Some Ideas to Develop for Niebla

 

 

*           Read all the preliminaries to the text (the Prologue by Víctor Goti, Unamuno’s reply, etc.). Do not worry if you do not understand them the first time: all will be clear once you have read to the end of the novel. Why does Unamuno choose Goti to be the prologuist to the novel? What effect does it have when we discover the truth about Goti?

 

*           Does Augusto Pérez appear to be a ‘real’ character at the beginning of the novel? In what ways does he change and develop? In a famous essay, Unamuno wrote that fictional characters are no less ‘real’ than flesh-and-blood human beings. Can you see how this philosophy is illustrated in Niebla?

 

*           Why is the ‘novel’ called ‘una nivola’? Make notes on Víctor’s theories of the ‘nivola’ — to what extent does Niebla conform to them?

 

*           In what way is Auguso’s identity linked to desire? (This includes sexual desire, but also will-power, and the desire to know.)

 

*           Why does the Author of the nivola refer to himself as a ‘God’? Find the passage (in italics) where he does so, and write down the exact words, as you will find them essential for quotation.

 

*           At what point does the Author cease to be ‘God’? How does he react to being visited by Pérez? Why? What is the link between what occurs here and the old philosophical conundrum over free-will versus determination?

 

*           At a key point, Pérez quotes Hamlet and then Descartes. Yet what distances the text from tragedy and/or philosophy? Is it ‘important’ that the novel ends with a monologue from the dog Orfeo?

 

 

Once you have made some notes on the above issues, choose one of the following questions to answer. Alternatively, look up past Part I Paper SP2 questions in the bound examination papers kept in the library and choose one of those.

 

1.             Examine the concept of chance elaborated by Unamuno in Niebla.

2.             ‘‘Niebla is essentially a novel about definition and self-definition’’. Discuss.

3.             Discuss the ways in which Unamuno parodies and questions concepts of fiction in Niebla.

4.             ‘‘¿Por qué quiero saber de dónde vengo y a dónde voy, de dónde viene y a dónde va lo que me rodea, y qué significa todo esto? Porque no quiero morirme o no definitivamente’’ (Unamuno). To what extent are these questions and answers typical of the attitudes of Unamuno’s characters?

5.             ‘‘Su ficción es demasiado didáctica.’’ How would you defend (or would you?) Unamuno’s Niebla against this charge?

6.             Discuss the rôle of the narrator in Niebla.

7.             Examine the relationship between free will and fate in Niebla.

8.             Examine the function of humour in Niebla.

9.             In what ways does Niebla signal the ‘death of the Author’?

10.          “For Unamuno, language is the only reality we have, which is why he wants us to take charge of our own stories, which is to say, our own lives”. Discuss with reference to Niebla.

 

Geoffrey Kantaris

Actualizado: 22 de octubre de 2001