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Blanca de los Ríos and Miguel Unamuno present dramatically different mother and Don Juan figures in Las hijas de Don Juan (The Daughters of Don Juan) and Dos madres (Two Mothers) of the early twentieth century. The eighteenth- and nineteenth-century exalted mother and the Don Juan character immortalized in Tirso de Molina's El burlador de Sevilla (The Trickster of Seville; 1630) represent heroic and idealized roles for women and men in modern society. By dismantling these figures in their literature, de los Ríos and Unamuno show the progression of the modern subject in Spain. This progression is gendered, especially in regard to the extreme disillusion of suicide suffered by the Don Juan figures and not the mother figures. The deconstruction of the mother's perfection takes place in the form of the engulfment of the mother in Dos madres and the absent mother in Las hijas de Don Juan, and the Don Juan character is exceedingly weak in Dos madres and excessively shamed in Las hijas de don Juan. This chapter will explore the ways in which Las hijas de Don Juan conveys a sense of hope for future relationships between mothers and daughters and their roles as modern subjects of agency and how the modern woman's power as a consummate mother comes with disillusion and the sacrifice of male subjectivity in Dos madres.¹

DOI: 10.1057/9781137439888_9

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