Conflicting Names, Conflicting Laws: Zorrilla's Don Juan Tenorio

Author(s): Carlos Feal

Source: PMLA, Vol. 96, No. 3 (May, 1981), pp. 375-387
Published by: Modern Language Association
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/461913
Accessed: 02-01-2016 21:10 UTC

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at http://www.jstor.org/page/
info/about/policies/terms.jsp

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content
in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship.
For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

Modern Language Association is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to PMLA.

http://www.jstor.org

This content downloaded from 128.123.44.23 on Sat, 02 Jan 2016 21:10:11 UTC
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

ConflictingNames,Conflicting Laws:Zorrilla's DonJuanTenorio
E ACH year on All Souls' Day Spanish-
speaking audiences ritually gather to-
gether to see Zorrilla's Don Juan Tenorio
(1844), the most popular work on the Don Juan
theme in the Hispanic world. Many of the spec-
tators know by heart entire passages from the
play. Zorrilla wrote Don Juan Tenorio at the age
of twenty-seven, in the short span of twenty days,
and claimed later in life that he knew of no prec-
edents other than El burlador de Sevilla (1617?)
by Tirso de Molina and No hay plazo que no se
cumpla ni deuda que no se pague (1744) by
Antonio de Zamora.1 There is no doubt that Don
Juan Tenorio reveals all the characteristics of a
brilliant improvisation. Through analysis of this
play and comparisons with other versions of the
Don Juan myth, I attempt to determine Zorrilla's
unique standing in the long chain of his predeces-
sors and followers and, finally, to address the
myth itself by examining some of its basic aspects
and their implications.
The most striking feature of this Don Juan is
his exaggerated theatricality. Francisco Ruiz
Ram6n and, later, Roberto G. Sanchez have in-
sisted on this quality. Ruiz Ram6n asserts: "El
acierto de Zorrilla esta, pues, en haber recal-
cado con maxima intensidad la teatralidad de
Don Juan como forma propia de vida, en haber
elevado la teatralidad a modo de existencia"
'Zorrilla's success, then, lies in having empha-
sized with great intensity Don Juan's theatrical-
ity as a way of being, in having elevated the-
atricality to a way of life.'2 Butarelli's inn,
where the confrontation between Don Juan and
Don Luis takes place, thus functions as a stage
on the stage. The two characters find themselves
surrounded by a chorus, or an audience, before
which they expound their feats: "varias personas
entran y se reparten en silencio por la escena"
'several persons enter silently and find places to
stand or to sit' (Pt. I, Act I, Sc. xi).3 These
persons include the two fathers (Don Diego
Tenorio and Don Gonzalo) and resemble the
375
This content downloaded from 128.123.44.23 on Sat, 02 Jan 2016 21:10:11 UTC
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
CARLOS FEAL
spectators at a theatrical performance, a likeness
Butarelli observes when he receives the Com-
mander Don Gonzalo:
... Esta mesa
les preparo[a don Juan y don Luis];si os servis
en esotracolocaros,
podreispresenciarla cena
que les dare.... iOh! Seraescena
que espero que ha de admiraros.
I'm setting this table for them [Don Juan and Don
Luis]. But if you'll be so kind as to sit at this one,
you'll be able to watch them have supper. It'll be
a scene to remember. (I.i.v.141-46)
Supper (cena) is transformed into scene (es-
cena). The rhyme, as at other moments, might
appear contrived; but apart from the justifiable
term escena, the ornate language of Zorrilla's
Don Juan emphasizes this theatrical, or affected,
note. Indeed, Ortega proposed that Don Juan
Tenorio be read as a farce, an esperpento.4 Ac-
cordingly, the performers should stress the gro-
tesque or theatrical aspects of the play, giving it
a balletlike rhythm, rather than deliver the lines
as prose. Unamuno pointed out that Don Juan
was essentially an actor (representante), that is,
a man in need of an audience.5 At Butarelli's
inn this audience is present; moreover, since the
action occurs during Carnival, the characters
appropriately wear masks and thus accentuate
their roles as actors.
When these two Don Juans confront each
other the theatricality, or histrionics, culminates
in accounts of their exploits-seduced women,
disgraced husbands-which they have recorded
on paper.6 Don Juan does not restrict himself to
living his adventures; he must also document
them. It may even be said that he lives to note
them, that he lives for the moment when these
feats will be made public. All is a scene (es-
cena) where the final supper (cena)-to which
 376 Conflicting Names, Conflicting Laws: Zorrilla's Don Juan Tenorio
the action, following Tirso's precedent, inevita-
bly leads-has been foreshadowed by this initial
supper. Don Juan's companions, Centellas and
Avellaneda, appear on both occasions. Their
dialogue closes Act I:
Avellaneda. iPareceun juego ilusorio'!
Centellas.iSin verlo no lo creeria!
Avellaneda.It seems like an illusion.
Centellas. If I hadn't seen it, I wouldn't believe it.
(I.I.xvi.830-31)
The theatrical quality of the work shows itself
through the emphatic tone of the dialogue and
through the seemingly unreal, illusory nature of
the events. The phantasmagoric elements, par-
ticularly striking in the second part, permeate
the play. Phantasmagoria, coupled with theat-
ricality, furthers the similarity between the sup-
pers, which frame the representation. The "stone
guest" appears at the beginning, and his stony
silence contrasts with the exuberance of Don
Juan. Butarelli, alluding to the Commander and
Don Diego, is moved to comment:
jVaya un par de hombres de piedra!
Para estos sobra mi abasto;
mas ipardiez!pagan el gasto
que no hacen, y asi se medra.
What a pair! They might as well be made of stone.
I can certainly fill their order-and then some. Ha,
they pay and ordernothing.Good business!
(i.i.viii.251-54)
In the presence of the profligate Don Juan and
Don Luis, the fathers seem excessively subdued.
Yet, in the end, Don Juan will be overcome by
one of these men of stone, who relentlessly
pursues him.
Besides presenting an additional supper,
thus advancing the appearance of the stone
guest, Zorrilla skillfully establishes close paral-
lels between the fathers of Don Juan and of Don
Juan's beloved. Butarelli associates the two men,
as I noted earlier, and Don Diego and the Com-
mander speak approximately the same words
when they come on stage (I.I.v.128-29, 137-
This content downloaded from 128.123.44.23 on Sat, 02 Jan 2016 21:10:11 UTC
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
38; I.I.viii.225, 228-29). The paternal figure,
split into two characters, sets itself up as Don
Juan's true rival. In this light, Don Luis proves
merely the apparent rival, over whom Don Juan
triumphs easily, aided by an intimate familiarity
with that individual's world. Don Juan, instead,
succumbs to the character from the other world,
a supernatural world and a world of human val-
ues diametrically opposed to those of Donjuan-
ism. In other words, the emissary from beyond
into whom the Commander becomes trans-
formed is inextricably linked to the paternal
figure, whose realm is supposedly based on a
divine order. By defying the father, Don Juan
also defies God. Don Diego Tenorio's words
underscore the same idea: "No puedo mas
escucharte, / vil don Juan, porque recelo / que
hay algun rayo en el cielo / preparado a aniqui-
larte" 'Don Juan, I'll listen to you no longer! I'm
sure that Heaven is saving a bolt of lightning
especially for you' (I.I.xii.750-53).
Don Luis, who initially acts as Don Juan's
double, turns out to be significantly different.
