{'fraction_non_alphanumeric': 0.027177700348432057, 'fraction_numerical': 0.0062717770034843206, 'mean_word_length': 5.216450216450217, 'pattern_counts': {'":': 0, '<': 0, '<?xml version=': 0, '>': 0, 'https://': 0, 'lorem ipsum': 0, 'www.': 0, 'xml': 0}, 'pii_count': 0, 'substrings_counts': 0, 'word_list_counts': {'cursed_substrings.json': 0, 'profanity_word_list.json': 0, 'sexual_word_list.json': 0, 'zh_pornsignals.json': 0}}
Un teólogo patas arriba : Subplots and Short-circuits in La Regenta

It is not surprising that critical focus on La Regenta, written in 1885–86 by Leopoldo Alas ‘Clarín’, has privileged the novel’s intertextuality and psychology over its plot structure. The novel’s deceptively simple story line is dwarfed by Clarín’s complex use of literary references and his highly nuanced portrayal of the female psyche. Nevertheless, there is always the problem of the novel’s ending, an essential element of plot. Clarín concludes his great work with the highly ambiguous and undeniably gripping image of Ana on the cathedral floor, an ending that frustrates our desire for a definitive conclusion to Ana’s story. The plot may indeed be one in which, as one critic has noted, ‘almost nothing happens’.1 But an examination of the novel’s subplots points to a greater complexity in overall plot structure. The subplots indicate Clarín’s recognition of the desire for closure but also his unwillingness, or inability, to provide it. Undoubtedly the novel evidences one of the nineteenth-century’s finest literary evocations of a woman’s search for identity.2 Moreover, La Regenta’s use of literary references contributes to its dense narrative structure.3 Equally important are the multiple perspectives and the introduction of numerous secondary characters who mirror the problems faced by the protagonists themselves. Most analyses of the novel’s