Zusammenfassung
Zusammenfassung von Fortunata und Jacinta
Für wen es gedacht ist
For readers who love big realist novels, many characters and a whole city on the page, in the manner of Dickens, Balzac or Tolstoy. For anyone drawn to stories of marriage, desire, jealousy and class.
Worum es in diesem Buch geht
Fortunata and Jacinta is a realist novel by the Spanish writer Benito Pérez Galdós. It was published in four volumes in 1886 and 1887. Its full title adds Two Stories of Married Women. It is set in Madrid in the years after the revolution of 1868 and the fall of Queen Isabella II, and it follows two women whose lives are tied to one man.
The man is Juanito Santa Cruz, the spoiled son of a rich merchant family. Jacinta is his cousin and his wife, raised in comfort and good manners. Fortunata is a young woman of the people, bright, proud and poor, who loves him too. Around them Galdós builds a whole city: shopkeepers, priests, moneylenders, clerks, gossips, street sellers and the rising middle class.
You get a story of marriage, desire, jealousy and class, and also a picture of how Spain changed in the nineteenth century. You also meet a handful of the most vivid characters in Spanish fiction. Let us begin where Galdós begins, with the family of the Santa Cruz household and the young man they spoil.
In dieser Zusammenfassung
- 1A spoiled son and a rich familyFree
- 2Juanito meets Fortunata on the stairs
- 3Jacinta marries into comfort and longing
- 4Two women circle the same man
- 5The city and its crowd of voices
- 6Class and desire shape every choice
- 7Motherhood and the wish to belong
- 8Maxi's mind and the edge of madness
- 9How Galdós tells it: voice, scale and realism
Punkt 1 von 9
A spoiled son and a rich family
The novel opens with the Santa Cruz family, a clan of cloth merchants in Madrid. Galdós traces how the family built its wealth over generations, shop by shop, and how it came to stand for the solid, rising middle class. The father, Barbara's husband Baldomero, is a decent man of business. His wife, Barbara, rules the house with firm opinions and a fierce pride in her son.
That son is Juanito, called Juanito Santa Cruz. He is charming, clever in a lazy way, and used to getting what he wants. His mother has shielded him all his life, and the narrator treats this with dry humor. Juanito studies a little, plays at being serious and spends freely.
Galdós lets us see Madrid through the family's habits. We learn about the shop, the Sunday meals, the gossip of friends and the manners of a class that thinks itself the backbone of Spain. The details are not decoration. They show the world that will shape every choice the main characters make.
This opening also sets up the tone of the whole book. The narrator is warm, amused and sharp, and he knows his people well. He lets us laugh at Juanito while we also see why people forgive him. That mix of affection and judgment will carry through hundreds of pages.
You should keep in mind one point from this first part. Juanito is not a villain in the usual way. He is a young man who has never been told no, and the story will grow from that single fact.
That’s 1 of 9 key points.
The rest of the summary, written and spoken, and the whole book: free to start.
- Nothing to pay today · Renews every year
- We email you before you pay
- Cancel online in two clicks
Questions about Fortunata und Jacinta
What is Fortunata and Jacinta about?
It follows two women in Madrid, Jacinta, a wealthy wife, and Fortunata, a poor woman, whose lives are bound by their love for Juanito Santa Cruz. It also gives a wide view of class and family life in Spain.
Who are Fortunata and Jacinta?
Jacinta is the cultivated wife of Juanito Santa Cruz, a rich merchant's son. Fortunata is a woman of the working poor who loves him too. The two stand for different classes and different kinds of longing.
When was Fortunata and Jacinta written?
Galdós published it in four volumes in 1886 and 1887. The story is fiction, but it is set in real Madrid after the revolution of 1868 and draws on the social life of the time.
Is Fortunata and Jacinta hard to read?
No. The story is easy to step into: two women, one man, and a lively Madrid around them. The narrator is warm, funny and close to his characters, and the book is built from many small scenes full of talk.
What is the main message of Fortunata and Jacinta?
The book shows how class, honor and desire shape private lives, and how people cannot be sorted neatly into good and bad. It also presents a changing Spain through the lives of ordinary families.