Don Luis is willing to marry his fiancee, Ana,
that is, to accept the established order. The
former destroyer of social order has his own
interests at heart when he becomes the defender
of the values he once attacked. Don Juan, in
whom the threat resides, reveals to Don Luis
that he intends to add Ana to his list. Don Luis
is overwhelmed by fear. His words to Pascual
are reminiscent of those spoken by Golden Age
characters: "Que a no ser yo quien me soy, / y a
no dar contigo ahora, / el honor de mi sefiora /
dona Ana mona hoy" 'If I weren't who I am,
and if I hadn't met you now, the honor of my
bride, Dofia Ana, would be destroyed tonight'
(I.Ir.ii.21-24). Don Luis' affirmation of his being
("I am who I am") takes place precisely at the
moment when the integrity of his being depends
on the behavior of another person. Dofia Ana's
infidelity would imply the collapse of the founda-
tions on which Don Luis' person stands. Here,
honor is not understood in a personal sense;
rather, it is something entrusted by a man to a
woman who then holds the potential to dishonor
him. Her honor becomes indissolubly bound to
his.
Don Luis' drama is also accentuated by his
knowledge, as a former seducer of women, of
their vulnerability and untrustworthiness: "mas
 Carlos Feal
yo fio en las mujeres / mucho menos que en don
Juan" 'I trust women even less than I trust Don
Juan' (i.i.ii.151-52). These words are of in-
terest, since they follow a reference to the devil
in Don Juan: "pero el es un Satanas" 'but he's
the devil himself!' (1. 51). "Mas lleva ese hom-
bre consigo / algun diablo familiar" 'But that
man has the devil on his side!' (11. 71-72).
Woman surpasses the devil in wickedness. In his
next monologue, Don Luis, like the jealous hus-
band of Calder6n's dramas, gives free rein to his
deepest fears: "Jamas tal desasosiego / tuve....
/ joh! Y a fe / que de don Juan me amedrenta
/ no el valor, mas la ventura. / Parece que le
asegura / Satanas en cuanto intenta. / No, no; es
un hombre infernal" 'I've never suffered like this
before.... What frightens me about Don Juan is
not his courage; Satan himself assures him of
luck in everything he does! No, no-he's the
devil's own man' (I.I.ii.195-96, 204-09). It
is the infernal Don Juan who transforms mar-
riage into a hell for the jealous husband. In the
play, it is not clear why, knowing women as he
does, Don Luis decides to get married. Yet his
gesture anticipates Don Juan's desire, after
meeting Ines, to end his own Donjuanism.
This transformation of Don Juan begins to
manifest itself in his conversation with the go-
between Brigida. He talks of tearing Ines "from
the arms of Satan" (I.II.ix.482), but it is he
himself who has been compared to Satan. In
reality, he must tear Ines away from his own
satanism-or Donjuanism. In other words, it is
he who must extricate himself from Satan's
grasp. These lines can be better understood if
one thinks of Ines as symbolically representing
Don Juan's soul, as she clearly does at the end
of the play. Thus Juan and Ines are saved to-
gether (or, had one been condemned, the other
would have been condemned as well).7
Brigida is surprised at Don Juan's sudden
change. Having considered Don Juan "a liber-
tine without soul and without heart" (i.ii.ix.489
-90), she now discovers that the opposite is
true. Don Juan turns out to be, not a libertine,
but a liberator. Undoubtedly, he assumes this
role to seduce Ines: "garza que nunca del nido
/ tender osastes el vuelo / . .. para salvarte te
aguardan / los brazos de tu don Juan" 'bird that
never dreamt of flying from your nest . . . wait-
ing to save you are the arms of your Don Juan'
This content downloaded from 128.123.44.23 on Sat, 02 Jan 2016 21:10:11 UTC
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
377
(I.Im.iii.263-64, 273-74). Nor are his words
mere rhetoric. In fact, Ines has been locked up
in a cloister by her jailer father, an imprison-
ment that explains why she still loves Don Juan
even after he kills the Commander. In Zorrilla's
legend El capitdn Montoya, a text that clearly
anticipates Don Juan Tenorio, we read: "Ce-
rraron en un convento / a dofia Ines de Al-
varado / y obraron con poco tiento, / porque
jamas fue su intento / tomar tan bendito estado"
'They locked up Dofia Ines de Alvarado in a
convent, and they acted with little care, because
it never was her intention to take on such a holy
state.'8 And, in the play (i.II.ix.451-62), the
highly suggestive words of Brigida convey two
different notions: on the one hand, Don Juan is
the man chosen for Ines by her father; on the
other, Don Juan is the ladies' man ("Le hable
del amor, del mundo, / de la corte y los placeres,
/ de cuanto con las mujeres / erais prodigo y
galan" 'I talked to her of love, I told her of the
world and the court, I described the pleasures
and told her how lavish and gallant you were
with women'), the man who has decided "to
lose life and honor" for her. In this context, love
opposes, and takes precedence over, honor. This
reversal places us at the furthest extreme from
the paternal value system, in which honor reigns
over love. Yet Ines does not renounce her affec-
tion for Don Juan when she perceives his op-
position to paternal dictates. One might even say
that this characteristic forms part of Don Juan's
appeal.
It should also be noted that Ines is attracted
to Don Juan after catching only a glimpse of
him: "Una sola vez le vi / por entre unas
celosias, / y que estaba, me decias, / en aquel
sitio por mi" 'I've seen him only once through
the shutters of a window and it was you who
told me he was waiting there for me,' she states to
Brigida (i.Iv.ii.197-200). Brigida plays a con-
siderable role in the courting of Ines,9 but nei-
ther she nor Don Juan could have been success-
ful had not Ines been predisposed to fall in love.
Ines' desire to escape the convent no doubt in-
creases her attraction to Don Juan. Before Don
Juan appears at Ines' side, he is a mere name to
her: ",S6lo he de escuchar su nombre, / s6lo su
sombra he de ver?" 'Will I ever be able to hear
any sound but his name? See any sight but his
shadow?' she says (I.ni.iii.313-14). In her di-
378 Conflicting Names, Conflicting Laws: Zorrilla's Don Juan Tenorio
alogue with Ines, Brigida pronounces Don Juan's
name repeatedly:
Doha Ines. No se . . El campo de mi mente
siento que cruzanperdidas
mil sombrasdesconocidas
que me inquietanvagamente,
y ha tiempo al alma me dan
con su agitaci6ntortura.
Brigida. JTienealguna,por ventura,
el semblantede don Juan?
Dona Ines. /,Quienroba la dulce calma
de mi corazon?
Brigida. Don Juan.
Dona Ines. I don't know-my mind seems full of a
thousand shadows that trouble me. They have
been hauntingme for a long time now.
Brigida. Doesn't one of those shadows resemble
Don Juan?
Dona Ines. Who has stolen my heart'srest?
Brigida.Don Juan. (i.m.iii. 175-82, 309-10)
Brigida makes Ines aware of what Ines uncon-
sciously feels yet dares not confess. She gives
form and name to the vague emotions of the
novice. Moreover, when speaking of himself,
Don Juan frequently invokes his own name,
which replaces the pronominal form: "para sal-
varte te aguardan / los brazos de tu don Juan"
'waiting to save you are the arms of your Don
Juan' (I.n.iii.273-74), "tu coraz6n, ya pen-
diente / de los labios de don Juan" 'your heart,
which hangs on the words of your Don Juan'
(I.iv.iii.287-88).
