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Petra Delicado, A Suitable Detective for a Feminist?Author(s): Kathleen Thompson-CasadoSource: Letras Femeninas, Vol. 28, No. 1, NÚMERO ESPECIAL SOBRE LA NOVELA CRIMINALFEMENINA (VERANO 2002), pp. 71-83Published by: Asociacion Internacional de Literatura y Cultura Femenina HispanicaStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/23021386 .

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Petra Delicado, A Suitable Detective for a Feminist? 7

Kathleen Thompson-Casado

University of Toledo

The success of the women's movement in combination with the re

birth of detective fiction in Spain in the seventies1 finally produced what

has been a staple of British and American detective novels since the turn

of the century, the female detective. The high quality of some of these

pioneering examples, among them Maria-Antonia Oliver's Lonia Guiu

and Isabel-Clara Simo's Sara Costa to mention two, led many to hope that this would become a flourishing sub-genre of detective fiction in

Spain as it has in other countries. However, at a distance of just over two

decades since the first of these novels was published, it is clear that these

hopes have not materialized2; the number of fictional Spanish female

detectives remains quite limited. In addition to Oliver and Simo, the female

authors most frequently associated with the genre in Spain are Blanca

Alvarez, Lourdes Ortiz, and the subject of this study, Alicia Gimenez

Bartlett. Although each of these authors creates a distinctly different type of female detective, they can be grouped according to their relationship with the profession. The protagonists of both Oliver and Ortiz are

professional detectives whereas the protagonists of Alvarez and Simo

are amateurs.

It is in this context that Alicia Gimenez-Bartlett, literary critic and

author of eight non-genre specific novels, among these Una habitation

ajena which won the Premio Femenino Lumen in 1997, published Ritos

de muerte in 1996, the first novel in a series of four detective novels that

center on the figure of Barcelona police inspector Petra Delicado. Ritos

Kathleen Thompson-Casado is Associate Professor in the Department of Foreign

Languages at the University of Toledo. She obtained her PhD from Ohio State

University. Her research and publications focus on the Spanish post-war novel,

Spanish women authors (particularly of the post-Franco period), and Spanish detective fiction.



72 Letras Femeninas, Volumen XXVIII, No. 1 (junio 2002)

was followed by Dia de perros in 1997, Mensajeros de la oscuridad in

1999, and Muertos depapel, published in the spring of 2000. The figure of Inspector Delicado also serves as the base for the thirteen-episode television series of the same name broadcast in the fall of 1999 featuring Ana Belen in the title role.

The fact that "a serious author" turns to the genre of detective fiction

as a framework for the exposition of personal and societal preoccupations is not unusual; Gimenez-Bartlett reiterates in a recent interview ideas

that many of the practitioners of the genre espouse:

[el genero policiaco] te permite la posibilidad de que en broma se

puedan decir cosas muy serias. Bueno, en broma no. Seria mas

correcto decir en el ambito de un genero muy especifico, en el que

hay que cumplir unas reglas establecidas que el lector ya espera.

Aparte de esas reglas, puedes anadir todo lo que tu quieras. (Hatero

1)

This quote serves as an ideal stepping-off point for analysis because it

reveals several important aspects of the series. First, Gimenez-Bartlett

clearly acknowledges the conventions of the subgenre and that they, as

well as the reader, play an important role in the construction of the text.

However, her choice of a female protagonist for the series implies certain

complications of the genre's gendered conventions.

These complications, explored in numerous critical articles and

monographs over the past two decades, center on the issue of the interface

between genre and gender and frequently raise the question of the

feminism of the text3. While there are many subtleties involved in this

question, in essence it can be reduced to the following: Is detective fiction

that features a female detective feminist because it alters the conventions

of the genre which in turn may facilitate the altering of social norms?

