Conclusion

Summary

The starting-point of this book was an interview in which Carmen Martín Gaite explained that she considered everything that happened to her to be meaningful, that she did not think anything happened by chance, and that her vision was religious: a vision that perceived and lived the daily interactions of the supernatural and day-to-day worlds. Religare, volver a atar – to bind back, to reconnect, as Martín Gaite defined her religious perspective – is not the typical understanding of the word ‘religious’ or ‘religion’, which is associated far more with adherence to a creed, with attendance at services in a building, and often with a large organisation with a hierarchical structure. Yet, as has been argued in this book, Martín Gaite's perspective represents a mature religious consciousness that is founded in spirit and can also be described as a spiritual consciousness. It is a consciousness that is close to the way Jesus promised that religion would develop, namely away from buildings and with its source entirely in the inner world, in spirit.

This mature concept of religion is also described by John Macmurray as one that, like Martín Gaite, would no longer perceive two separate worlds – the day-to-day world and the supernatural – but would understand and live as though they are part of the same reality. In the notes she made on Joseph Campbell's The Hero with a Thousand Faces, Martín Gaite recorded the choice faced by heroes on their return from their inner journey between keeping to themselves the wisdom they have learnt and communicating it to others. Martín Gaite further noted that it was not possible to share the experience of enlightenment, only the road towards it. In the stories analysed in this book, the Spanish writer shares not only possible roads to enlightenment, to a mature religious perspective on life, to a mature spiritual consciousness, but also stories that warn of roads that lead away from this.

It is perhaps not surprising that in one of her earliest works, El balneario, the attitude of the main character towards the unconscious is depicted as full of uncertainty and suspicion. In the novella the supernatural dimension – in the form of a long and complex dream – is presented as quite separate from the waking life of the dreamer, the señorita Matilde.