Unlike Tirso's Don Juan, the "man without a
name,"10 Zorrilla's Don Juan insistently affirms
his name. Add this habit to the theatricality of
Don Juan, and Don Juan Tenorio becomes the
man who portrays himself, who plays the role
that other men, other Don Juans before him,
have helped create. The progression is then clear
from Tirso's Don Juan to the present one: the
man without a name, through generations, para-
doxically gives rise to one of the most imposing
names in history. Zorrilla's Don Juan, however,
ends up, not a man with a name, but a name
without a man: a ghost (sombra), as Ines states.
This content downloaded from 128.123.44.23 on Sat, 02 Jan 2016 21:10:11 UTC
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
In the second part of the play, after the siege
by the ghosts from beyond the grave, Don Juan
exclaims: "Mas ya me irrita, por Dios, / el
verme siempre burlado, / corriendo desatenta-
do / siempre de sombras en pos" 'I've always been
tricked chasing after shadows like a fool!'
(ii.II.v.285-88). The meaning is ambiguous. The
shadows may be viewed not only as belonging to
supernatural presences that Don Juan must con-
front but also as alluding to the women whom
Don Juan once pursued; these women are shad-
ows insofar as any contact with them is
ephemeral. Hardly seen or touched, they disap-
pear. In this way, the trickster is transformed
into the tricked one (burlador burlado), as Don
Juan himself points out. Don Juan's entire life is
reduced to a gallery of shadows or ghosts: a
shadow pursuing shadows, reciprocal deceit.
The all-pervasive illusionism of the second part
is insinuated in the first.
On awakening at Don Juan's country estate,
Ines is torn between love and honor. Once more,
the fascination with the name surfaces: "huya-
mos pronto de ese hombre, / tras de cuyo solo
nombre / se me escapa el coraz6n" 'help me flee
that man whose very name draws away my
heart' (I.Iv.ii.190-92), she says to Brigida. Ines
understands her situation. She is in Don Juan's
house, not in the cloister, from which she was
taken unconscious under the pretext of a fire; the
tension between Don Juan and Ines' father (the
law of the father, in Lacan's terms) is obvi-
ous.11 But in her inner struggle, Ines, although
she wishes to escape, perceives her own weak-
ness: "Vamos, pues; vamos de aquf / primero
que ese hombre venga, / pues fuerza acaso no
tenga / si le veo junto a mi" 'Come, let's go be-
fore he returns. If I come face to face with him I
don't know if I'll have the strength to leave'
(I.Iv.ii.217-20). She proves weaker, or more in
love, than Leonor in Rivas' Don Alvaro, to cite
an example of a heroine caught in a similar con-
flict. Unlike Leonor, Ines does not retreat when
faced with the death of her father at Don Juan's
hands. To the words "iJusticia por dofia Ines!"
'Justice for Dofia Ines!' she responds, "iPero no
contra don Juan!" 'But not against Don Juan!'
(I.Iv.xi.729-30). This statement clearly estab-
lishes that love, for Ines, triumphs over
honor.12
 Carlos Feal
The transformation-or conversion-of Don
Juan is portrayed in the famous "couch scene."
Don Juan's love, as he himself points out, strips
him of his satanism: "No es, dofia Ines,
Satanas / quien pone este amor en mi; / es Dios,
que quiere por ti / ganarme para El quizas" 'It's
not Satan, Dofia Ines, who puts this love in me
but God, who hopes, perhaps, to win me to Him
through your love' (I.Iv.iii.355-58). Salvation
is possible and understandable from this mo-
ment forward.13 It is not a matter of simple
repentance in the face of death. Yet the "couch
scene" poses problems; Zorrilla himself judged it
in harsh terms:
como aquellas decimas no fueron por mi escritas
acendrandolas en el crisol del sentimiento, sino
exhalandolasen un delirio de mi fantasia,resultasu
expresi6n falsa y descoloridapor culpa unicamente
mia; que me entretuveen meter a la paloma y a la
gacela, y a las estrellas y a los azahares,en aquel
duo de arrullos y t6rtolas, en lugar de probar en
unos versos ardientes, vigorosos y apasionados,la
verdad de aquel amor profundo, unico, que, celeste
o satanico,salva o condena.
since, in writing those lines, I did not inject them
with pure feeling, but rather exhaled them in a
delirium of my fantasy, that they sound false and
faded is entirely my own fault; I was busy adding
the dove and the gazelle, the stars and the orange
blossoms, in that duo of wooings and turtledoves,
insteadof provingby means of ardent,vigorous,and
passionateverses the truthof that deep, unique love,
which, heavenlyor satanic,saves or condemns.
(Recuerdos del tiempo viejo, , 155)
These comments are relevant. Don Juan, even
if he falls in love, remains theatrical. Valbuena
Prat makes observations similar to Zorrilla's:
"Las famosas y populares decimas, parecen al
comienzo un 'truco' del seductor. Una repetici6n
de un disco puesto a millares de oidos de mujer,
en Espafia, Roma o Napoles" 'The famous and
popular lines at first seem to be the seducer's
"trick," a repetition of a recording played to the
ears of thousands of women, in Spain, Rome, or
Naples' (Historia, p. 511). If Don Juan's feel-
ings have changed, his words are the same as
always.
One must not necessarily deduce an adverse
This content downloaded from 128.123.44.23 on Sat, 02 Jan 2016 21:10:11 UTC
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
379
judgment from this comment. As Valbuena
points out, the lines are appropriate to the situa-
tion, to what seems to be a typical seduction
scene. In effect, Ines is the only woman who
surrenders to Don Juan on stage, albeit without
trickery on his part. That is, not only does Don
Juan fall in love (if he truly does, instead of
simply believing that he does),14 he also fasci-
nates Ines. And any man who fascinates a
woman in the way we see here becomes a Don
Juan.15 So, even though Don Juan has suppos-
edly fallen in love, he can hardly abandon his
Donjuanism, his theatricality, when he needs it
most. His lack of depth and sincerity is irrele-
vant to the passion he arouses in Ines. More-
over, the intrusion of deep feelings would have
hindered the impact of the seduction scene.16
Yet this love, founded on the lovers' remark-
able ignorance of each other's personality, lends
itself to the highest degree of idealization. Ines
undoubtedly feels stifled in the convent prison
and needs to let her instincts blossom. Don Juan
can serve as the instrument woman uses to win
her sexual emancipation, as Otto Rank states.17
But Don Juan, tired of ephemeral love, wishes to
anchor his passion in a woman who attracts him
with her apparent innocence.18 The nature of
love differs for each character. On the one hand,
Don Juan is the ladies' man who wishes to rest,
to put some order in his life (like Don Luis).
Ines, on the other hand, sees in Don Juan the
opportunity to unleash her repressed passion
and throws herself in the arms of a man without
honor. Thus Don Juan's and Ines' transforma-
tions work in opposite directions. The devilish
Don Juan speaks of becoming an angel: "y ella
puede hacer un angel / de quien un demonio
fue" 'she can make an angel of one who was a
devil' (I.Iv.ix.601-02). Conversely, Ines was an
angel before she met Don Juan. Clearly, she
does not suddenly become a demon, even though
she speaks of having drunk an "infernal potion"
(I.Iv.iii.324) that Don Juan has given her; that is,
she senses the devilish quality of his love. The
liberator, at this moment, acquires the traits of a
new jailer to whom she must abdicate her sought-
after freedom. But Ines perceives Don Juan as a
demon at the very moment when he breaks loose
from his satanism ("It's not Satan, Dofia Ines,
who puts this love in me"). It is Ines who is
possessed, or who sees herself as possessed. In
 380 Conflicting Names, Conflicting Laws: Zorrilla's Don Juan Tenorio
other words, love (or what we call love) pro-
duces unrest-"chaos," as Brigida says (I.II.ix.
