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COPYRIGHT 2003 Modern Humanities Research Association
CONFESSING THE NINETEENTH CENTURY
Generally acclaimed by the critical establishment as the novel that best charts Eca de Queiros's literary aesthetic development through rigorously sustained naturalist techniques to more poignant caricatural procedures, O Crime do Padre Amaro has merited vast critical attention in regard to the problematic circumstances surrounding its publication, the conflating of the different versions, and the satirical attack that it directs against the customs of the time and the power of a corrupt Church. As Reis and Cunha state in the introduction to their critical edition of the text, 'O Crime do Padre Amaro permaneceu, na nossa historia literaria, como obra asperamente estigmatizada pela intensidade da sua critica anti-clerical'. (1) Indeed, the anti-clerical aspects of the novel are central to Eca's critical representation of a society driven by material values and outwardly sustained by religious ritual. (2) Though the practices of the clergy are by no means solely responsible for the ills of society, these are the mores that Eca vividly foregrounds in O Crime, with particular emphasis on the act of the confession. Among the ecclesiastic rituals depicted in the novel the confession is emblematic of the control exerted by the Catholic priests in and through a 'clos(et)ed space of disclosure and concealment'. (3) Throughout the novel the confessor represents 'a probing force whose panoptic powers surpass the physical boundaries of a confessional booth', extending to public and private realms, from a one-on-one personal level to political and domestic circles. (4) By conveying the main character Amelia as a sexually marked woman within a gendered and sexualized discourse of desire and transgression, the act of the confession conveys the ideological constructions of gendered power and privilege, and discloses the material and psychological consequences of female subordination to priestly paternalistic rule. Drawing on the theories of Freud and Foucault, the two master theorists of confession par excellence, my objective in the present study is to analyse the empowered act of the confession, a key component of O Crime do Padre Amaro that has not been explored theoretically. (5)
Although Foucault's theories on sexuality have received rigorous critical attention, his formulations on the confession are less well known. In Foucault's analysis, the confession is perceived as 'an obligatory act of speech', an effect of power intimately related to discourse, which places 'the agency of domination [...] in the one who listens and says nothing; [...] in the one who questions and is not supposed to know'. (6) Though Foucault was not interested in exploring gender issues--the whole discussion on the confession refers to a neutral (masculine) confessant despite the overwhelming tradition of women predominantly practicing the act of confession--his analysis of penance is pertinent to our study as it underlines the loss of freedom through a ritual that is 'inscribed at the heart of the procedures of individualization of power'. (7) It is this power endowed upon a single authority that enables the listener to 'require the confession, prescribe and appreciate it, and intervene in order to judge, punish, forgive, console, and reconcile'. (8) This power places the confessant at the mercy of the confessor: the confessor appropriates the confessing subject's thoughts and desires and translates them into the economy of power and knowledge.
The Republican intellectual Sampaio Bruno has formulated an in-depth critique of the confession in connection with the Portuguese Church at the turn of the nineteenth century, underlining the mental enslavement of the women who sought temporal and spiritual direction in the confessional booth. (9) Bruno views the priests' intrusion into domestic and state affairs as 'particularmente agravada com a grande atraccao que a mulher manifestava por tal pratica'. (10) These ideas are by no means specific to the Portuguese confessional mode, as the works of Blakeney, Michelet and Proudhon attest. (11) As the historian Fernando Catroga demonstrates, within a widespread anti-clerical sentiment, the nineteenth-century campaign against auricular confession and ecclesiastical celibacy aimed to safeguard the privacy of the family, the honour of virgins, conjugal fidelity and the natural transmission of inheritances. (12) Following Catroga's arguments, fundamental to these attacks was the intention to nullify the mediating function of the Catholic clergy by relegating it to the status of a man subject to passions and subordinate to worldly interests. (13)
Written in the 1870s at a time that witnessed the intensification of the debate concerning auricular confession, O Crime do Padre Amaro focuses on the power conferred upon the confessor in relation to female confessants. Eca's satirical portrayal of the confession emphasizes the importance of appearances and the monetary factors in regard to a supposedly sacred and reverent ritual. From this perspective the act becomes void of religious significance and may be regarded as a decisive indicator of social acceptability, prestige and spiritual 'good' standing. The criticism 'e nao se confessa ha mais de seis anos' (p. 493), repeatedly enunciated against Amelia's suitor the clerk Joao Eduardo, epitomizes this social 'requirement'. In this respect, Norman Araujo's study 'The Practice and Pretense of Religion' pertinently summarizes Eca's view:
The people of Leiria are as superficial in their adherence to the faith as their spiritual leaders, in whom they appreciate, more than anything else, urbanity, good appearance and a fine speaking voice. [...] The congregation of Leiria demands no more of itself than it demands of its priests, deeming it sufficient to attend Mass regularly and confess frequently. (14)
These characteristics are borne out in the novel by the factors determining the beatas' choice of confessors, as illustrated by the burping, vulgar, insensitive Father Jose Migueis who loses most of his confessants to his antipode, 'o polido padre Gusmao, tao cheio de labia' (p. 97).
Amaro's conception of the confession prior to his entry into the priesthood corroborates the irreverence of this religious institution: 'convinha-lhe aquela profissao em que se fala baixo com as mulheres,--vivendo entre elas, cochichando, sentindo-lhes o calor penetrante,--e se recebem presentes em bandejas de prata' (p. 143). His idealization rests primarily on the proximity to women that the confessional booth provides, the privileged access to their secretive discourse, and ipso facto the sensuous warmth bestowed upon the confessor. In the seminary he envisions one day becoming 'o paroco numa bonita vila, numa casa com quintal cheio de couves e de saladas frescas, tranquilo e importante, recebendo bandejas de doce das devotas ricas' (p. 165), thus the recipient of female donations, esteem...
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