Spanish Literature Commons^™

The Function Of Desire In The Legends Of Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer, Kimberly Anne Aaron

All Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Other Capstone Projects

The purpose of this thesis is to analyze the function of desire in the legends of Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer. In ten of the fifteen legends, the protatonists are led by a misguided desire for something out of the ordinary, rejecting societal norms or common sense, to the point of self- and other-destructiveness. The protagonists create false realities for themselves in which they believe they will be able to conquer their desires with no consequences to themselves or to others. Analyses of desire by psychoanalysts Sigmund Freud and Jacques Lacan, philosopher David Hume, and other theologians and thinkers informed this work. …