449)-in Ines, whereas it introduces order into
Don Juan's chaotic life.
Invoking the authority of God, Don Gonzalo
and Don Luis, the deceived husband, join forces
to pursue Don Juan. Don Luis asserts: "pues la
ira soberana / de Dios junta, como ves, / al
padre de dofia Ines / y al vengador de dofia
Ana" 'as you can see, the wrath of God has
joined the father of Dofia Ines and the avenger
of Dofia Ana' (I.iv.x.667-70). Don Juan
kneels at Don Gonzalo's feet, a gesture com-
pleted by the request for Ines' hand in marriage:
"Y cuando estime tu juicio / que la pueda
merecer, / yo la dare un buen esposo, / y ella me
dara un eden" 'And when you judge me worthy
of her I will make her a good husband, and she
will lead me into Eden' (I.iv.ix.617-20). Don
Juan's words testify to his desire to enter into an
orderly life. It is he, not Ines, who speaks of
marriage. This is not the man who, in Brigida's
words, has decided to give up life and honor for
Ines. Honor finally asserts its rights over Don
Juan. He will not abduct Ines, as he has other
women, in defiance of patriarchal society. Don
Juan wishes to seal the agreement with that
society which makes woman the object of trade
among men.19But this Kierkegaardianjump from
aesthetics to ethics does not impress the father,
the "man of stone," who refuses to receive the
wayward son. The pact among men cannot
materialize, since the wishes of those involved
do not coincide. When Don Juan wants to marry
In6s, Don Gonzalo, who originally favored the
union, rejects it. Ines is never consulted in the
matter. Her incipient love for Don Juan causes
her to reflect on the abbess' words in praise of the
convent and its "placeres domesticos . . . dichosa
sencillez . . calma venturosa" 'domestic plea-
sures . . . happy simplicity . . . blessed calm':
Otras noches, complacida
sus palabrasescuche....
Mas hoy la oi distraida,
y en sus platicashalle,
si no enojososdiscursos,
a lo menos aridez.
How happily I've listened to her on other nights
like these. . . . But today I didn't pay attention to
This content downloaded from 128.123.44.23 on Sat, 02 Jan 2016 21:10:11 UTC
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
her. When she wasn't annoying, she was, surely,
very dull. (i.ii.ii.81-82, 91-94)
Is there any assurance that Ines would find
solace in the "domestic pleasures" of a marriage
arranged without her consent? Would Don Juan
release her from one cell simply to confine her to
another? The tension between the two men, fa-
ther and lover, is the gateway to Ines' liberation
from her status as an object of trade. Does not
monogamous marriage, which would make Don
Juan a man (from the perspective of other
men),20 threaten to introduce in the love rela-
tionship "si no enojosos discursos, / a lo menos
aridez" 'if not annoying words, at least dull-
ness'? Ines' role in the "couch scene," I think, is
more gratifying to her than the role of "tame
dove" or "gentle lily" (I.IIr.i.29, 37) that the
abbess-emissary of the father-had planned
for her, thus promoting the ideals of masculine
society.
Don Gonzalo's rejection makes Don Juan dis-
trustful of divine mercy: "Miralo bien, don
Gonzalo; / que vas a hacerme perder / con ella
hasta la esperanza / de mi salvaci6n tal vez"
'Weigh what you say, Don Gonzalo. You could
cause me to lose not only her but all hope of
salvation.' Don Gonzalo's answer is logical or,
rather, theologically correct: "Y /que tengo yo,
don Juan, / con tu salvaci6n que ver?" 'And
what do I have to do with your salvation?'
(I.Iv.ix.641-46). Theology, however, is at odds
with psychology, which associates the paternal
figure with God. According to Don Luis, it was
the wrath of God that united him with Don
Gonzalo in vengeance against Don Juan. The
dual plane is always present, and therefore Don
Juan has reason to speak as he does. But the
Commander, with human malice, can see him-
self as executor of divine rage, instead of as
emissary of God's mercy. He agrees to take part
in the condemnation of Don Juan and claims
that he has nothing to do with Don Juan's salva-
tion. Don Juan, luckily, can count on Ines and,
to some extent, on his natural father, Don
Diego. Although scandalized by his son, in the
scene at the inn, the good father retreats ex-
claiming: "me matas . . ., mas te perdono / de
Dios en el santo juicio" 'You are killing me-
but I will forgive you when God judges you'
(I.I.xii.788-89).
 Carlos Feal
Ines is the true redeemer, or intercessor in
Don Juan's redemption, and is thus associated
with the Virgin Mary. Like the Virgin of Cath-
olic theology, Ines intercedes between man and
God. A similar association appears in Zorrilla's
legend Margarita la tornera. In this story, the
Virgin replaces Margarita during an escape with
Don Juan, so that no one will notice what has
occurred. The mother of sinners takes pity on
her children. In addition, woman's identification
with Mary suggests the ideal of the pure, virgin
woman. In Don Juan Tenorio, that Ines and
Don Juan do not consummate their love con-
tributes to the preservation of this ideal. Ines
dies (of love, one supposes); her appearance in
the second part of the play is that of a figure
from the world beyond. So Don Juan cannot feel
disappointed, as Espronceda does in Canto a
Teresa when he laments the loss of woman's vir-
ginity: "iOh! /Quien, impio, / jAy!, agost6 la
flor de tu pureza?" 'Oh! Who, cruel one, withered
the flower of your purity?' (El diablo mundo
[Madrid: Alianza, 1966], p. 188).
This comparison is not gratuitous; Margarita
la tornera contains the following passage:
Mas, iay!, que dulces palabras
sonaronen tus oidos
y los deseos dormidos
se revelaronen pos.
iAy!, ,por que en el mundo vano
a quien le da la inocencia
no le da la resistencia,
paradefenderse,Dios?
But alas! sweet words rang in your ears, and the
dormant desires were awakened. Alas! why in this
vain world does God give innocence to one who is
deniedthe strengthto defend herself?
(Leyendas,p. 544)
Zorrilla's mentality does not differ from that of
Espronceda or other Romantics. Woman's inno-
cence is considered more valuable than the reve-
lation of dormant desires. The sleeping beauty,
therefore, should not be awakened. In Zorrilla's
legend, we also see that Don Juan, once he has
conquered Margarita, tires of her. He abandons
her for a woman who is apparently at the other
extreme: the lascivious woman. The Romantic
soul oscillates between these two poles, purity
This content downloaded from 128.123.44.23 on Sat, 02 Jan 2016 21:10:11 UTC
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
381
and lasciviousness. Once Margarita loses her
purity, at the hands of Don Juan, she ceases to
attract Don Juan. Since it is he who conquers
Margarita, he contributes to the ruin of his own
ideal. Margarita's disenchantment is obvious.
Having escaped from the convent, she faces only
a new jail: "me deja [don Juan] / encerrada en
esta oculta / mansi6n" 'he [Don Juan] leaves
me locked up in this hidden mansion' (p. 568).
Would not Dofia Ines have experienced a similar
deception?
The character of Ines has been interpreted in
excessively idealistic terms: Ramiro de Maeztu,
for example, refers to her as a little girl in love
(nina enamorada) who reminds Don Juan of his
own childhood.21 Maeztu essentially reproduces
Zorrilla's own comments:
Mi obra tiene una excelencia . . : la creaci6n de
mi dofia Ines cristiana;los demas Don Juanes son
obras paganas,sus mujeresson hijas de Venus y de
Baco y hermanas de Priapo; mi dofia Ines es la
hija de Eva antes de salir del Paraiso. . . . Don
Juan desatina siempre; dofia Ines encauza siempre
las escenas que 1edesborda.