The answers to this question are wide-ranging and clearly dependant on

the definition of feminism, among the multitude of feminisms available,

employed by the critic. While it admittedly runs the risk of over

generalization and a certain bias, Alison Littler's explanation of the employ of the term feminist by critics of the genre can be useful in clarifying the

primary division among the critics:

If, for example, "feminist" is used in a liberal-humanist-independent career-woman-in-control-of-her-own-life sense, then most certainly the recent series of women private eyes are feminist. If, however,



Thompson-Casado 73

"feminist" refers to a woman deconstructing phallocentric ideologies wherever they are naturalized and structured into social, cultural and

political practices, then a feminist private eye is a contradiction in

terms. (133)

This study will employ the broader terms of the first tendency which are

considered of more practical application to the Gimenez-Bartlett novels

due to several factors, the most important being the nature of the subgenre

employed by the author and the particular position of female-authored

detective fiction in Spain. Given these parameters, this study will show

that the Petra Delicado series does address a variety of contemporary feminist concerns that are presented in a manner that can be read as

empowering for women.

What immediately sets this series apart from previous texts featuring other Spanish female detectives is the fact that Petra Delicado is an

institutionalized detective, not an amateur sleuth nor a private investigator, and Gimenez-Bartlett has chosen the format of the police procedural to

portray her. Although the police procedural as a sub-genre of detective

fiction has been in existence for more than half a decade, originating with American and British authors such as Lawrence Treat, Hillary Waugh, and John Creasey in the 1940s and 50s, it understandably has not had a

notable literary presence in Spain given the country's political history. The very core of the procedural, a generally positive account of police work as well as police attitudes, would probably not have been well

received in a country where many people considered the police force to

be an agent of authoritarian repression.4 This supposition can be supported in part by the success of the post-dictatorship "novela negra" in which

the majority of practitioners portrayed the police in very critical terms.5

Added to this is the position of women in police procedurals. It is not

until 1968, with the first novel by American Dorothy Uhnak in the Cristie

Opara series, that we find a policewoman as protagonist. Moreover, it is

only since the eighties that the number of policewomen protagonists has

shown limited growth6, aided in part by the boom of lesbian detective

fiction which included a number of lesbian police procedurals, one of the

most well-known being that of Katherine V. Forrest's LAPD homicide

detective Kate Delafield. In Spain however, Gimenez-Bartlett is the first

to employ a police procedural that features a woman. As noted, all previous

examples of female detectives have been either amateur sleuths, as in the

cases of Alvarez and Simo, or private detectives, as in the case of Ortiz



74 Letras Femeninas, Volumen XXVIII, No. I (junio 2002)

and Oliver, and the infrequent Spanish police procedural features male

protagonists.7 Given the limited tradition of both female detectives and the police

procedural in Spain, Gimenez-Bartlett's choice to gender this particular

sub-genre is significant. As Walton and Jones point out in Detective

Agency. Women Rewriting the Hard-Boiled Tradition:

By and large, the women PI represents a position more threatening to social norms than the female cop, since the latter is sworn to uphold and to protect the law of the state, and since the former is in part defined by her resistance to it. (221)

By employing a female detective who forms part of an institution that

regulates the established, and by and large patriarchal norms of society, Gimenez-Bartlett directs her narrative down a path quite different from, and less threatening to social conventions than, that of the private investigator. However, less threatening does not necessarily mean an absence of serious critique. As Walton and Jones signal, an institutional detective has the opportunity to explore not only the possibility of women's

integration into a traditionally-male profession founded on power and

authority, the goal of many second wave feminists, but she is also crucially positioned to critique the function of this institution and "portray the resistance of such agencies (and, by implication, of the society they represent and preserve) to women's participation and women's concerns"

