Conclusion
According to Harel, the “innovative zoopoetic approach to literary animals seeks to critically examine human-animal dynamics and explore the experience of nonhuman animals” (2020: 10). It is therefore critical to this analysis of twentieth-century Spanish literature to underscore the relationships demonstrated between the girls and their cats seen within this chapter. Through this approach it becomes evident that, within both “Fausto” and Marina, care is implied in the relationship between the girls and their pets. These relationships, though both significant, are manifested differently. Marina, for example, worries about Kafka when away, asking Óscar to continue caring for him in her absence. Her responsibility toward the cat defines their relationship, a responsibility rejected by Matute’s girl. The different relationships are marked by circumstance. They both live in poverty, yet the concepts of life and death are understood and realized distinctly between the girls. Interestingly, Kafka is no longer mentioned in the second half of Marina. Although it is assumed that he is still with Marina in her routine at home, once she is hospitalized, the relationship between her and her cat dissipates. His fate is never mentioned again, whether he has moved on to a new home, left the home to become a stray, or remained with Germán. In either case, mentioning his whereabouts is no longer pertinent, and Marina’s fate sealed. In “Fausto,” the concepts of care and family shift for the child as she tries to understand her life circumstances. At the beginning of their interactions, the girl establishes an ethics of care toward the cat: “nadie comprendía su cariño hacia Fausto, tan feo y tan poca cosa;” though, sadly, this connection is obliterated by the end of the story, the girl becoming indifferent toward the cat (Matute 2002: 574).
In Bárbara Mujica’s commentary of “Fausto” in Texto y vida. Introducción a la literatura española, she asserts:
En un mundo confuso e indiferente, el animal llena un vacío; corresponde a su necesidad de amar y de cuidar a alguien. A un nivel subconsciente, simboliza al abuelo, un viejo que seguramente le tiene convertido en un ser incapaz de mostrar amor. Poco a poco, la niña comienza a comprender que no hay lugar en el mundo para Fausto – ni por su abuelo – en el mundo. Comienza de dar cuenta de que sólo los fuertes triunfan. (2002: 571)
The childhoods of both girls are therefore marked with death. Marina is “not strong enough” to survive her illness, having had to grow up quickly to take care of herself and her father. The unnamed girl sleeps soundly after killing Fausto, waiting for the imminent death of her only surviving relative. As reflected by Germán in Ruiz Zafón’s Marina: “La juventud es una novia caprichosa. No sabemos entenderla ni valorarla hasta que se va con otro para no volver jamás” (Ruiz Zafón 1999: 167). The loss of innocence due to the traumatic childhoods of the girls defines their characters.
This blurring of the human-animal dichotomy becomes evident within both works because the cats help to characterize the girls. The reader learns more about the unnamed girl and Marina through their relationships with their feline companions, demonstrating their socioeconomic experience, their solitude, and how death permeates their lives. The presence of the felines therefore symbolizes death, sickness, loss of childhood innocence, and poverty in both tales. Of course, the image of the cat in this way is not unique to the two authors, with images dating back to medieval times repeatedly demonstrating some relationship between illness and cats to symbolize the impending mortality of humans. To what degree cats function as harbingers and witnesses of sickness and death remains an area for further research.