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Dr Rallo (1974) draws attention to the 'key theme' of Fortunata and Jacinta as parenthood, and in the case of Maximiliano Rubín on whom the study by myself and Dr Ullman (Allison & Ullman, 1974) focused, that of a frustrated parenthood. In the ensuing course of the engaging discussion he mentions the much noted profusion of dreams in Galdós' novels and the likelihood that Galdós drew on his own dreams as he did his own rich fantasy life for the dreams and fantasies of his characters. This then leads to Rallo's convincing thesis that not only is the theme of motherhood central in the content of this novel, but it also may be central in the formal motivation of the author's artistic creativity itself. His lifelong bachelorhood and close incestuous ties to maternal family figures who cared for him, as well as his more transient relations with other women who admired and loved him, apparently left him unfulfilled except for the prodigious outpouring of creative writing. With Galdós particularly we have a basis to speculate on this factor in the motivation of his prolific writing. Rallo's thoughts have led me to wonder if this double expression of a drive central to the author's psychology (in the novel's content and in the author's motivation) may bear on why in Fortunata and Jacinta Galdós achieved his greatest artistic expression and why this novel is considered by Galdós scholars as his masterwork.
The discussant's elaboration about Galdós' profound feminine identifications and their significance to his depth of insight into female characters, including the strong homosexual currents between Fortunata and Jacinta, is another point implied but not sufficiently developed in our paper. That fatherhood in the novel 'is seen to be tinted with strong feminine shades' as Rallo aptly describes it, seems clearly related to Galdós' rejection of his tyrannical and (in a psychoanalytic sense) rejecting mother. This appears to be in contrast to his presumed warm and affecti