WHAT'S AT STAKE?
Hover over the quotes to see!
"I can find no rest
in my mad confusion
for reason is no match
for jealousy’s relentless stings"
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Don Juan
In the play, several characters experience jealousy at the knowledge that their beloved has turned their attention to someone else. Popular thought at the time portrayed jealousy as an illness that was in opposition to reason. Those in a state of jealousy were depicted as being irrational and prone to fantastical delusions. However, contemporary notions recognize the rationality of jealousy as a painful state that can encourage one to act. Similarly, jealousy in the play moves the plot along as characters like Don Juan and Leonor are beseeched to act and see past mere affections.
JEALOUSY
"When, oh when, oh Heavens
will you rain down your fury upon him?
When will there be consequences?
Where has justice fled?
Where has it gone?"
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Leonor
From the invocation of mythological figures such as Apollo and Vulcan to the general allusion to Fortune and Fate, characters throughout the play acknowledge the divine's involvement in the sequence of events. More urgently, the characters must grapple with the uncertainty of whether the divine supports their goals, like Leonor who wonders why the divine has allowed Don Juan to bear no consequence for his misdemeanors when she herself feels a fundamental wrong has been committed. The question thus for the spectator is: what does the divine want?
DIVINE
"Well said.
I must find my courage today
for the sake of my honor
if I am to restore its luster.
For without honor,
even gold is vile"
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Leonor
Comedias during the Spanish Golden Age were obsessed with the theme of honor and is the reason for Leonor's mission in the play. Considering that Spanish society at the time was dominated by catholicism and a preoccupation with social positioning based on factors such as class, it is understandable why a noblewoman like Leonor would feel indignation at Don Juan abandoning her, whom presumptively she consummated with. Even Don Juan is despaired by the possibility of Leonor being with another man because that would also mean that he had been dishonored.
HONOR
"Love makes even the eagle-eyed blind.
When the Countess is around,
he can’t see straight"
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Don Fernando
LOVE
Love plays an immense role in the way the characters relate and interact with one another in the story, but the frivolity with which they claim their love for one another seems almost arbitrary. For example, Don Juan's love for Estela is both comically unrequited and evidently focused on her appearance. Rather than supporting a concept of love that is merely romantic and self-serving, the play advocates for a love that upholds everyone's virtue. Leonor's love for Don Juan succeeds because it is morally bound, allowing the other characters in the show to find love within one another.
BUT WAIT! I HAVE A QUESTION!
At the end of the play, Leonor forgives and marries the man who not only abandons her after promising to marry her but also tries to get with another woman...does this play condone and support the patriarchy?
What do you think? Scroll down!
Gurl...yes
Gurl...yes
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First off, as mentioned before, Leonor forgives Don Juan at the drop of a hat all because he realizes he still loves her. Hello, have we forgotten what he did to Leonor? First, he consummates the marriage with her, then he abandons her, and then he tries to get with Estela. How can we take him by his word when he's demonstrated the fickleness of his love? How can we trust him? To make matters worse, Leonor marries him! Not only does the ending give men a free pass in a society where their privilege allows them to act like Don Juan, but it establishes that order can only be restored through the absolutism of heteronormative marriage.
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The play reifies that no matter how vengeful and angry a woman may feel, her problems will always be soothed by the promise of another man.
This will definitely not fly in the 21st century!
Lol...no
Lol...no
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Isn't it a little anachronistic to apply contemporary notions of "patriarchy" to a play that was literally written in the 1600s? Sure, Leonor forgives and marries Don Juan in the end, but do not forget the ease with which she deceives people around her and gets what she wants. Leonor and Estela are probably two of the smartest, if not the smartest, characters in the entire show and they are both female!
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Overall, I don't think the writer should be blamed for writing within the belief systems that were present at her time. Contemporary notions may depict the ending as patriarchal, but the character of Leonor was probably transgressive at the time.
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This play is so old that it shouldn't even be held up to contemporary standards...why does it matter?
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Can't we just enjoy the show?
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Could there possibly be a middle ground?
Hover over your answer
There is no doubt that Caro's play is evocative of patriarchal structures, as it is of the other structures that were present at the time such as class. However, it's important to note that all plays had to be approved by parties belonging to the Church before they were shown to the public, so even if Caro wanted to depict Leonor as having more autonomy over the bonds of heteronormative marriage, she nonetheless had to write something the Church would approve. In addition, some scholars like Steven Wagschal point out that in many comedias, jealous male characters often had the privilege of killing their adulterous wives whereas female characters did not, depicting them as inherently weak-willed (Wagschal). There was even a law in 1569 that gave men the legal right to murder adulterous wives with no equivalent law for women (Wagschal).
