Abstract
This article examines the influence of myths and structures derived from Greek tragedy in the novel Doña Perfecta by Benito Pérez Galdós. Considering previous critical acknowledgment of four essential models in the novel: the life of Christ, the abduction of Persephone, the punishment of Prometheus, and the story of Don Quixote, this essay proposes an uncharted mythical reading of Doña Perfecta through its symbolic and structural relations with tragedies belonging to the Theban Cycle, particularly Oedipus Rex by Sophocles and The Seven Against Thebes by Aeschylus. This Theban reading highlights meaningful themes of the novel ignored by previous symbolic interpretations, such as the civil war and the besieged house, the prohibition of burial, and it leads to a better understanding of the novel’s tragic and amphibological aesthetic within the context of Spanish liberalism.