Las Medias Rojas, translated to The Red Stockings in English, is a short story written by Emilia Pardo Bazán in the 19th century. It delves into themes of girlhood, innocence, desire for freedom, resistance, and rebellion, emigration and the American dream, repression, patriarchal oppression, and objectification and commercialization of the feminine. Pardo Bazán is known for using naturalism to portray the truth of people’s morality and circumstances and for examining the realities of society. One of her most well-known subjects of interest is women and gender. Pardo Bazán depicts the injustices women experienced, as well as their longing and desperate need for change, in several of her works.
Las Medias Rojas | Summary
The story opens with Ildara entering her home, carrying back the firewood she has collected. Her uncle Clodio, who she later refers to as her father, is trying to sharpen his cigar using a fingernail as she starts to make preparations for dinner. She keeps the wood aside and starts to light up the fire and add the ingredients to a black pot. While she’s completing these chores Clodio has started smoking his cigar.
Due to heavy rains in the previous weeks, the wood had moistened and burnt with a bitter smell to it. As Ildara worked the fire, her uncle noticed that she was wearing a red stocking under her skirt. He started to question her as to why she was spending his money on stockings. Ildara appears to be aggravated upon hearing this and claims since she bought those stockings she doesn’t owe an explanation to anyone. Clodio remarks that she must assume that money grows on trees, to which Ildara says she sold a few eggs to the Abbott and used those earnings. Upon hearing this, the old man gets quite upset and physically violent, calling Ildara a liar as the hens haven’t started laying yet. Ildara quieted herself by gritting her teeth and protected her face by covering it, as her greatest fear was her beauty being scarred by her father as had happened to her cousin. She wished to protect her beauty so that one day when she would be of age and free from her father’s control she would immigrate like her fellow parishioners. She had already arranged a deal with a middleman and was indifferent to her father’s unwillingness to immigrate. The middleman had given her some advance money that she had used to buy the stockings.
Her father continued to question her, making remarks about her attempts to imitate the upper-class ladies who wouldn’t walk barefoot. He asks her if her mother ever wore stockings, fixed her hair, or cared about her beauty as she did, and proceeds to hit her several times on her face. For a moment it appeared that the man was willing to kill her rather than let her go in his old age as he struggled to manage his farm alone, widowed and helpless. However, the moment of rage passed.
Iladara went out to a nearby stream to wash off her blood. One of her teeth had fallen out and she couldn’t see from one of her eyes. They were too late in consulting a doctor, as farmers usually viewed them in suspicion. He spoke of things Ildara could not understand, but she knew that she had lost vision in one of her eyes, and now she could never see the ship and the journey she had dreamed of, as only women with healthy bodies, bright eyes, and teeth intact could come aboard.
Las Medias Rojas (The Red Stockings) | Analysis
Las Medias Rojas is a text dealing with a naive girl’s desire for freedom from her monotonous oppressive life in the Spanish countryside, which she seeks through a transatlantic voyage, dependent on her beauty and a middleman’s help. The story speaks of several matters; the patriarchal setup of the 20th-century Spanish countryside, the idea of emancipation through immigration, the commercialization of the female body through which Ildara seeks her future, and most importantly her innocent dreams of freedom and womanhood signified by the red stockings.
Ildara’s stockings have been interpreted in distinct manners. Scholars have emphasized the dual symbolism of the stockings. For the reader, the red socks represent femininity, beauty, and a step towards a woman’s desire to leave the village and enter the modern world. However, for the father, the socks represent the ‘perversion, depravity, and abandonment of morality’ of the countryside, which is partly represented by bare feet. To Ildara herself, the stockings are a representation of a freer and better life that awaits her, as she buys them from the money she received for agreeing to undertake a transatlantic voyage when she comes of age.
Ildara has a specific visualization of the American dream in Spanish America. Even though her final destination is not specified, the reader might guess that she will likely choose to live in one of the former colonies’ cities. Ildara’s obsession with vanity and, more noticeably, the scarlet stockings hiding beneath her skirt, both reveal her interest in the future. The narrative depicts Ildara’s efforts to flee her restricted rural existence. Ildara is her father’s carer while also playing many roles, such as daughter and servant. She serves as both a lifeline and a burden to her ageing father. Despite considering her to be under him, he is fully aware of his dependency on her, and would rather kill her than let her escape. The narrator also describes how Ildara’s cousin Mariola’s father had hit her and disfigured her face. She must have also tried unsuccessfully to emigrate and it appears from this little account of Mariola’s life that this kind of retribution was commonplace for women who dared to seek freedom from their families, religion, and country.
The text also shows subtly how women were viewed as commodities to be traded, tools for trading, and providers of services. Looking into Ildara’s naive approach to obtaining her independence, academics have claimed that because she lacks an understanding of the ways of the world needed to haggle and prevail in the male-dominated world of trade, she unwittingly succumbs to the very system she is trying to overthrow. A closer analysis of the text reveals the impact of the attitudes, deeds, reactions, and intentions of the men with whom Ildara interacts and how they influence her desire for freedom. Particularly the middleman, who, for reasons unknown to the reader, has voluntarily provided a cash advance to Ildara, even though she is the one who wishes to undertake a voyage. It is fair to assume that Ildara has gotten into some sort of arrangement with the middleman who now puts her in the middle because she lacks the funds to undertake this journey.
