The Tree of Knowledge: A Pessimistic Journey of Andrés Hurtado

Posted on Sep 18, 2024 in English

Part One: The Life of a Student in Madrid

This first part depicts the spiritual and intellectual formation of Andrés. It encompasses almost the entirety of the protagonist’s university years. We are introduced to his family: Don Pedro, his father, whom he despises for being tyrannical and hypocritical; Alexander, his older brother, whom he also despises for being a playboy and a parasite; Peter, for whom he feels some sympathy; Margarita, anodyne, resigned, and good; and Luisito, the younger brother, weak and sickly, for whom he has compassion.

During these years, he meets disparate friends: Lamela, Julio Aracil, Montaner, and Ibarra. Andrés evolves psychologically and intellectually. His first readings are novels, but little by little, he delves deeper into philosophy.

Life, his brother’s illness, his time in the San Juan de Dios hospital (and the cruelty he witnesses in the physicians and patients), and his reading of Schopenhauer make him increasingly pessimistic. He begins to abandon his assets, becoming sad and increasingly hopeless about the possibility of changing human nature.

He goes to work as an intern in a hospital. There, he realizes that he has more of a vocation as a medical psychologist. He describes the atmosphere of corruption prevailing in the hospital.

Part Two: La Carnaria

Andrés meets the Minglanilla family (Doña Leonarda, Nini, and Lulu). He develops a certain friendship with Lulu.

One night, Andrés and some friends tour some places in Madrid: the home of Mrs. Virginia, an abortionist and madam; and that of Villasuso, an old-fashioned romantic playwright who has failed to provide a decent life for his daughters, Pure and Ernestina. We are introduced to Doña Venancia, a neighbor of Lulu, and her son Manolo “the Chafandín,” a drunk and lazy caveman. He describes the strange inhabitants of Lulu’s house: Don Cleto, the Black, the Maestrino, Don Martin…

In the last chapter of this part, there is a conversation between Andrés and his uncle Iturrioz. Andrés wants to discuss the philosophical interpretation of the lives of the residents of Lulu’s house. The aspects discussed can be summarized as follows:

Iturrioz considers all these lives, drawing a parallel with Darwin’s theories of the struggle for life: “Life is a constant struggle in which we are eating each other.”

Andrés believes that the struggle for life is applicable to the animal kingdom, but not to resigned and flawed men.

Iturrioz adds that human behavior is a reflection of the animal, and there are many ways to fight and thrive in human life. For example, the case of Uncle Miseries (the oppressor) would be analogous in the zoological world to a parasite that survives by feeding on others.

Andrés replies that we differ from animals in our ability to have feelings, such as justice.

Iturrioz concludes with the idea that justice does not exist; it is a human invention, like so many other artificial inventions that man has created. The human world is animalistic, and both share the same laws: birth, growth, reproduction, and death.

From the rooftop where they are having this conversation, a school and a convent of friars are visible. They symbolize two attitudes in life: natural life (the school) and artificial (the unnatural, voluntary recollection of the convent).

This part ends with Andrés wondering which path, what attitude to take in life. He is sensitive and intelligent, and not ready to take on the role of hunter; he sees no function for himself in that environment: life.

Part Three: Sadness and Pain

This part begins with Andrés’s final year of university. Luisito’s health worsens. Andrés travels to Valencia to find a house where Luisito can spend some time and improve with the pure air of the area; he seems to have tuberculosis. He finishes his degree and goes to Valencia. He lives there quietly for a while, taking care of his brother and enjoying nature.

Andrés’s father cannot financially support two homes, so Andrés, Margaret, and Luisito go to live with relatives in the capital of Valencia. Andrés looks for work but it is not easy, and he decides to pursue a doctorate. He spends the winter in Valencia.

He returns to Madrid and submits his thesis. Two months later, he moves to Burgos to replace a doctor. There, the placid days of his life pass, serene, without existential concerns. He receives news that his brother is dead. Following his brother’s death, he suffers a further evolution from his previous pessimistic suffering to a new nihilistic indifference.

Part Four: Inquisition

Back in Madrid. He meets with Ibarra, who has recovered and is studying engineering and inventing.

Further discussions with his uncle Iturrioz:

Andrés wants a full explanation of the origin and existence of the world, an explanation that combines physical and moral cosmology and biology.

Iturrioz advises him to read French and English philosophers, who are more practical and less metaphysical than the Germans, by whom Andrés seems to be greatly influenced.