My play has a superior quality . . : the creation
of my Christian Doiia Ines; the other Don Juans
are pagan works, their women daughtersof Venus
and Bacchus and sisters of Priapus;my Dofia Ines
is Eve's daughter before leaving paradise. . . . Don
Juan always acts wildly; Dofia Ines always appeases
his outbursts.
(Recuerdos del tiempo viejo, p. 153)
It seems that the ability to guide and pacify
(encauzar), which Zorrilla attributes to Ines, is
one that he (and Don Juan) would like to see in
her. Yet there is no doubt that she is also given
to outbursts of passion: "yo voy a ti, como
va / sorbido al mar ese rio. / Tu presencia me
enajena, / tus palabras me alucinan, / y tus ojos
me fascinan, / y tu aliento me envenena" 'I
come to you as certainly as that river is sucked
into the sea. Your presence robs me of reason;
your words cast a spell on me, and your eyes
entrance me, and your breath poisons me'
(I.Iv.iii.341-46). Don Juan and Zorrilla seem
to shut their eyes to this conduct, insofar as such
a vision, no matter how much it satisfies man's
vanity, destroys the image of the pure woman.
382 Conflicting Names, Conflicting Laws: Zorrilla's Don Juan Tenorio
By insisting on her chastity and finally having
her die before her love is consummated, Zorrilla
desexualizes Ines; in a way, he acts like the
Commander. Nonetheless, he cannot prevent
Ines from showing passions contrary to that an-
gelic image. The character slips away from its
author. In other words, Ines rebels not only
against her father but also against Zorrilla. One
can only wonder whether she would also have
revolted against Don Juan.
A further example corroborates these ideas.
In Zorrilla's El capitdn Montoya, as in previous
versions of the Don Juan theme, the protagonist
contemplates his own funeral (though here only
in a dream). The vision causes him to repent: he
puts an end to his attempts to seduce Ines and
becomes a monk. In this capacity, he comforts
the dying Don Fadrique, father of his wife,
Diana. The scene seals the reconciliation be-
tween the two men: "Y los brazos enlazaron, / y
a solas ambos a dos / por largo tiempo que-
daron, / y largo tiempo lloraron / an te la imagen
de Dios" 'And they joined arms, and remained
alone for a long time, and wept before the image
of God.' As for Ines, we are informed briefly
at the end of the legend: "Y por si alguno
pregunta / curioso por dofia Ines, / y opina que
queda el cuento / incompleto, le dire: / que
dofa Ines muri6 monja / cuando la toc6 su
vez" 'And if someone asks about Dofa Ines, and
think; that the story is incomplete, I will tell him
that Dofia Ines died a nun when her turn came'
(Leyendas, pp. 295, 297). Despite her vitality,
which the poet stresses, the young woman does
not succeed in escaping the fate of the convent;
if she is freed momentarily, as in Don Juan
Tenorio, it is only to die. Abandoned by man,
she must lead a life of purity, contrary to her
inclinations. The embrace of the two men-
masculine society, headed by a paternal God-
takes place behind the woman's back.
But in Don Juan Tenorio, Ines is grateful,
despite her misfortunes. She plays a decisive role
in the salvation of Don Juan. The duel for Don
Juan's soul must be settled between Ines and the
Commander, and it is she who triumphs. In this
way, she repays Don Juan for liberating the in-
stincts her father had repressed. After Don Juan
partially liberates Ines, she liberates him; both
times, the oppressor or enemy is the Command-
er. Nevertheless, love may challenge, but it
This content downloaded from 128.123.44.23 on Sat, 02 Jan 2016 21:10:11 UTC
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
does not overthrow, patriarchal order. Don
Gonzalo's opposition at the end of the play is
not justifiable, since his law has been obeyed by
the prodigal son.
Critics have pointed to Zamora's play No hay
plazo que no se cumpla ni deuda que no se
pague y Convidado de piedra as the model for
Don Juan's salvation. But Zamora merely hints
at this salvation,22 and woman does not appear as
an intermediary. A closer model is Merimee's
Les Ames du purgatoire, in which Don Juan
witnesses his own funeral. He then repents, as
does the legendary Maiara, whose surname he
bears. The souls that pray before Don Juan's
coffin are those brought forth from purgatory by
the prayers of Mafara's mother: "Nous prions
pour son ame, qui est en peche mortel, et nous
sommes des ames que les messes et les prieres de
sa mere ont tirees des flammes du purgatoire.
Nous payons au fils la dette de la mere" 'We
pray for his soul, which is in mortal sin, and we
are souls that his mother's masses and prayers
have recovered from the flames of purgatory.
We pay the son what we owe to his mother.'23
Don Juan is finally saved thanks to the interven-
tion of woman, his mother, whose emissaries, so
to speak, have opened his eyes to the other life;
in Zorrilla, the redeeming woman is the loved
one, even though Ines is also a mother figure.
Don Juan's maternal superego (to use Erich
Fromm's term) shows less severity than the
paternal superego.24 If Don Juan's mother in-
stilled in him a moral conscience, by means of
the image of the souls that filled the child with
terror,25these same souls are responsible for his
salvation. His sense of guilt and his forgiveness
have a common origin. Tirso's Don Juan, on the
contrary, hears only accusations when he faces
the Commander. The paternal superego acts
harshly; the feminine souls of purgatory are
benevolent.2';
The originality of Zorrilla's work further
stands out if the comparison with Merimee's is
extended. For Zorrilla, salvation is not at odds
with love. Don Juan is neither converted to reli-
gion, like Mafara, who renounces women, nor
condemned. But for love to triumph, Ines must
die. The love between Don Juan and Ines is con-
summated in the world beyond. The spirit ulti-
mately conquers the flesh, whose misery should
be seen in both moral and metaphysical terms.
 Carlos Feal
Thus Don Juan says to In6s' ghost: "Tente,
dofia Ines, espera; /y si me amas de verdad,
/ hazme al fin la realidad / distinguir de la
quimera" 'Wait! Dofia Ines, wait! If you love
me, show me how to know fact from fancy!'
(n.nII.v.275-78). It is a supernatural being who
is asked to take us away from this dreamlike
world. The true reality lies beyond, since only a
creature from the other world can vouch for it.
By concluding with the deaths of Ines and
Don Juan and rejecting the solution of marriage,
the play seems to have an antibourgeois, roman-
tic ending. But in the final analysis, the romantic
and the bourgeois are combined. There is death,
but no condemnation; thus, there is no tragedy.
Ines and Don Juan are joined in death and saved
together. Marriage would have been a precarious
solution: precarious for both, given the gap be-
tween what each hoped for from the other and
what is reasonable to expect. Therefore, death,
which saves them in the supernatural sense, also
saves them from the disillusionment that their
love-worldly love-threatened to bring.
In the light of Zorrilla's creation, some salient
features of the Don Juan myth can be pointed
out. Marriage as the play's end, insinuated by
Zorrilla, triumphs years later in George Bernard
Shaw's Man and Superman (1901-03) and in
Max Frisch's Don Juan oder Die Liebe zur
Geometrie (1953). This ending supposes a true
surrender on the parts of Don Juan and his En-
glish equivalent, John Tanner, who by marrying
show (without need of the Commander) their
inability to escape the law of the father, whose
representatives they become.
