarzuela whose initial image is that of women spinning at their wheels and singing about their work while the men drink and play cards:

Hilemos todas

el copo suave

y dando vueltas

el huso baile.

This self-reflective image of the zarzuela as a tale spun and sung works its metaphorical magic on the village priest who calls for an end to the playing and spinning and for one of the women to tell a story...