Andrés insists on the theories of the Germans, on Kant, for whom time and space do not exist, but are only the result of our intelligence; outside of human consciousness, they have no existence.

Andrés wields his empiricist ideas: external experience is not truth, our senses can deceive us, no absolute truths exist, everything is relative. Only science, the laws of causality, gives some meaning to life. Really, what we mean by “truth” is the unanimous agreement of all intelligences.

Andrés talks about the Tree of Science, which represents an improving trend that “kills.” The tree of life, however, has ignorance, faith, fiction, superstition… but all that is “healthy” life.

Iturrioz critiques rationalism, science, and the materialistic way of life, which have left the world devoid of illusion and mystery. He believes that a new Society of Jesus¹ would be better, instilling values such as serenity and courage, without Judeo-Christian sentimentality or sadness.

Part Five: Experience in Town

Andrés goes to Alcolea, a village in La Mancha, as a resident physician. He stays at an inn and meets Juan Sanchez, the town doctor, and the town clerk. The town is very hot. He spends the summer there. When September arrives, he leaves the inn and goes to live as a guest in the home of some locals.

Dorothea, the landlady, is beautiful, and her husband, Pepinito, is taciturn. Andrés cures the miller’s daughter, which creates enmity with Sanchez, but he is gaining prestige as a physician among the people. He observes and describes the life and character of the people, their antisocial tendencies, their chieftaincy, their individualism, their lack of concerns… He sees this way of life, the resigned, backward, and uncritical attitude of these people, and his nihilism² grows. He concludes that it is better to stop thinking, and he decides to just let life go by.

Andrés spends the winter in Alcolea. He begins to frequent the casino and meets the Pianist and Don Blas Carreño, a wealthy gentleman. Andrés feels sympathy for these quirky characters. Don Blas lives far from reality and remains stuck in the language and way of life of Cervantes. But Andrés begins to get bored and despair among the people. In an attempt to distract himself, he intends to write, to switch from philosophical readings to literature and history… but he is poisoned by philosophy and nothing motivates him.

He seeks new ways of life to leave the state of disappointment in which he finds himself. He thinks he should get married, but he is not willing to sacrifice his independence. Then, he decides to change his eating and lifestyle habits, and he improves. He enters a kind of ataraxia³ and is relaxed. But he increasingly shows antipathy towards the townspeople, and it is reciprocated. Andrés feels even more marginalized than in Madrid.

In the spring, he resigns and leaves. The night before his departure, he makes love to Dorothea. Andrés feels entitled to commit this act; the cuckolded husband is a miserable fool who does not deserve his wife. He returns to Madrid, passing through Aranjuez and spending three days there. He is baffled by his own attitude.

Part Six: Madrid Experience

Back in Madrid, the war with Cuba and the Philippines breaks out. Andrés gets a three-month replacement position. Before the war, he notes the outburst of Spanish patriotism, the excited chatter. After the disaster, the world continues to live with total indifference to what happened.

He visits his uncle Iturrioz and has another conversation with him in which he speaks of Alcolea and the resigned spirit of the poor. Iturrioz launches into a Nietzschean thesis that “the slave is a slave in spirit;” the cowardice of the poor is what prevents them from moving forward, evolving, and freeing themselves from their shackles.

He reconnects with Montaner, who is unemployed, and Julio, who is doing very well in life; he has thrived thanks to his lack of scruples. He also sees Ibarra, who wants to go abroad to patent his inventions. Spain is a country that neither supports nor believes in progress. He also reunites with Lulu, who has managed to open a store thanks to the marriage of her sister Nini to a sugar daddy.

Andrés gets a job as a hygiene doctor. He is becoming more antisocial. He scorns the rich and the poor equally: the former for being exploiters and the latter for being resignedly exploited.

He leaves the job because dealing with prostitutes, pimps, and love increasingly depresses him. He continues to visit Lulu and gets a job as a doctor at La Esperanza, assisting the poor. Dealing with the poor, their ignorance, misery, and absurd resignation, makes his character more bitter and aggressive.

On one of his visits to old acquaintances, he finds Villasuso, who has gone mad and is living in abject poverty. Days later, he dies, and his bohemian poet friends behave pathetically and surreally at his wake, assuming that the deceased suffered from catalepsy⁴.

He sees Lulu more and more frequently. He loves her, without passion, like almost everything he does in life.

Part Seven: The Experience of the Child

In another of his talks with Iturrioz, Andrés, very sensitive on the issue of genetic inheritance, raises to his uncle the problem that would be caused by two weak people marrying and procreating.