Nonetheless, that Zorrilla's Don Juan is saved
against the Commander's will proves that God
does not side with the paternal figure, despite the
Commander's assertions. To some extent, the
tension between the heavenly and the terrestrial
fathers already exists in Tirso's play, in which
the Commander rejects Don Juan's tardy re-
pentance and leads Don Juan to his death with a
false gesture of friendship: "Dame esa mano;
/ no temas" 'Give me your hand; do not fear' (El
burlador, II, 946-47).27 True, Tirso does not
This content downloaded from 128.123.44.23 on Sat, 02 Jan 2016 21:10:11 UTC
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
383
challenge the Commander's behavior, even
though it is questionable. Not many years later,
however, in Moliere's Dom Juan (1665), the
mechanical nature of the Commander's appari-
tion turns Don Juan's punishment into a com-
edy.28 There is no dissociation of God and his
surrogate, but authorial disrespect for both.
From Moliere on, desire gains ground in its fight
against authority. That Don Juan finally defers
to authority is an irony, an inescapable evil.
Therefore, the condemnation of the modern Don
Juan, when it occurs, runs parallel to the de-
nunciation of the norms that Don Juan violates.
In Shaw's and Frisch's plays the Commander
meets with open sarcasm.
Zorrilla's Don Juan, like Tirso's, repents too
late in the eyes of the Commander (ii.I.ii.171),
who as a messenger from the other world con-
tinues to ignore the hero's pleas. At the same
time, however, Ines intervenes to break the alli-
ance between God and his agent. Her interven-
tion suggests that the law of the father yields to
the rule of woman, or the "law of the heart."29
Paradoxically, it is in the name of Don Juan that
Ines opposes men's law, thus advocating her
own cause. Perhaps here lies another reason for
the perplexing fact that Ines and Don Juan were
destined to meet with the same final judg-
ment.30
Don Juan, then, embodies a desire for love in
defiance of the established order. But this type
of love cannot be fulfilled. Law (marriage or
death) finally entraps those who endeavor to be
exempt from it. Thus, Don Juan either perishes
completely or, if he survives as an individual,
dies as Don Juan. His continuous artistic rein-
carnations express the need both to create and to
destroy him. On the one hand, Don Juan is a
perpetual threat, but on the other he is an indis-
pensable component that a man has to assimi-
late if he wishes to win a woman's heart. He
must incorporate Don Juan to destroy him-his
myth-effectively.31
State University of New York
Buffalo
384 Conflicting Names, Conflicting Laws: Zorrilla's Don Juan Tenorio
Notes
1 See Zorrilla, Recuerdos del tiempo viejo (Madrid:
Publicaciones espafiolas, 1961), I, 148. Among the
major sources critics have added to the literary debts
Zorrilla lists are Les Ames du purgatoire (1834) by
Merimee and Juan de Marana oul la chute d'un ange
(1836) by Dumas. Concerning Juan de Marana, how-
ever, the influence may have been mutual; the motif
of Don Juan's salvation, a distinctive feature in
Zorrilla, does not appear in Dumas until the 1864
edition of his play (in previous versions Don Juan is
condemned). See Leo Weinstein, The Metamorphoses
of Don Juan (1959; rpt. New York: AMS, 1967),
pp. 124-25, and the prologue by Salvador Garcia
Castaneda to his edition of Don Jiuan Tenorio (Barce-
lona: Labor, 1975), pp. 26-35.
2 Ruiz Ram6n, Historia del teatro espaliol (desde
sus origenes hasta 1900) (Madrid: Alianza, 1967), p.
436. Sanchez develops Ruiz Ram6n's thoughts in an
interesting article, "Cara y cruz de la teatralidad
romantica (Don Alvaro y Dont Juan Tenorio)," Insula,
No. 336 (1974), pp. 21-23. He indicates how Don
Juan's theatricality is passed on to other characters:
"El dinamismo vital de estos dos directores de escena
que son el galan y la alcahueta, estimula a los demas
a sentir y moverse en forma complementaria; es decir,
a imitarles en este 'dramatizar'" 'The vital dynamism
of these two stage directors, who are the young man
and the go-between, stimulates the others to feel and
to act in a complementary manner, that is, to imitate
the two characters in this "dramatizing"' (p. 23).
3 All
quotations are from the edition by Garcia
Castaieda. The translation is by William I. Oliver, in
The Theatre of Doni Juan, ed. Oscar Mandel (Lincoln:
Univ. of Nebraska Press, 1963), pp. 469-538. I have
modified this translation in some places to give a
closer rendering of the original text. English trans-
lations of other works are entirely mine.
4"El Don Juan Tenorio pertenece a un genero
literario que carecia de nombre y acotamiento hasta
que Valle-Inclan, genialmente, se lo proporcion6,
llamandole 'esperpento'" 'Doni Juan Tenorio pertains
to a literary genre that lacked a name or a definition
until Valle-Inclan brilliantly provided it with his term
esperpento' (Jose Ortega y Gasset, "La estrangulaci6n
de Doni Jluan," El Sol [Madrid], 17 Nov. 1935; rpt. in
Obras completas, 6th ed. [Madrid: Revista de Occidente,
1964]. v, 247). It is not surprising that the outright
conversion of this theme into an esperpento, achieved
by Valle-Inclin in Las galas del difunto (1930), was
inspired mainly by Zorrilla's play. See Juan Bautista
Avalle-Arce. "La esperpentizaci6n de don Juan Teno-
rio," Hispan6fila, No. 7 (1959), pp. 29-39.
"Si Don Quijote dice: 'Yo se quien soy!', Don Juan
nos dice lo mismo, pero de otro modo: 'iYo s6 lo que
represento! . . . Don Juan se siente siempre en escena"
'If Don Quijote says: "I know who I am!" Don Juan
tells us the same thing but in another way: "I know
This content downloaded from 128.123.44.23 on Sat, 02 Jan 2016 21:10:11 UTC
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
what part I am acting!". . . Don Juan always feels he
is on stage' (Unamuno, Prologue to El hermano Juan
o El mundo es teatro [1929], in Obras completas
[Madrid: Escelicer, 1968], v, 714). Although Unamuno
speaks of Don Juan in general, his remarks apply to
Zorrilla's Don Juan more than to any other.
6 The leitmotiv of Don Juan's list of feats is found
in Merimee's Les Ames du purgatoire and even earlier
in a series of works that goes as far back as II convitato
di pietra (1650?) by Giacinto Andrea Cicognini. See
Garcia Castafieda's prologue to his edition of Don Juan
Tenzorio, p. 33.
What Ortega called esperpentisno in Don Juan
Tenorio can already be seen in the performances of
the commedia dell'arte, with the transformation of Don
Juan into a farcical character and the increasing
importance of the servant, Arlecchino. See Mandel,
The Theatre of Doni Juan, pp. 100-04.
7 As Valbuena Prat
says: "Don Juan ve ya, en Dofia
In6s, lo que puede arrancar del pecado, de los brazos del
demonio, a su propia alma; y, en efecto, asi sera,
salvandola por ella" 'Don Juan perceives in Dofia Ines
that which can tear his soul from sin, from the arms
of the devil; and, in effect, it will be thus-his soul is
saved thanks to In6s' (Historia del teatro espaliol
[Barcelona: Noguer, 1956], p. 508). It is curious, how-
ever, that Valbuena avails himself of theological con-
siderations, leaving aside poetic or symbolic ones, to
criticize the end of the play: "lo que no puede admitirse
en sana doctrina ortodoxa es el que Dios haga depender
la salvaci6n de un alma de la de otra. Precisamente esa
es la engafiosa tesis con que el demonio habia
engafiado
a Paulo, haci6ndole creer que se salvaria o condenaria
con Enrico en el teol6gico drama El condeinado
por
desconfiado, cuyo autor secentista sabia bien lo que
trataba y discurria" 'what cannot be admitted in sound
orthodox doctrine is that God rests the salvation of one
soul on the salvation of another. This is precisely the
deceiving thesis with which the devil had tricked Paulo,
thereby making him believe that he would be saved or
condemned with Enrico in the theological drama El
condenado por desconfiado, whose seventeenth-century
author knew well what he was doing' (p. 521).
s Zorrilla, Leyendas (Madrid: Aguilar, 1945),
p. 273.
