SOURCE: Miller, Martha LaFollette. “The Feminization and Emasculation of Galicia in Valle-Inclán's Jardín umbrío.” Romance Quarterly 39, no. 1 (February 1992): 87-92.

In the following essay, Miller discusses the liminal status and feminization of the Galicia region of Spain as depicted in Valle-Inclán's “Juan Quinto” and “Mi bisabuelo,” two stories that stand out particularly for their portrayals of emasculation and impotence.”

A feature of the literary text that has attracted increasing interest in recent years is liminality. Gustavo Pérez Firmat, recalling the etymological connections between liminality and such words as limit, limb, limbo, lintel, and others, prefers the term over the related “marginality.”¹ Liminality, which has sometimes been applied to the condition of women, must also be viewed as a threshhold state, a being between two things at once, a wavering or hesitation between two circumstances. Turn of the century Galicia for many reasons suggests such...