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Ok besties hear me out..
With all that being said, there is definitely space to examine the play's more transgressive sides in regard to gender. As mentioned before Estela and Leonor are arguably the most intelligent characters in the play, with Caro giving them the most complex dialogue between any two characters. Considering how valued the art of poetry was at the time, Caro's ability to show off her poetic skills through the relationship between two female characters was definitely transgressive. In fact, the patriarchal society at the time sought to depict female scholars and rulers as sexless and not "womanly" enough. Leonor and Estela show that a woman can dress and perform however she wants without it affecting her personhood.
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In understanding the ways in which the play interrogates the patriarchal structures at the time without necessarily relinquishing them because of the limitations on free expression, how can its transgressive qualities be emphasized more over its oppressive ones?
Keep scrolling...
The Justice Narrative
One way to see more clearly the transgressive possibilities in the play is to reinterpret it through the justice narrative, an interpretive lens that understands justice to be the objective of the plot. Scholar Elizabeth Rhodes in her essay "Redressing Ana Caro's Valor" writes more about this.
“The Aristotelian ethical paradigm that informed early modern understanding saw justice as the cardinal virtue”
-Elizabeth Rhodes
During 17th-century Spanish society, a discrepancy existed between the civic legal codes (which favored white, Catholic, and nobleman) and the moral codes, which equalized all individuals regardless of gender from a divine perspective. For example, although it was morally abhorrent (from the Catholic perspective) for a man to kill an unfaithful wife, it was legally permissible according to the 1569 New Compilation of Laws in Spain.
Miguel Cabrera, Portrait of Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, c. 1750, oil on canvas (Museo Nacional de Historia, Castillo de Chapultepec, Mexico)
“Reaching beyond patriarchal notions of gender, justice defers to codes of behavior that discriminate less on the basis of sex than on the standards of rectitude that sustain the equality of the female and male soul”
-Elizabeth Rhodes
Despite the patriarchal structures that afford men like Don Juan to forego their promises and treat women as mere revelry, his actions demand retribution from a moral perspective. In this manner, Leonor's pursuit is invested with divine retribution and directly juxtaposed with the man-made laws that relegate women as inferior to men. In reinterpreting Caro's play through the justice narrative lens, the story reifies that all human beings are equal on a fundamental level, repositioning the injustice against one individual as an injustice against mankind. Hence, as Lisarda and Estela run down the mountains, they are bludgeoned by the elements because the world is in a state of disarray after having witnessed the moral injustice committed by Don Juan just before the play.
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In depicting Don Juan's moral sin as a threat to the equilibrium of mankind, Leonor's wrath to balance what has been unbalanced becomes all the more urgent. Suddenly, the man-made structures of gender performativity collapse as Leonor cross-dresses, and the irony typical in comedias, like Leonor asking her own brother where her brother is, becomes logical. In order for Leonor to get justice, she and the heavens must destabilize the social order so that "fairness can be achieved" (Rhodes).
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Although Leonor's ending may be disappointing on a sentimental level, her actions are completely in line with a justice narrative. Since Leonor made the same promise to Don Juan that he did to her, the moral compass demands that she uphold this promise now that the divine has permitted her to force Don Juan to do the same. In some ways, Leonor can be seen as a sort of martyr whose decision to be with a man arguably below her, serves the well-being of society. Using the justice narrative as a starting point for reinterpreting the play in more transgressive ways, a resounding theme begins to arise that extends beyond the categories of gender: So long as society denies its citizens of their inherent value, disorder will ensue until justice is served.
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" How the turbulent heavens / full of terror and wonder / stage Phaeton’s fall anew! See how, as their axes shudder / all balance is undone! "
- Estela
Francisco de Zurbarán (Spanish painter, 1598–1664) Saint Apolonia
Francisco de Zurbarán (Spanish painter, 1598–1664) Santa Lucia 1625
Rhodes, E. (2005). Redressing Ana Caro’s valor, Agravio y Mujer. Hispanic Review, 73(3), 309–328. https://doi.org/10.1353/hir.2005.0035
"We can hold opposing thoughts in our minds, I believe, and perhaps we sometimes must. (And perhaps comedy is best suited to help us do so.)"
- Dr. Lisa Jackson-Schebetta (director)