Otto Rank's words can be best applied to Zorrilla's Don
Juan: "Don Juan is also in a certain sense the true
emancipator of woman. He liberates the young girl
from the chains that religion and morality, created for
man's advantage, have placed on her, because he does
not wish to possess her indefinitely but only wants
to make her a woman ([he wants this] especially [for]
nuns abducted from the convent)" (my translation
from Don Juan et le double, trans. S. Lautman [1932;
rpt. Paris: Payot, 1973], p. 165). But Don Juan's later
desire to get married indicates something contradictory
in the character's nature.
9 As far as I know, Zorrilla's Don Juan was the first
 Carlos Feal
to give an importantrole to the figureof the go-between.
A minor precedent is found in Dumas' Don Juan de
Marana:
Paquita. Elle est un peu curieuse, un peu coquette, un
peu vaine.
Don Juan. J'ai deux chances de plus que le serpent . . .
Eve n'etait que curieuse.
Paquita. Et elle n'avaitpas de femme de chambre.
Don Juan. C'est juste, cela m'en fait au moins une de
plus ...
Paquita. She is a little curious, a little coquettish, a
little vain.
Don Juan. I have two more chances than the serpent.
Eve was only curious.
Paquita. And she didn'thave a chambermaid.
Don Juan. That's right, that gives me at least one
more ...
(Theitre complet [Paris: Calmann-Levy,n.d.], v, 27)
1 Isabela.... ,Qui6n eres, hombre?
D. Juan. ,Qui6nsoy? Un hombre sin nombre.
Isabela. Who are you?
Don Juan. Who am I? A man without a name. (Tirso
de Molina, El burlador de Sevilla, ed. A. Castro
[Madrid:Espasa-Calpe,1932], I, 14-15)
1 "C'est dans le nom du pere qu'il nous faut recon-
naltre le support de la fonction symbolique qui, depuis
I'or6e des temps historiques, identifie sa personne a la
figure de la loi" 'We must recognize in the name of
the father the support for the symbolic function that
since the beginning of historic times identifieshis person
with the figure of the law' (Jacques Lacan, "Fonction
et champ de la parole et du langage en psychanalyse,"
in Ecrits [Paris: Seuil, 1966], p. 278). While the name
of the father supports the figure of the law, Don Juan's
name represents love in opposition to that law. The
tension between father and lover is thus tension between
two names.
12 In his
story Don Juan (1813), Hoffmann attributes
to the Commander'sdaughter a feeling of love toward
her father's killer. This idea is formulated by the pro-
tagonist of the story, after attending a performance
of Mozart's Don Giovanni. But the differences between
Don Giovanni (1787) and Don Juan Tenorio are
evident. Anna, in Mozart's opera, seeks revenge against
Don Juan. Her love for Don Juan must be a secret,
if it exists at all. Zorrilla brings into the open what
Hoffmann brilliantly but debatably senses in Anna. For
a commentary on Hoffmann's interpretation,see Wein-
stein, The Metamorphoses of Don Juan, pp. 66-67.
13 "Resulta, pues, que cuando don Juan acude a su
vez al convite del Comendador, va ya sincera y
hondamente arrepentido.No es 'un punto de contrici6n'
lo que le salva; es una conducta mantenida por varios
afios. La enmienda viene preparandose desde mucho
antes; casi desde el comienzo de la obra: desde el
instante, a lo menos, en que D. Juan siente su rendido
amor a dofia In6s" 'When Don Juan goes to the
Commander's dinner he has already repented sincerely
and deeply. What saves him is not a "moment of
This content downloaded from 128.123.44.23 on Sat, 02 Jan 2016 21:10:11 UTC
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
385
contrition"but his behavior over a period of years. His
reform has been taking shape for quite some time,
almost since the beginning of the play: at least from
the moment when Don Juan feels his devoted love
for Dofia Ines' (Narciso Alonso Cortes, Zorrilla. Su
vida y sus obras, 2nd ed. [Valladolid: LibreriaSantaren,
1943], p. 345).
14 Of course, the differenceis not so
easy to establish.
As Augusto P6rez, in Unamuno's Niebla, says: "Y Lque
es estar uno enamorado sino creer que lo esta?" 'And
what is being in love, if not believing oneself to be in
love?' (Unamuno, Obras completas, II, 589).
l1) Don Juan, Perez de Ayala observes, is Don Juan
not because he has conquered many women with lies
and false promises but because he has the power to
allure even one woman by means of mysterious seduc-
tion ("Don Juan," in Las mascaras, Obras completas
[Madrid:Aguilar, 1963], II, 173-74).
16 In Gonzalo Torrente Ballester'sDon Juan (1963),
the narrator, mysteriously imbued with Don Juan's
personality, seduces two women. But when he falls
in love with Sonja, he does not want to resort to
Donjuanesque tactics: "mi amor por Sonja era de
veras, y me humillaba aquel cortejo con palabras
prestadas" 'my love for Sonja was true, and courting
her with borrowed words humiliated me'; thus he says
to her: "No volvere, al menos, hasta que pueda
conquistarla con mis propias armas" 'I will not return
until I can conquer you by my own means.' She
answers: "Pero, ,no comprende que quiza entonces
no me gane?" 'But don't you understand that maybe
then you wouldn't win me?' ([Barcelona: Destino,
1975], pp. 139, 142).
17 "He [Don Juan] is rather an instrument without
will in the hands of woman, who thus achieves her
emancipation from the chains of sexual superstition"
(Rank, Don Juan et le double, pp. 165-66). The con-
version of the seducer into the seduced is fully repre-
sented by authors such as Byron, Shaw, and Unamuno.
18I consider Ortega's defense of Don Juan inade-
quate. According to Ortega, before Ines rescues Don
Juan, he escapes from women because they are frivolous
females (hembras casquivanas) and audacious whores
(audaces rameras) ("Introducci6n a un Don Juan," in
Obras completas, vi, 124). Don Juan finds what he is
searching for or what satisfies him at a given moment.
Besides, the difference between In6s and other women
is greatly exaggeratedby Ortega.
19"L'exclusion de ces dernieres [les femmes] du
domaine des alliances autorise a les assimiler aux
commodit6s, afin de les traiter comme telles. Leur
absence du contrat social qu'elles ne sont pas invitees
a signer les situe automatiquement dans le camp des
objets sur lesquels porte ce contrat. Devenues un
element de prestation, elles sont destinees a etre
partag6es, a circuler dans les veines de la societe pour
repondre aux besoins formules par ceux qui la gouver-
nent, les hommes" 'The exclusion of women from the
domain of alliances authorizes them to be treated as
commodities. Their absence from the social contract,
which they are not invited to sign, automatically places
 386 Conflicting Names, Conflicting Laws: Zorrilla's Don Juan Tenorio
them in the realm of objects to which the contract
refers. Having become a trade object, they are destined
to be shared, to circulate in society to serve the needs
of those who govern society, men' (Serge Moscovici,
La Societe contre nature [Paris: Union Generale
d'Editions, 1972], p. 269). Moscovici follows Levi-
Strauss here: "Le lien de reciprocite qui fonde le
mariage n'est pas etabli entre des hommes et des fem-
mes, mais entre des hommes au moyen des femmes"
'The bond of reciprocity that founds marriage is
establishednot among men and women but among men
by means of women' (Les Structures elementaires de la
parente,2nd ed. [Paris: Mouton, 1967], p. 135).
