Twenty-first International Conference on New Directions in the Humanities

Abstract

In this work I examine Spanish Catholic writers’ literary representations and discussions on the notions of “heaven,” “paradise,” and the meaning of life in relation to labor. More concretely, I argue that writers Ramón Sánchez Díaz’s Jesús en la fábrica (1911) and Concha Espina’s El metal de los muertos (1920) depict differently those concepts when describing the “necessary” actions that should be taken against the poor conditions of the working class that modern industrialization had caused. Whereas Sánchez Díaz focuses on the promise of heaven in the afterlife, Espina defends that it is crucial to fight for changes in the political and social spheres and for the “creation” of a heavenly social existence. Sánchez Díaz and Espina’s novels therefore present two different ethical systems and behavioral models regarding the possible actions that can be taken against the struggles brought by industrialization and the ethics of capitalism. These examples then help to understand how religious discourses can contribute to legitimize or challenge issues and problems about the social question, social class, and the economic system that defines them. Similarly, this approach to these works and authors overcomes a reductive understanding of Spanish Catholicism, showing the diverging voices and perspectives that existed within Catholic publics.