(14). In the Delicado novels these two different directions, integration and

resistance, are essential to the development of the protagonist and the

long-run structuring of the series. However, the use of both in one narrative is not easy structurally and ideologically and leaves the protagonist frequently representing contradictory positions that are not reconciled

by the author. Ambiguity, nonetheless, appears to be a purposely chosen central concept of these novels. The very name of the protagonist illustrates

this, Petra symbolizing concepts traditionally associated with masculinity, rock, hardness, solidity, and Delicado representing concepts stereotipically attributed to the opposite, feminine delicacy and fragility. The initial characterization of the protagonist also evidences this ambiguity. The first paragraphs of the first novel make visible two divergent psychological directions of Delicado that struggle against each other throughout the series. The opening lines of Ritos reveal that, despite great difficulty, Delicado has just purchased a house with a garden where she plans to



Thompson-Casado 75

live alone. The implications of this decision are suggested quite openly, Delicado is looking for balance and tranquility, a place to nest, and the

garden symbolizes her need to give life as well as return to nature; "amarrarse a la tierra, enraizar" (Ritos 7) as she states. Yet only two

paragraphs later Delicado reveals why she decided to join the police force, "Si habia acabado haciendome policia era para luchar contra la reflexion

que solia inundarme frente a todo. Action. Solo pensamientos practicos en horas de trabajo..." (Ritos 8). Thus, Gimenez-Bartlett employs easily

recognizable stereotypes, the nesting impulse and return to nurturing Mother earth vs. the active, non-reflective masculine impulse to

characterize the protagonist. Delicado's inability to reconcile her multi-directional psychological

needs are reflected in the ambiguous image she conveys throughout the

novels.8 Although there are many contradictory elements to Delicado's

character, her feminism is the element of most interest here. Almost

immediately in the first novel and throughout the series Delicado is labeled

a feminist by her colleagues and the public with whom she must deal. Yet

the protagonist herself emphatically declares in Muertos de papel that

she is not a feminist:

Pero una cosa tengala por cierta: no soy feminista. Si lo fuera no

trabajaria como policia, ni viviria aun en este pais, ni me hubiera

casado dos veces, si siquiera saldria a la calle, fijese lo que le digo.

(123)

These conflicting perceptions of the protagonist are due in part to her

conflicting behavior. At times Delicado clearly appears to be fighting for

the rights of women. For example, she protests the use of sexist language, as evidenced in the following quote regarding the use of the term

"hijoputa" by her superior:

En realidad es curioso que los mayores insultos dirigidos a los

hombres acaben tambien cayendo sobre la cabeza de una mujer.

Porque ya me dira, comisario, si porque un tio sea malvado o cabron

hay que cargarselo tambien a su madre. (Muertos 11)

She also laments the lack of raised-consciousness in much of the female

proletariat regarding what she considers to be "las reivindicaciones

elementales de la mujer" (Ritos 41). This is observed repeatedly in Ritos

when Delicado must interrogate the rape victims who are clearly doubly

victimized, once by the rapist and the second time by their assumption of




patriarchal society's belief that this is a deeply shameful crime. Delicado

also officially protests, on a personal and collective level, sexist treatment

in her own institution, as observed in the following denunciation:

Con todos los respetos hacia mis superiores quiero senalar que estoy convencida de que este trato injusto se me dispensa por el simple hecho de ser mujer, un colectivo sin relevancia dentro del cuerpo, al

que minimizar o vejar resulta sencillo y sin consecuencias. (Ritos

94)

In addition to these "arranques" of feminist fervor on the part of the

protagonist, the perception of her as a feminist is also due to the

stereotypical notions of feminism held by those around her. In this series

Garzon, the protagonist's partner, and the Spanish public are portrayed as holding to essentialist views of women. These characters conflate the

categories of sex and gender, and feminism is conceived of in liberal

humanist terms, its primary goal being that of equality. Thus Delicado, a

woman who does not adhere to gender-assigned roles, who fights for

incorporation into a masculine institution and who demands equal treatment for herself, and on occasion for other women, must be a

"Feminist".

