Philosophical and psychological ideas in the post-civil war novels of Ramon J Sender.

Abstract

The novels Sender has written since the Spanish Civil War are interesting above all for their ideas. These centre on two main topics: one, philosophical - the nature of reality -, the other, psychological - the problems of adjustment to reality. Such ideas and topics are not to be found in Sender's pre-Civil War works; nor are these works characterised by the considerable ambiguity and structural complexity of the later books which challenge the reader with doubts and questions rather than supply-him with answers. The quasi-autobiographical novels, ih particular, among Sender's post-Civil War works, suggest that the war was a watershed in his life and thought. Certainly that is the major experience with which his fictional counterparts have to struggle - the non-autobiographical works often focus on other traumatic experiences. Certainly too, when Sender came to rework pre-Civil-War material in post-Civil War novels his originalviews were either changed or - more frequently - questioned and presented as being no more valid than a number of quite different views. Moreover, the lives of Sender's fictional counterparts - in his post-Civil War autobiographical novels - amount to hypothetical, moral and existential variations on the author's own life, before, during and after the Civil War. The complex structure and ambiguity of Sender's post-Civil War works are wedded to the philosophical and psychological topics they present and explore. Structure and ideas both reflect his response to the traumatic challenge which the Spanish Civil War forced upon his understanding and capacity for adjustment. In writing these works Sender has tried to shed some light on the reality of his own life - including its unknown and unknowable aspects - and by so doing confirmSto the attentive reader, the profound seriousness and importance of Sender's post-war writing.