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This article investigates Miguel de Unamuno's novel San Manuel Bueno, mártir. In particular, it focuses on the meaning of confession and weep of the novel's main character, Manuel, who is described as a new faithless Christ. In confession and tears, indeed, Manuel narrates his intimacy to Angela, a spiritual mother, who hands it down in the form of written memory. Lost any hope in eternal life, Manuel experiences how self-narration in confession becomes the very possibility of self-perpetuation in history, in the neighbour's memory. Through the analysis of spiritual motherhood, this article aims to show how, in Unamuno's novel, the self-narration in front of the other is encouraged by the loving and non-judgmental attitude of the "mother", whose paradigm, in Unamuno's imagery, is the weeping and screaming figure of Mater Dolorosa. Following Unamuno, the possibility of self-historicization of the individual has therefore been intended as "feminine", and Manuel's altruistic behaviour as inspired by the love and forgiveness of the "mother". From such a perspective, this article hypothesizes that the character of Manuel might represent the figure of a Christ with maternal features. (English)
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