Yet for the resistant reader, perhaps one with some degree of

familiarity with feminist theories, the behavior and declarations of the

protagonist labeled feminist within the text may very well be perceived as suspect. In fact, most of the instances strongly marked with the use of

feminist discourse in the series are the ones most open to the opposite reading. This is graphically illustrated in the first novel when Delicado

interrogates a suspect accused of rape. The protagonist has the male

suspect disrobe entirely and stand in front of her during the interrogation while she fixes her gaze on his genital area. When her old-school partner

protests at the suspect's humiliation and the violation of his rights Delicado

attempts to justify her methods by recurring to feminist discourse and

corrupt past police procedure:

^Le habria parecido mas correcto de ser una chica la interrogada?

^Cuantas veces ha visto poner en entredicho la dignidad sexual de las detenidas, cuantas? [Y cuantas ha oido dirigirles frases burlonas, de doble sentido, gestos y malicias? Mas de una. ^Cree que me trago que la policia es un club de campo donde todo el mundo se preocupa

por la dignidad? Usted ha visto o incluso hecho muchas veces esas



Thompson-Casado 77

cosas, subinspector, estoy segura, solo que le parecio tan normal que ni siquiera se fijo. (Ritos 66)

On a superficial level Delicado is clearly trying to justify her behavior by

recurring to the discourse of equality, claiming that Garzon only protests her methods because the object of them is a male, and not the traditional

female. However true this aspect of Delicado's twisted pretention to gender

parity may be, it does not address a tenet that many consider fundamental

to feminism, that of respect, that all people, regardless of sex, be treated

in a respectful, humane manner.

The fact that the "feminist" claim of this incident and several other

major ones in the series are so easily read from a non-feminist perspective combined with the knowledge that this is the same author of a text as

subtle and intelligent as Una habitation ajena are clues that perhaps an

alternative reading of the series is needed. As I have pointed out, gender relations are a major element of the novels. Gimenez-Bartlett employs a

female protagonist in a traditionally male category and focuses on the

consequences of this with regard to both the sub-genre and the

protagonist's profession. Yet, as indicated earlier, her choice of sub-genre, the traditionally less-radicalized police procedural, indicates that this

exploration will not be from a radical or theorized feminist point of view

but rather from one much more non-threatening to the unacknowledged or non-feminist reader.9 The feminism employed in the novels appears

directly related to western mainstream, non-academic feminist tendencies

of the nineties. A feminism often hesitant to identify with the "f' word,

complacent with many of the gains of second-wave feminism and thus

more individualistic and not collectively oriented, yet still struggling with

what Delicado so aptly terms "las reivindicaciones elementales de la

mujer" (Ritos 41). This brand of feminism, while admittedly not questioning the bases

of female oppression nor the implications of equality, should not be lightly dismissed. What Walton and Jones state in reference to the hard-boiled

tendency can be equally applied to the police procedural:

Feminist hard-boiled detective novels provide their readers with

fictional narratives that have repercussions beyond their immediate

textual performances. It is therefore important not to belittle the liberal

feminist "fantasy of empowerment" that Sally Munt describes so

disparagingly; writers and readers may use this fantasy as a point of

departure, a site of agency and change. (112)




Empowerment is clearly one of the key concepts of this series because,

among the multitude of issues important to contemporary women present in these novels, those of authority and agency stand out. With regard to

authority, those familiar with Spanish female detective texts know that

this issue is particularly problematic for female protagonists. Authors

may resolve it, as does Simo in Una ombra fosca, com un nuvol de

tempesta, by positioning their protagonist as a powerless outsider who is

perceived as posing no threat to the patriarchal order, a posture clearly not available to an institutional detective. Another technique employed is to decenter authority through a protagonist such as Lonia Guiu who

rejects standard male hierarchization of authority and who implements to a certain degree a feminist concept of shared, cooperative participation.

Gimenez-Bartlett's approach to the question is to plant the protagonist

squarely in a position of authority yet problematize her reaction, as well

as that of others, to it. Thus Delicado, who is unprepared to exercise the

type of authority inherent to her new position, struggles both professionally and personally with it. On a professional level this is evidenced on

numerous occasions as she either exaggerates unprofessionally its employ, such as the previously mentioned interrogation incident, causing difficulties for the investigations, or she guiltily obsesses on her perceived lack of authority, for instance when she follows Garzon's lead on a case.

