44 pages • 1 hour read
Miguel de UnamunoSaint Emmanuel the Good, Martyr
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1930A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Pages 75-92Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Pages 75-92 Summary
As Lázaro and Angela’s mother neared death, she expressed a desire for Don Manuel to convert Lázaro, hoping for a reunion in Heaven. Don Manuel reassured her, saying her spirit would remain with them and emphasizing God’s presence on earth. Privately, Don Manuel assured Angela that her mother’s peaceful passing represented her eternal life and encouraged Lázaro to pray for their mother, which he reluctantly did at her deathbed.
Following Lázaro’s mother’s death, Don Manuel and Lázaro grew close; they frequently walked by the lake, where Lázaro praised Don Manuel, sensing a hidden depth akin to the submerged city. Lázaro started attending Mass and eventually took communion—a moment that moved the village and prompted Angela’s gratitude toward her brother for uplifting Don Manuel. In fact, Lázaro confessed to Angela that his communion was for Don Manuel’s sake and in compliance with Don Manuel’s request that Lázaro feign belief and conceal his progressiveness. When Lázaro questioned Don Manuel about his own faith, Don Manuel’s tears revealed his struggle with disbelief. Lázaro saw Don Manuel not as self-serving but as a saint working for his people’s peace. This confession led Angela to question the morality of their actions, feeling betrayed by the deception practiced on their dying mother. Lázaro, however, remained committed to prayer and the illusion of faith for the sake of peace.
Angela triggered Don Manuel’s suspicion by distancing herself from Don Manuel while still aiding him. Their eventual confession led to mutual tears. Questioned about her faith, Angela affirmed her belief in God, challenging Don Manuel on his faith. His initial attempt to deflect crumbled under her insistence, prompting a tearful plea for her to desist. Don Manuel suggested that she marry and subtly acknowledged understanding her reasons for remaining single. Overwhelmed by guilt, he sought absolution from Angela, who experienced a profound, almost maternal, empathy.
Lázaro dedicated himself more fully to Don Manuel, learning of the latter’s inherited depression and suicidal thoughts, particularly when in solitude or near the lake. In sharing these vulnerabilities with Lázaro, Don Manuel emphasized the importance of allowing their community to cling to dreams. He intervened when he learned Lázaro wanted to preach against superstition, emphasizing the value of happiness over protest.
As Don Manuel’s health declined, his battle with depression worsened. When Lázaro suggested starting a Catholic agrarian trade union, Don Manuel argued that religion should serve as comfort and provide an illusion of happiness rather than function as a tool for economic or political resolutions. However, he conceded that a trade union might itself bring happiness if the people desired it.
The village sensed Don Manuel’s impending death, observing his growing weakness and frequent tears, with Blasillo being the most visibly affected. In his final communion service, Don Manuel whispered to Lázaro about the absence of eternal life beyond this world, urging him to let people enjoy their fantasies. He then addressed Angela as his daughter, requesting her prayers for them and for Jesus Christ.
Pages 75-92 Analysis
Don Manuel’s and Angela’s doubts, the result of inherent curiosity, contrast sharply with Lázaro’s analytical disbelief, which stems from a modern, learned perspective. Lázaro requires conversion through truth, which he approaches as itself a form of religion. Don Manuel’s confession to Lázaro about his inherited suicidal ideation: “My life, Lázaro, is a sort of continual suicide, a struggle against suicide, which comes to the same thing” (85), further exemplifies the inborn nature of his struggles with faith.
These differing forms of disbelief inform the way the characters interact with one another and their attitudes toward faith. For example, Don Manuel tries to temper Lázaro’s desire to challenge superstitions, advocating for the comfort belief provides: “It’s better for them to believe everything, even things that contradict one another, than not to believe anything” (87). His words reveal a nuanced understanding of faith’s role in communal harmony. Don Manuel also urgently pleads with Lázaro to allow the villagers to maintain their beliefs, emphasizing, “There is no eternal life other than this one…let them dream it eternal…eternal for a few years” (91). This complexity extends to Don Manuel’s response to Lázaro’s proposal of a trade union, in which he emphasizes religion’s role not in resolving worldly disputes but in offering solace and a sense of purpose.
Although the novel initially frames Lázaro as a potential confidant and successor to don Manuel, the fact that Don Manuel must constantly safeguard the villagers’ faith from Lázaro’s skepticism undercuts this portrayal. Rather, Angela emerges as Don Manuel’s spiritual successor, deeply attuned to both the village’s and Don Manuel’s spiritual needs. Her contemplation of the quote, “Why has Thou forsaken me?” (91), underscores her intense connection to Don Manuel’s faith and the burdensome legacy she stands to inherit. For his part, Don Manuel recognizes Angela’s inherent understanding and commitment, not needing to remind her to support the villagers’ dreams and highlighting her pivotal role: “Pray, my daughter, pray for us” (91). This moment reveals his deep, paternal connection to Angela.
Angela’s joy at her brother’s communion, fueled by a desire to protect Don Manuel’s soul and heart, underscores her commitment to maintaining the village’s faith and considers the implications of community cohesion and the individual’s place within it. Her remark that “Poor Don Manuel was crying with joy. What joy [he has] given [them] all!” reflects not just personal relief but relief regarding a collective safeguarding of belief (77). Angela’s distress over Lázaro and Don Manuel’s atheism springs not from lack of sympathy with Don Manuel’s doubts but rather from her self-assumed role to comfort him and preserve the community’s illusions. Lázaro’s disbelief and his admission that Don Manuel instructed him to feign religiosity devastate her, revealing her failure to shield the priest, which has become her life’s work: Angela’s refusal to marry signifies a Marian dedication to Don Manuel’s mission over personal fulfillment, suggesting her role in sustaining the village’s spiritual fabric through sacrifice and service but also raising questions about what her responsibilities to the community truly are.
The climax of Angela’s role occurs when Don Manuel seeks her absolution: “And now, Angelina, in the name of the people, do you absolve me?” (85). This request, coupled with Angela’s sensation of “a maternal stirring in [her] womb” (85), cements her maternal, sacrificial role within their spiritual ecosystem. The interaction encapsulates the intertwined guilt and responsibility felt by both Angela and Don Manuel as they navigate the moral complexities of sustaining faith through deception. Their shared burden, The Tragedy of Consciousness, becomes a mutual confession, blurring the lines between protector and protected, believer and skeptic.
This section also articulates Unamuno’s concept of intrahistory. For example, Don Manuel observes of the girl herding goats near the mountain, “[A]s she was when my consciousness began, as she will be when it comes to an end” (87). His remarks about the lake are likewise significant: “Look! The water is praying the litany and now it’s saying, Ianua caeli, ora pro nobis, Gate of Heaven, pray for us” (87). These elements underscore the continuity and permanence of the natural world and its silent witness to human existence. The mountain and lake, embodying the unchanging backdrop against which the fleeting dramas of human lives unfold, serve as symbols of collective memory and the enduring spirit of the community. In particular, Don Manuel’s portrayal of the lake as a praying entity suggests a deep connection between the land and its people’s faith. This perspective offers a sanctuary for Don Manuel’s existential struggles, proposing that the natural world shares in the village’s collective sorrows and joys. For Lázaro, returning with a modern skepticism, these poetic insights from Don Manuel provide a bridge to reevaluating the spiritual within the everyday, inviting a reconsideration of faith through the lens of nature.
