Emilia Pardo Bazán, an Ethical Writer

Abstract

Within the cultural context of nineteenth-century Spain, Emilia Pardo Bazán uses literature to raise public awareness on the death penalty. Considering the seriousness of the issue, she thought that emotions – not reason – could allow people to have a better understanding and to form their own opinion. Thus, in La piedra angular, through the fictional word of Marineda, she examines the controversies linked to the legal, human, and moral legitimacy of capital punishment and to the figures of both the criminal and the executioner, but also to the nature of truth and public opinion.