On a personal level the protagonist continually questions her taste for

power. She recognizes that at times she enjoys power, but also that that

very admission frightens her because it ties her to practices and an

institution that have oppressed many. Delicado is aware that her

contradictory reaction to authority in part stems from her unwilling

assumption of police detective mythology, against which she consciously

struggles but from which she is never completely able to separate herself.

However, ultimately her struggle with authority is tied to her personal

struggle with patriarchal acculturation. The majority of women of

Delicado's generation were not educated to assume authority as a given,

yet their generational trajectory placed them not only in a historical period of greater opportunity and power for women, but also one that postulated a critique of authority that came from several fronts, one of those being the women's movement. Thus the protagonist, like many women of her

generation, finds herself in a highly equivocal position within which once

again the element of ambiguity, that I mentioned previously as one of the

key concepts of the series, is echoed.



Thompson-Casado 79

That this struggle is narrated from the autobiographical narrative

position is tremendously important. As Walton and Jones point out:

Even-or perhaps especially-taking into account the limitations of

mainstream detective fiction's mostly middle-class audience,

autobiographical narration is a significant example of how the genre

may make less politically engaged readers (both women and men) aware of issues of race, gender, and power through the intersections

of potentially conflicting interests and identifications that take place at the site of the narrating "I". (160)

Which brings us to the issue of agency. I hope that I have made it clear

that this paper is not an attempt to minimize the problematic aspects of

feminism present in the series. Yet, the very fact that we have an

empowered female protagonist who is confronting and working through serious issues, many of them related to gender relations that are important to contemporary women, and that she is doing this through a position within the system, and at times is successful, indicates at a minimum the

possibilities of female agency. Thus returning to the initial question of this paper, the suitability of

Petra Delicado for a feminist, I would like to answer by echoing Gimenez

Bartlett's recourse to ambiguity. If feminist suitability is defined narrowly in terms of a sustained, sophisticated, theoretical critique of practices and institutions then this series will be a disappointment. However, as

Anne Cranny-Francis points out, that type of feminism may contribute to

"a loss of readership so severe as to call into question the whole concept of the feminist appropriation of popular fiction" (20).10 If, on the other

hand, one considers female detective fiction to be a potential site of cultural

contestation in part because the mainstream status of the genre may mask

its negotiation of gender politics in a facade of "normalcy" and may thus

empower readers to question personal as well as social issues then the

Delicado series is quite suitable. Gimenez-Bartlett positions Delicado in

the difficult site in which many of her female readers may find themselves

and does not unrealistically resolve the contradictions inherent in that

position but, rather, allows her protagonist to negotiate her way through issues. Although on a professional level Delicado does eventually move

from a position of resistance to one of integration, as does Detective

Chief Inspector Jane Tennison in the Prime Suspect series", this does not

mitigate the empowerment potential of the series. What the protagonist



80 Letras Femeninas, Volumen XXVIII, No. I (junio 2002)

gives up and what she acquires in this move raises even more questions for the resisting reader.

NOTES

1 As thoroughly documented by numerous critics, among them Amell,

Colmeiro, Coma, and Hart, the re-birth of the Spanish detective novel written by

male authors does occur in the decade of the seventies during the years of the

transition. However, notwithstanding the exception of Lourdes Ortiz's Picadura

mortal, published in 1979, the appearance of detective novels written by women

occurs several years later. Oliver does not begin to publish her series until 1985

and those of Alvarez do not appear until the nineties, as with the case of Gimenez

