Memory, History, and Identity

With the publication of Señas de identitdad in 1966 and Reivindicación del Conde don Julián in 1970, Goytisolo gave centre stage to the closely connected themes of memory, history, and identity. Identity, Goytisolo suggests, is intimately linked to one's individual recall of the past set against the backdrop of the shared history of a community. Memory is the key to unlock this sense of identity by offering access to the past, from the perspective of the present, with a view to the future direction that the individual's or community's life may take. This is a phenomenological and non-teleological view, akin to the autobiographical approach to the past discussed in chapter 1 above. The recuperation of the past, rather than a mere act of remembering, is thus seen as an active negotiation with the present and future, out of which a provisional and constantly shifting sense of identity may emerge. Of course, the task is a difficult and problematic one. Memory is notoriously subjective and unreliable, and shared interpretations of the past – what has become known as cultural memory – are frequently the site of contested claims motivated by ideological concerns. Both Señas de identitdad and Don Julián explore these issues through an examination of the creation of a dissident identity.

Each novel dramatizes the attempted destruction by its protagonist of an abhorrent past and creation of a hopeful, even utopian, future. The focus, though, shifts considerably from the first work to the second. Señas concentrates on personal memory, depicting the anguish of its chief character, Álvaro Mendiola, as he recalls his childhood in a Nationalist family during and after the Civil War, and comes to realize his own incompatibility with the values of his upbringing and social class. Don Julián retains this protagonist and broadly existentialist approach – although unnamed, its protagonistnarrator recalls Álvaro in his family and social affiliations – but focuses on Spain's collective past in an examination of the mythical foundations of her national identity. Despite these varying emphases, however, each novel reveals the impossibility of achieving a complete rupture with the past.