He makes the decision to marry Lulu. He gets a job as a translator of medical books, moving away from the humane treatment of patients. He enters a period of peace and quiet. Another ataraxia.

Everything goes well until Andrés starts to get depressed by Lulu’s refusal to have children. She gives in, and when his wife gets pregnant again, his old fears return. He is afraid to open that window into the abyss that makes him dizzy. He had managed to create an organized, quiet, dull life, and he fears that the responsibility that comes with this child will awaken all the ghosts that he had managed to put to sleep with so much effort. He starts taking morphine to avoid thinking.

The child dies a few days after birth, and so does Lulu. On the day of the funeral, Andrés commits suicide by poisoning himself.

The book ends with Iturrioz’s reflection. Andrés died without pain, not driven by suicidal despair, nor by the suffering of losing loved ones. It is nihilism. He was a misfit for life, and it had offered him a cozy little hole with his marriage to Lulu. With Lulu’s disappearance, he no longer knew what to do; in her absence, he would probably have committed suicide sooner. In reality, he was always dead. His excessive consciousness prevented him from enjoying life.

Structure

At first glance, we find a rambling structure, with characters, stories, situations, and places intermingled… which make it difficult to organize the work.

But this is only superficial; deep down, there is a very coherent structure in the novel, and it is the figure of the protagonist, present in all chapters, and his psychological development, which give unity to the work.

External Structure

53 chapters divided into 7 parts.

Internal Structure

We propose the following:

Part One (I and II): Andrés’s formative stage.

He meets his main friends, Aracil, Montaner… He goes through the experience of his brother’s illness, he meets Lulu. He ends this part with his degree finished and considering the position to be taken in life (school or convent).

Part Two (III): From pessimism to nihilism.

With the illness and death of Luisito, the questions and reflections that were raised at the beginning continue to develop in this part, leading to increased pessimism and confusion.
In the figure of his younger brother, sensitive, intelligent, and his friend Choriset, savage and primitive, Andrés strengthens his Darwinian theories applied to the human world: the strong survive.
In this part, Andrés feels uncertainty, boredom, and confusion. Here, the evolution of his personality is shown: pessimism gives way to nihilism.

Part Three (IV): Reflective interlude.

Philosophical treatises with his uncle Iturrioz: the tree of knowledge kills, because it symbolizes the truth and, therefore, suffering; the tree of life is healthy, because it symbolizes the useful lie.
Intelligence and science are decadent in themselves, because they kill. Iturrioz sides with life, with the biologically useful lie; Andrés, with truth and science.
This problem has a racial background contrast: Semitism, which represents the interest in lies.

Part Four (V and VI): New experiences.

Andrés as a doctor in Alcolea. The idiosyncrasies of the people are presented: lack of solidarity, stupidity, caciquismo… First sexual experience.
Return to Madrid. Reunion with Lulu and old friends: Aracil, Montaner, Ibarra, Villasuso…
War in Cuba. Pessimism grows.

Part Five (VII): Outcome.

He gets married. His wife, his son, and he himself die.

Characters

Baroja describes the main characters through the developments they undergo in the course of the novel; their character and ideas suffer. In contrast, the secondary characters are described from the moment of their introduction.

Andrés

The undisputed protagonist of the novel. He is present in all 53 chapters of the book.

He begins to form intellectually with the support of heterogeneous knowledge; in his library are: treatises on medicine and biology, novels, a history of the French Revolution…

Already in his student days, he realizes that “he cared more about the ideas and feelings of patients than the symptoms of the disease.”

He sympathizes with Republican ideas, but he does not really know his political leanings. He does not opt for any class; he despises both the rich and the poor, the defects of both. He believes in classes of people, and he shows a constant “aristocratic” tendency in his contempt for vulgarity.

He is a man of action who encounters a large, ignorant, cowardly, and resigned mass, incapable of changing the injustices of life. This, coupled with his rebellious and critical spirit, embitters him and makes him a pessimistic man.

Andrés is cold in love, without passion for anything in life, except to unravel the logic that drives it and the mysteries it involves. In the absence of metaphysical answers and disappointed by human behavior, he ends up sinking into an existential angst that leads him to suicide.

Physically, we know nothing about him; Baroja seems to focus all our attention on the psychological aspect.

Why a man of action?