Bartlett. This, of course, does not ignore the existence and importance of the

detective fiction of Emilia Pardo Bazan at the beginning of the twentieth-cen

tury. For more information on her contributions see Cate-Arries or Colmeiro

(106-25). 2 Lourdes Ortiz's Picadura mortal was published in 1979. 3 With no intent to disregard the importance of the work of a large number

of critics, the following is a brief list of monographs related to the question: Detective Agency. Women Rewriting the Hard-Boiled Tradition (Walton & Jones);

Murder by the Book? Feminism and the Crime Novel (Munt); Sisters in Crime:

Feminism and the Crime Novel (Reddy); and The Women Detective. Gender &

Genre (Klein). "Patricia O'Connor also notes this association in her study of Garcia Pavon's

pre-democracy Spanish Police Chief Plinio: "Plinio's very human and local con

ception may also provide a clue as to why Francisco Garcia Pavon, a writer of

well-know Republican sympathies, has elected to promote a policeman at a time

in which the police force, for many liberals, seems to carry a connotation of

repression rather than progress" (52). 5 For further explanation of this situation see Colmeiro, in particular the

chapter dedicated to Garcia Pavon (151-64) and the final conclusions (259-66). 6 The only book-length study dedicated to the police procedural, that of

George Dove, is able to list only two women as of 1982 that protagonize police procedurals.

7 Two series that could be considered police procedurals are the Plinio series

by Garcia Pavon and the Brigada Central series by Juan Madrid. However, the Plinio character developed by Garcia Pavon does not focus on the inner-work

ings of the police as a team but rather concentrates on the development of the

protagonist and his relationship to the crimes and his society, thus distancing the series from the police procedural. Madrid, while focusing on the character of

Flores, does incorporate the workings of the entire brigade and the mentality of



Thompson-Casado 81

the Spanish police. However, his portray is highly critical of the institution and centers on internal as well as external discrimination and corruption.

8 This inability to reconcile differing psychological needs does not imply that Petra is unstable or even mad. I would posit that it is a realistic portrayal of

many western women, both Spanish and non-Spanish, of this generation caught between the deeply-rooted conventions of a their patriarchal acculturation and

the feminist desires and goals promoted by certain sectors of contemporary so

ciety. 9 Walton and Jones underscore the importance of this position to the reader

who may not consider her or himself "feminist" in the section "Using the "F"

Word", pp. 58-62. Additionally, one could also postulate that this position is much more marketable to a wide audience and hence contributes to a wider

distribution of the text. 10 This position is also sustained by Walton and Jones who state that: "A

focus on the wider audience of mainstream publications offers several strategic

possibilities. In fact, novels that appeal to this audience act out the revisionist feminist goal of working through or subverting existing systems by, in effect,

infiltrating rather than overthrowing them" (39). 11 Sandra Tome describes in detail this movement as well as its implications

in "Questing Women: The Feminist Mystery after Feminism."

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Alvarez, Blanca. El verdugo en el espejo. Aviles: Azucel, 1990.

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Amell, Samuel. "Literatura e ideologia: el caso de la novela negra en la Espana

actual." Monographic Review 3, 1-2 (1987): 192-201.

Breen, Jon L. Introduction to Police Procedurals in The Fine Art of Murder. Eds.

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Carroll & Graf Publishers, 1993.

Cate-Arries, Francie. "Murderous Impulses and Moral Ambiguity: Emilia Pardo

Bazan's Crime Stories." Romance Quarterly 39, 2 (May 1992): 205-210.



Letras Femeninas, Volumen XXVIII, No. I (junio 2002)

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Coma, Javier. La novela negra. Barcelona: El Viejo Topo, 1980.

Cranny-Francis, Anne. Feminist Fiction. Feminist Uses of Generic Fiction.

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—. Dia de perros. Barcelona: Grijalbo, 1997.

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Thompson-Casado 83

O'Connor, Patricia W. "A Spanish Sleuth at Last: Francisco Garcia Pavon's

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—. El sol que fa I'anec. Barcelona: Magrana, 1994.

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Hard-Boiled Tradition. Berkeley: U of California P, 1999.



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