Miau

Benito Pérez Galdós was a man of great culture and vitality, an avid reader of English and French literature of his time and a lover of the arts. Despite the fact that his narrative work is traditionally framed in realism, Galdós surpassed this scheme and, as Cervantes did before, created fictional lives and worlds in which the unreal is in perpetual conflict between reason and heart. His great mastery in describing the customs of the time and his facility to delve into the vicissitudes of the human soul have in Miau one of his best exponents. In this work, Galdós relates the different ways in which the individual can adapt or live in disarray with the norms of bourgeois society, through the descent into hell of the official Ramón Villamil, fired shortly before he could enjoy his retirement. Without financial resources, without state support and abandoned by everyone, Galdós insinuates that the only possibility for his character's salvation is in himself, in his feelings and in his spirituality.