Despite his pessimism and skepticism, Andrés demonstrates throughout the novel that he is a man of action. He shows a critical and rebellious spirit. He fights, when he has the opportunity, against hypocrisy, cruelty, and cowardice. Thus:

He opposes his father’s lifestyle and his unjust and tyrannical character.

He insults the doctors at the San Juan de Dios hospital for their cruelty and the mistreatment inflicted on the sick.

He confronts the director of a newspaper, who had gone on a spree, for allowing Villasuso to be mocked in his own home and for making stupid and tasteless jokes at his expense.

He defends Lulu from Manolo “the Chafandín” with a chair, while Aracil, who is with him, shrinks back.

In Alcolea, he defends the truth and tries to do justice to Uncle Garrota, whom the people accused of murder without proof.

Julio Aracil

Andrés’s friend, fellow student, “a Semitic type.” Realistic, materialistic, pragmatic. More cunning than intelligent. An “adapted” to life who, thanks to his lack of scruples, manages to thrive and live comfortably. Physically, he is brown and has bulging eyes.

Montaner

Blond, blue-eyed, more of an “Iberian” than a “Semitic” type. Monarchist, a supporter of the bourgeoisie and the aristocracy. At first, he clashes ideologically with Andrés, but eventually they come to have some complicity. Andrés enjoys talking with him, discussing politics, literature, and music, because he likes that Montaner has ideas.

Fermín Ibarra

Sick with arthritis. Little is known about him. He ends up recovering and surprises everyone with his skills as an inventor. He goes to Belgium to patent his inventions in the absence of Spanish initiative to invest in new projects.

Rafael Sanudo

Engineering student. Wagnerian.

Antonio Lamela

Older student. Andrés befriends him because “they both had an inner life different from the other students.” Romantic and quixotic, with his idealism he distorts reality to the point of seeing his ugly beloved as a beautiful lady. At the same time, he is fun-loving and often drunk, but far from being contradicted by his extreme attitudes, he says he practices a “practical idealism;” his motto was “give the body what is body and the soul what is soul.”

Letamendi

Andrés’s professor. He publishes a book that applies mathematics to biology. At first, Andrés becomes a follower of his theories, but he ends up realizing that his talk lacks scientific rigor.

Lulu

Not very graceful but funny, with a sarcastic and somewhat acidic humor. She is intelligent, neurotic, pessimistic, and has something of a wild child about her; since birth, she has shown strange attitudes. She is unconventional and not very feminine; her courage and wit make her seem different from other women, which is why Andrés likes to talk to her. However, as a married woman, she succumbs to the instinct of wanting to be a mother.

Doña Leonarda and Nini

Lulu’s mother and sister. They are coming down in the world and unable to accept the reality of their poverty. They live on hope and only aspire to a marriage of convenience for Nini to get them out of the state of misery in which they live.

Villasuso

Poet, playwright. His romantic and bohemian lifestyle has made him unsuccessful, because, according to Andrés, it is a passive attitude towards life that does not allow him to live decently. He dies insane and penniless.

Iturrioz

He is not characterized as a character in the play. He is rather a pretext of the author, a kind of intellect at the service of Andrés’s intellect, an antagonist for him to discuss scientific and philosophical theses with. When Andrés dies, he leaves behind only a lucid intelligence to interpret the true causes of the protagonist’s death and to close the novel: Iturrioz.

Other

Dorothea. The landlady in Alcolea. Good, beautiful, resigned to convention, but not buried in it: she knows how to seize the opportunity that Andrés gives her the night before his departure.

Pepinito. Dorothea’s husband. Vulgar, taciturn, uncouth.

Don Juan Sanchez. Doctor in Alcolea. Hypocritical and a bad person. He only aspires to have clients and prestige, even above professional ethics.

Don Blas Carreño and the Pianist. The former, an eccentric gentleman in Alcolea, and the latter, his friend. They are a nice and extravagant couple. They communicate using the language of Cervantes and live oblivious to reality.

Choriset. Luisito’s playmate during his stay in Valencia. Insensitive, savage, and very physically healthy, he represents the antithesis of Luisito. This child seems settled and under the shade of the tree of life. His appearance, like that of so many characters in the work, is temporary, but significant for the thesis of the main character: toughness and insensitivity make one perfectly suited to life, which will undoubtedly dominate.

Among Lulu’s neighbors, we can highlight some characters like:

Doña Venancia. She embodies the resignation and sacrifices of the poor. She assumes her social condition with no hope of improvement, as if it were a genetic inheritance. She gives everything, expecting nothing. A “we are born into this world and we leave it,” as Andrés tells her.