20 "El hombre
verdadero, en cuanto es un hombre
maduro, deja de ser Don Juan. , . . El amor del var6n
perfecto es estrictamente monogfimico o reduce sus
preferencias a un corto repertorio de mujeres, general-
mente parecidas entre si" 'The true man, insofar as he
is a mature man, ceases to be Don Juan. ... The love
of the perfect male is strictly monogamous or limits
its preferencesto a small repertoireof women, generally
women who resemble one another' (Gregorio Marai6on,
Don Juan, 12th ed. [Madrid: Espasa-Calpe, 1976],
pp. 73, 75-76).
21
Maeztu, Don Quijote, Don Juan y la Celestina,
10th ed. (Madrid: Espasa-Calpe,1968), p. 97.
22 Don Juan
repents before dying by saying:
"iPiedad, Sefior! Si hasta ahora / huyendo de tus
piedades, / mi malicia me ha perdido, / tu clemencia
me restaure" 'Pity, Lord! If until now, fleeing from
your mercy, my wickedness has ruined me, may your
clemency restore me.' Zamora's play was published in
1744, but it must have been written several years
earlier (perhaps twenty). See Joaquin Casalduero,
Contribucion al estudio del tema de Don Juan en el
teatro espanol (1938; rpt. Madrid: Jose Porruia
Turanzas, 1975), p. 120.
23
Prosper Merim6e, Les Ames du purgatoire, in
Romans et nouvelles (Paris: Gallimard, 1951), p. 400.
24 "Summing up, we can say that the patricentric
individual-and society-is characterizedby a complex
of traits in which the following are predominant: a
strict superego, guilt feelings, docile love for patriarchal
authority, . . . and a damaged capacity for happiness.
The matricentriccomplex, by contrast, is characterized
by a feeling of optimistic trust in mother's unconditional
love, far fewer guilt feelings, a far weaker superego,
and a greater capacity for pleasure and happiness"
(Fromm, "The Theory of Mother Right and Its
Relevance for Social Psychology," The Crisis of Psycho-
analysis [New York: Fawcett, 1970], p. 131). Fromm
ackowledges Bachofen's Mutterrecht as the source of
these ideas.
25"Il y avait dans l'oratoire de la comtesse de
Marafiaun tableau dans le style dur et sec de Morales,
qui representait les tourments du purgatoire. Tous les
genres de supplices dont le peintre avait pu s'aviser
s'y trouvaient representes.. . D'ordinaire, le petit
Juan, toutes les fois qu'il entrait chez sa mere, demeurait
longtemps immobile en contemplationdevant ce tableau,
qui l'effrayait et le captivait a la fois" 'In the oratory
This content downloaded from 128.123.44.23 on Sat, 02 Jan 2016 21:10:11 UTC
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
of the countess of Maraniathere was a painting, in the
hard and dry style of Morales, that represented the
torments of purgatory. Every kind of torture the
painter could imagine was depicted there. . . . Usually
little Juan, each time he entered his mother's quarters,
remained motionless for a long time while contemplat-
ing the painting, which both frightened and captivated
him' (Merim6e, Les Ames du purgatoire, p. 353).
26 Nevertheless, Otto Rank has pointed out that in
some versions of the Don Juan theme-e.g., Lenau,
Don Juan (1844); Baudelaire, "Don Juan aux enfers"
(1846); and Rostand, La Derniere Nuit de Don Juan
(1921)-the role of the accuser belongs to woman: "In
addition to the ghosts of the slain men, whose original
forms represent conscience in the sense of the father
complex (the Commander), there also appear the
ghosts of his female victims who . . . easily substitute
for the pursuing and avenging horde of men" (The
Don Juan Legend, trans. David G. Winter [1924; rpt.
Princeton: Princeton Univ. Press, 1975], pp. 114-15).
But careful scrutiny of the works cited by Rank shows
that women as avengers are subordinated to the mas-
culine figures: in Lenau, Don Pedro, who leads these
women and causes Don Juan's death; in Baudelaire's
poem, the father and the Commander; in Rostand's
drama, the Devil.
27 Americo Castro, "El Don Juan de Tirso y el de
Moliere como personajes barrocos," in Hommage a
Ernest Martinenche (Paris: Editions d'Artrey, 1939),
p. 96, has expressed surprise at the Commander, who
acts in a manner inappropriatefor an agent of divinity.
Francisco Fernandez Turienzo, "El convidado de
piedra: Don Juan pierde el juego," Hispanic Review,
45 (1977), 43-60, responds to Castro's objections but
in my opinion fails to dispel them completely.
28 In the words of one of Moliere's
contemporaries:
"le foudre est un foudre en peinture, qui n'offense
point le maitre et qui fait rire le valet" 'the thunderbolt
rings false; it does not offend the master, and it makes
his servant laugh' (B.A., Sr. D.R. [Sieur de Rochemont],
Observations sur une comedie de Moliere intitulee Le
Festin de Pierre [Paris: N. Pepingue, 1665], reproduced
by Georges Couton in his edition of Moliere, (Euvres
completes [Paris: Gallimard, 1971], I, 1206).
29 In El curandero de su honra
(1926)-which, along
with Tigre Juan (1926), constitutes Perez de Ayala's
version of the Don Juan theme-there is a memorable
dialogue between the widow Dofia Iluminada and her
adopted daughter, Carmina. Carmina would like to run
off with her boyfriend, but she fears public opinion:
Si el hacer mi gusto fuera, a juicio de la gente, contra
la ley ...
iQue ley, hija mia?
La ley . . . La ley . . . No se como decirlo. La ley de
que habla la gente.
iAh, ya! La ley de los hombres. Pero hay, hija mia,
otra ley, que es mas santa: la ley de Dios. Y esa ley
esta. en el corazon. Consulta tu corazon siempre,
Carmina.
 Carlos Feal
If doing what I want were, in people's opinion,
against the law ...
What law, my child?
The law . . . the law . . . I don't know how to say it.
The law that people talk about.
Aha! The law of men. But there is, my child, another
law, which is holier: God's law. And this law is in the
heart. Always consult your heart, Carmina.
(Obras completas, Iv, 702)
Here, it is clear that God's law does not coincide with
men's law. Carmina resembles Herminia, who, a newly-
wed, plans her escape with the Donjuanesque Ves-
pasiano: "como hija de Eva, por imperativo de su
feminidad, se rebelaba contra el orden establecido y se
387
proponia destruirlo" 'like Eve's daughter, commanded
by her femininity, she revolted against the established
order and intendedto destroy it' (p. 674).
30 Women have not often expressed their opinions
about Don Juan, and when they have, their comments
have sometimes been very negative, as in George Sand's
Lelia (1833). But at other times women have vigorously
defended Don Juan, as in the play Le Burlador (1945)
by Suzanne Lilar or in Micheline Sauvage's essay Le
Cas don Juan (Paris: Seuil, 1953).
31 In
preparingthis article, Rosemary Geisdorfer, my
translator, and I were assisted by a grant from the
Research Foundation of the State University of New
York; we are grateful for this support. I also thank
Henry Richards for his careful reading of the manu-
script and his valuable suggestions.

This content downloaded from 128.123.44.23 on Sat, 02 Jan 2016 21:10:11 UTC
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions