Maids in the canonical realist novel, between slight and guile

Abstract

The maid, a recurring character in the bourgeois home, does not usually go further from being, in the canonical realist novel, a part of the set, a secondary back-lit character. For her to progress to take center stage, she has to be an «excessive» character through which the author decides to explore, and overflow, the narrow margins that the bourgeois society imposes on the identity and proceedings of these women. In fact, the maids who acquire an essential role in the realist novel, often move between two extremes: passive acceptance of their fate and the dangers of their occupation, and the vividness of knowing how to profit from that fortune and those dangers. That is, between slight and cunning, extreme attitudes that stir, without ever compromising, the bourgeois social structure. Proof of this are the cases of Esclavitud (Morriña), Petra (La Regenta) or Benigna (Misericordia).