The Black’s aunt. Alcoholic and Republican.

Doña Pitusa. A beggar, she was fond of spirits, and lived with her son, a funeral home worker, who was vindictive and spiteful.

La Paca. Galician, owner of a guesthouse.

Don Cleto. The “philosopher” of the neighborhood. Down on his luck, but cultured and educated. He emphasizes his stoic nature.

The Maestrino. From La Mancha, he lives in a drugstore. “Pedantic and a know-it-all.”

Uncle Miseries. His nickname comes from his job as a loan shark. He is a mean, dark character.

Time

The action takes place over about ten years. Andrés probably dies when he is 28 years old or so.

Part One. It takes place mostly during Andrés’s university years: first year, summer, second year, summer, third year, summer, half of the fourth year.

Part Two. Vague references to time (Carnival). We assume that he finishes his fourth year, although there is no mention of final exams.

Part Three. It starts with his final year. He graduates in June. He is preparing his doctoral thesis. He submits it for review in May and defends it. He goes to Burgos, where he stays for two months. Thirteen months ago.

Part Four. He spends a summer in Madrid.

Part Five. One year in Alcolea.

Part Six. It takes place over a year or so: three months replacing a doctor, early fall, it’s summer.

Part Seven. It takes place over one year and nine months. This part begins with the marriage of Andrés and Lulu; a year after getting married, she becomes pregnant. The baby dies at birth, Lulu dies three days later, and Andrés the next day.

Space

Parts One and Two: Madrid, the university, bars, clubs, tenement houses…

Part Three: Valencia. Back to Madrid to defend his thesis. Two months as a substitute doctor in a town in Burgos.

Part Four: Back from Burgos to Madrid.

Part Five: Alcolea (La Mancha). Three days in Aranjuez.

Parts Six and Seven: Madrid.

Critical Analysis

The novel highlights the discomfort of the period and, in particular, the ideology of the Generation of ’98, to which Baroja belonged. Thus:

Criticism of the low cultural environment that existed at the time (grotesque atmosphere among students, lack of seriousness and rigor among teachers…) and the limited interest of the government in investing in science (Ibarra has to go to Belgium to patent his inventions. There are also no physiology laboratories in Spain for medical students to do internships).

Criticism of human cruelty, “there was no piety in the world,” thought Andrés.

Students in the dissection class ruthlessly abusing corpses.

Doña Virginia, the abortionist, operates on and sells women.

The doctors at San Juan de Dios mistreat patients.

Dorothea’s compassion for the machismo of her husband.

Contempt for bullfighting. The bullfight spectator is morally cowardly because he demands courage from others.

Criticism of vulgarity, of spiritual poverty in all its facets, which prevents people from living a decent life: Doña Venancia, Manolo “the Chafandín,” Mrs. Virginia, the friends who mock Villasuso’s madness…

Criticism of the individualistic nature of the Spanish people. It prevents associations and makes us unsympathetic and jealous, as seen in the destruction of Alcolea, the competition among doctors…

Criticism of the sexual repression of the culture of the time. It causes the appearance of a dirty, illegal, and distasteful pornography, the opposite of what happens in England, where sex manifests itself naturally in higher quality erotic magazines.

Criticism of patriotism. Criticism of the false patriotism shown by the Spanish people in their attitude towards the war in Cuba: hollow and exalted patriotism at the beginning of the war and neglect and indifference when they lost the colonies. But on the other hand, it allows the work to be more critical of Spain, because in the train journey to Alcolea, a passenger complains about the incompetence of the Spanish people because the station mistakenly gave him a second-class ticket instead of the first-class one he wanted. The traveler rants about Spain, which he considers uncivilized and uneducated compared to Europe and America. Another traveler decisively shuts him up. Andrés welcomes this intervention inwardly.

Criticism of bohemianism and sterile romanticism. They are nothing more than self-centered attitudes that turn their backs on reality, inactive and devoid of commitment. Perhaps the best example of this in the work is Villasuso: his miserable life, his inability to raise his children decently, his pathetic end…

Criticism of the poor who allow themselves to be exploited, assuming the spirit of slaves. In their ignorance and unconsciousness, they lack the means to raise offspring; “fertility cannot be a social ideal. We do not need quantity, but quality” or “perpetuating pain in the world seems like a crime.”

The racial issue is present in the background of the work. The attitude and spirit of many characters are interpreted from a racial standpoint that entails a moral attitude. Thus, although it is Iturrioz who makes the classification into two human types, it is Andrés who will apply it throughout the novel to explain the behavior of some characters.

