The (Post) Imperialist Rebellion of the Domestic Femme Fatale in Galdós’s La de Bringas Marina Cuzovic-Severn University of Alaska Fairbanks Abstract: Nineteenth-century Spanish imperial crisis emasculated patriarchal authority and extended to a domestic crisis, facilitating female access to the public sphere. Benito Pérez Galdós presents personifications of traditional masculine ideals who prove inadequate as imperial subjects. Protagonist Rosalía de Bringas’s emergence as a cultural, economic and fatal subject—effected by French fashion and prostitution—positions her as a new imperial subject. However, her geopolitical split ironically suggests modernization through cultural colonization of Spain, reaffirming Galdós’s pessimistic view of Spain’s imperial future. Keywords: domesticity – masculinity – afrancesamiento – domestic femme fatale – imperialism enito Pérez Galdós’s works are a significant source material for understanding habits, customs, politics, and gender relations in Spanish society at the end of the nineteenth century. Jo Labanyi states that Galdós was a writer whose works were considered primary examples of the ‘national novel’ by Restoration critics, which contributed to debate on the creation of the modern nation (2). Through the presentation of the chaotic daily life of the Bringas family in La de Bringas (1884) and Tormento (1884), Galdós draws many parallels with historical events and ruling structures (Peter Bly 64), such as royals and bourgeoisie, whom he criticizes because of their afrancesamiento of Spain. The state of the Bringas family, including patriarch Francisco’s lack of masculine authority and dominance, symbolizes the problem of the Spanish nation and empire in the nineteenth century: loss of hegemony of Spanish masculinity over the colonies expressed through crisis of domesticity and feminine empowerment. The goal of this article is to demonstrate the consequential relationship between crisis of Spanish imperial masculinity and crisis of domesticity in nineteenth-century Spain. I demonstrate this through Rosalía de Bringas’s transformation from ángel del hogar to mujer infame (adulterous woman), or what I term the domestic femme fatale, later explained, and new imperial subject—Spain’s new (and only remaining) hope for retaining and regaining the status of imperial force after losing almost all overseas colonies now centers on a B