Las medias rojas (The Red Stockings) | Themes
The narrative’s main theme deals with the subject of gender inequality and the oppression that women endured in 20th-century Spain. Ildara’s father is shown to be a patriarchal individual who abuses and dominates her. This subject emphasizes the repressive nature of traditional gender roles and reflects the limited autonomy and options accessible to women during the period. The story also establishes the division of labor between men and women as Ildara carries in firewood to cook dinner while her father, Clodio, smokes a cigarette. He ignores his daughter’s presence, indicating the regularity with which Ildara handles household duties. Furthermore, her father’s anger is not caused by the stockings per se. Instead, his daughter’s rebellious attitude soon discloses something more significant, a lie that becomes a symbol of rebellion. He only becomes highly agitated when Ildara lies. After all, it is this act of disobedience that constitutes a threat to the economy of the home built, ruled, and maintained by Clodio since it has the potential to lead to additional transgressive acts.
Further, Ildara’s attempt at gaining freedom from the traditional setup she’s living in, involves her becoming part of another male-dominated setup, wherein she has made some sort of deal with a middleman to secure her freedom that is hinged on her beauty. While not addressed directly, Ildara’s emphasis on maintaining her beauty and the realization that she can’t pursue her dream when her face is disfigured is reflective of a possibility that the objectification and/or commercialization of her body and self is necessary for gaining her freedom. It is claimed that the New World was only a continuation of the traditions and practices already in use in Spain, despite the hopes and dreams it represented. The services that women could provide were their only value and source of freedom, and men frequently exploited the same.
Las Medias Rojas (The Red Stockings) | Title
Las Medias Rojas or The Red Stockings reflects on the central symbolism of the story, wherein the red socks become a sign of hope, change, social mobility, and freedom from Ildara. The title of the story suggests the association made by the female protagonist aspiring for a better life between the future she wishes for and a colorful pair of stockings which are usually the privilege of de las señoritas. They are also a symbol of change and rebellion for the traditional patriarchal forces in the story, which are threatened by its presence and seek to dismantle the hope and aspirations it signifies.
Las medias rojas (The Red Stockings) | Character Sketch
Ildara: Ildara is the protagonist of the story, who is disappointed in the burdensome and oppressive life she was born in. She is a rebellious spirit, who wishes to escape her suppressive circumstances and her father’s influence, and has been making plans to undertake a long journey across the Atlantic on her own to change her life. She is also naive and innocent and seems to have fallen into the traps of a middleman who has given her money and the promise of freedom. Ildara appears to be vain and quite obsessive about her beauty and the need to maintain it, but all that is an attempt to protect the value on which her freedom depends.
Uncle Clodio: Clodio is a widowed man who works on a farm and is Ildara’s father. He has a strange attachment to the farm he has spent his life working on and is anxious about its care and maintenance in his old age. In the narrative, he is presented as being severe and oppressive. He stands for a patriarchal authority figure who imposes social restrictions on women, adding to Ildara’s sense of helplessness. He is a character who prioritizes the economic value of his exploitative relationship with his daughter over her well-being.
Las medias rojas (The Red Stockings) | Literary Devices
The foremost literary device in the story, present in its title and running through the entire narrative, is the symbolism employed in the subtext of Ildara’s red stockings (las medias rojas) They represent Ildara’s aspirations for a better life and her desire to escape her impoverished circumstances. The stockings symbolize hope, beauty, and the illusion of a brighter future. Simultaneously, to her father, representative of patriarchal forces in society, the stockings symbolize a disruptive element, which has the potential to upturn power dynamics.
The red stockings have also been interpreted as a symbol of irony. The contrast between the bright red stockings and Ildara’ dull and dark environment is significant.
‘But as Ildara knelt to blow and kindle the flame, the old man observed a most unusual thing: something of a brilliant color emerging from the patched and soaking skirts of the lass . . . a robust leg, imprisoned in a red cotton stocking.’
The contrast between the stockings as well as the harsh consequences that follow Ildara’s decision to don them is also an important element in the story. The stockings, initially seen as a symbol of escape, ultimately lead to further suffering and despair for Ildara, as an escalation of a conflict about the same with her father leads to violence and destruction of her dreams to escape.
The author employs vivid imagery and metaphor to add to the nuance of the text. Descriptions of Ildara’s physical appearance, her father’s actions, and the overall impoverished environment help to immerse readers in the setting.
A few instances may be noted,
‘Uncle Clodio had rolled the cigar and was sucking at it in his graceless fashion, producing in his cheeks two hollows like grey drains hidden in the dusky blue of his scraggly beard’
‘The girl straightened and the flame, which had begun to rise, golden, licking the black belly of the pot, illuminated her round face – pretty, with small features, an appealing mouth, clear eyes that shone with a greed for life. ‘