Iturrioz speaks of the Iberian type and the Semitic type: he assigns to the Iberian type the strong and warlike qualities of the race; to the Semitic type, tendencies towards prey, intrigue, and trade.

Thus, Andrés considers Aracil to be of the Semitic type, “he was a true Phoenician,” and Montaner “more Iberian than Semitic type;” Father Juan also belonged to this group.

But the racial issue will offer an even broader interpretation: Semitism has led to the Judeo-Christian religion, which “with its impostors has dominated the world;” it is a religion that exalts human frailty, but “the scientific mind of men in Northern Europe will sweep away the Semitic character.”

Lulu also says: “We have Semitic blood. In this unhealthy ferment, complicated by our poverty, our ignorance, and our vanity, lie all evils.”

There is a very Nietzschean critique in which the man of action is praised. Andrés’s contempt is directed towards all those who are not and do not want to be: the rich because they live off the work of others, the poor for not fighting to stop being so, the idealists and poets for their comical and ridiculous heroism that makes them socially inactive.

A Novel of the Generation of ’98

We are dealing, above all, with a philosophical novel. Existential conflicts are the focus of the work. Spain, existential problems, and analysis and reflection of the self are the pillars of the novel and the essay of the Generation of ’98. This work is one of the most representative of the Generation. The three themes appear sufficiently reflected.

Spain. The aforementioned criticism, launched by Andrés against Spanish institutions, culture, and character, serves to highlight the concern felt by the Generation of ’98 for Spain. Spain was ill, and to combat the disease, it must first be diagnosed, even if it is necessary to shake the sick person; only then can the evil be eradicated.

The intrahistory. Reflected in this gallery of minor characters (housewives, prostitutes, shopkeepers, clerks, teachers, students, farmers…) in the idiosyncrasies of rural and urban life (liberals, conservatives, debates, classes…). They are, in the case of this novel, essential and inseparable from the criticism of Spain, both the cause and the object of study of that “disease” to which we referred earlier.

As for the existential aspect, we could say that it is the core argument of the work; the theme of Spain seems to revolve around it, and everything revolves around the protagonist, Andrés Hurtado. Andrés tries to find meaning in his existence in religion, science, philosophy, love… but none of this brings him happiness, not even peace; the most he achieves is a state of ataraxia at two or three points in his life. Thus:

Religion. He does not even believe in the usefulness of faith, which he considers dangerous because it opens the door to arbitrariness. He agrees with Kant’s ideas that the tenets of religion are unprovable.

Science. Nor does it provide a solution to the meaning of life; on the contrary, science and knowledge exacerbate human suffering. Darwin’s theories also add their note of pessimism, because the solution they offer is the struggle for life, in which the winners are the strongest. Life is presented to Andrés as a vicious struggle in which the most instinctive, the most primitive, devour and defeat the weak, the sensitive, like him.

Philosophy. It also drags him down into the blues. Science offered a description of the facts; philosophy, only a rational explanation of them.

Like many characters of the Generation of ’98, Andrés exhibits throughout the course of the play the dichotomy of man of action/man of no action.
At first, he is combative, active, showing a strong influence of Nietzsche, and adopts anti-Christian, anti-Semitic, stoic positions… but as he sinks deeper and his disappointment grows, we see the influence of Schopenhauer, and he becomes an inactive being who abandons life and only recovers his strength to leave it.
The two currents of German irrationalism, so important in the thinking of the Generation of ’98, vitalism and pessimism, are symbolized in the figure of Andrés, who, as the alter ego of Baroja, goes from being a man of action (Nietzsche-vitalism) to a man of no action (Schopenhauer-pessimism).
Kant is perhaps the philosopher who is most present in his conversations with his uncle, but unlike the former, he is more metaphysical; with the empiricists, he makes us understand the relativity of life and its truths, but all the abstraction of these theories is what makes them less painful; sometimes, metaphysical thoughts make us dizzy, but they do not produce the real and continuous suffering that thoughts based on the theories of Nietzsche and Schopenhauer do.

Love. Experienced as something frustrating, cold, devoid of passion. Love leads to marriage, and this to children, responsibilities, loss of physical and spiritual independence. His scientific and analytical mind makes him describe it as “the confluence of fetishistic instincts and sexual instincts.” For him, man has covered up the desire for procreation with the poetic lie called “love;” “love is a hoax.”