[In the following essay, Moore examines the portrayal of mistresses and wives in several Buero Vallejo plays.]

Anyone acquainted with Antonio Buero Vallejo as man or dramatist knows that he is a highly moral writer, but a peculiar turn of circumstances has caused him to write a series of plays with mistresses who uphold standards of conduct which command respect or sympathy from the audience while other plays picture wives who are presented as shallow selfish women. In this article I would like to develop this anomaly and seek a plausible explanation.

In Aventura en lo gris Ana is the mistress of the fallen dictator, Goldmann. She gradually falls under the influence of the pacifist, Silvano, since she can see the contrast between the stoic idealism of Silvano and the selfishness and pragmatism of Goldmann. She does not abandon her man except in a dream scene between acts but does what she can to keep peace between him and the others at the refuge hostel where all the characters are staying. After Goldmann is killed, and when the group decides to try to reach the frontier, Ana decides to stay at the hostel along with Silvano to face certain death because she believes that the baby of the dead Isabel can thus be saved.

In El concierto de San Ovidio Adriana is the mistress of the entrepreneur Valindin, having been promoted from singer and dancer at the fairs. The distinctive stamp of Valindin, like that of Goldmann, is the exploitation of humanity. He conceives the idea of dressing blind musicians in ridiculous costume to play cacophonous music at the fair of San Ovidio. David, the only blind musician with musical ability and ambition, soon discovers that it is farce, not music, that Valindin wants. Adriana is torn between her loyalty to Valindin as his long-term mistress and her growing sympathy for David's ambition. She cannot prevail against Valindin's will, however. Finally David kills Valindin and Adriana tries in vain to protect him from being executed.

In El tragaluz, Encarna is the mistress and secretary of Vicente. She is pregnant with Vicente's child, but for a long time, does not acknowledge it for fear of his reaction. She also is sympathetic toward Vicente's brother, Mario, who is a dreamer and idealist, and becomes inevitably a part of the quarrel between them. Amidst all this activity her role is completely passive. Eventually Vicente is killed by his insane father and Mario asks Encarna to marry him, by that proposal consciously accepting his brother's child.

In El sueño de la razón, Leocadia, mistress of Goya, is essentially the same type of person as the mistresses described above although the circumstances vary slightly Leocadia had been married but her husband has left her and does not figure in the plot. In contrast to the lot of other mistresses, Leocadia's situation is that her man is the hero of the tragedy, but her life is no easier for that reason. Goya's deafness, senility, and his adversities combine to make him a difficult consort. He calls her ramera and buscona, is suspicious of her and acts in many ways to make her life unpleasant. She tells the audience—for Goya cannot hear her—“Mi pobre Francho, te he querido—sin entenderte. … Tú vivías tras una muralla y, sin embargo, seguí a tu lado … velando por ti, sufriendo mi temor, que no es el tuyo. … Las noches de soledad, el lecho frío. … Escucho los gruñidos de tu desvelo desde mi alcoba, sabiendo que ya no vendrás.”¹

Leocadia admits being somewhat promiscuous. “Estoy perdida. Pensaba en otros cuando me entregaba a ti, pensaré en ti cuando me entregue a otros.”²

In La llegada de los dioses, Verónica is the mistress of the protagonist, Julio, and, based upon the title of the play, might be considered the co-star. The play was premiered in 1971 and her characterization seemed to be based upon what was de rigueur around that time; that is, the moral sincerity of the mistress was contrasted to the hypocrisy of the older generation. Before the time of the play's action, Julio had become psychosomatically blind, and he and Verónica had gone to visit his father at a resort archipelago. Of course Verónica now served as guide as well as amante. Her character is contrasted to that of Felipe, Julio's father, rather than to Julio himself. Verónica is the only mistress who enjoys equality with her man.

Buero characterizes all these mistresses realistically but sympathetically and without opprobrium. For contrast we will now picture some of the wives. In Un soñador para un pueblo Esquilache is the enlightened minister of Charles III of Spain. He heads a reform government which tries to give a better life to the common people while trying to restore honest government and guarantee merit as the criterion for high position. His wife, having utter scorn for his ideals, uses her influence to gain for her sons positions of authority for which they are not qualified, spends her money on extravagances, and associates with other selfish people. She even chides him for being old. When Esquilache falls, she suffers more than he since he preserves an inner satisfaction, knowing that his efforts were appreciated by the King and by Fernanda as a representative of the people, while her future promises to be utterly empty.

In Las Meninas Buero has Velázquez represent the strong man defending truth and serving as the conscience of the King, Phillip IV. The painter's wife, Juana, daughter of Velázquez's tutor, Pacheco, is not wicked in the same way as Esquilache's wife, but her weaknesses threaten his undoing. She is jealous of her husband because in Italy he had a model pose nude for his Venus. She suspects that this model may have been his mistress, a charge that he denies. Velázquez kept this painting secret and locked for fear that it would be considered lascivious if displayed, but Juana reveals its presence to Velázquez's cousin, Nieto, and so Velázquez is denounced to the Inquisition by the envious cousin. While Juana is not a villainess, she is depicted as weak and somewhat resentful.

In Las cartas boca abajo, Adela, the wife, is far from being an admirable person. Her choice for a man was the distinguished professor Carlos Ferrer, a man who, had showed some interest in her sister, but when Adela eventually lost him, she married his friend, Juan, hoping to drive him to success. As might be expected, her efforts confirm his failure in his profession and contribute to the failure of a loveless marriage. Eventually Juan confesses his own weakness and envy and exposes hers, thereby making their cards face upward. He succeeds in recovering the affection of his son, who previously had scorned him, but Adela is mired in self-pity, alienated from her husband, son, brother and sister.

In most of the plays mentioned thus far, the woman, whether wife or mistress, is given a secondary role, and it is obvious that she is presented in order to contrast with the hero or villain in bringing out the man's salient qualities.³ There are two plays by Buero in which the woman is the protagonist and in which the question as to whether her role is that of wife or mistress is in some doubt.

In Madrugada Amalia is introduced as the mistress of a dying painter, Mauricio. Amalia, however, is concealing two data which one would have expected her to flaunt. She is no longer the mistress but the wife of Mauricio, who has already died, having left her the bulk of his considerable fortune. Because of her long time status as Mauricio's mistress and the short period of her being secretly his wife, Amalia wants to learn whether it was love or gratitude that prompted him to marry her and will her his fortune as he was dying. The key to her reassurance is the explanation of certain enigmatic words that Mauricio uttered just before his death. By letting the relatives believe that Mauricio is in a coma but can still awake long enough to sign a will, which she implies is written but not signed, she eventually gets her reassurance from statements by Mauricio's brother and nephew which show that Mauricio loved and trusted her completely.

In La tejedora de sueños Buero stays amazingly close to the outer trappings of ancient legend and epic to bring a radically new slant to Penelope's fabled fidelity and to characterize what is probably Buero's best female character so far. With Ulysses gone for twenty years, Penelope has been putting off her suitors by promising to make a decision about marriage as soon as she finishes a shroud which she weaves by day and unravels by night. Four fatuous people and one charismatic person represent the suitors. Each of the unworthies is supported by an army, but Amphion, the desired one, is by himself. Buero's Penelope is in love with Amphion but will not choose him for fear that the other suitors will turn upon him when her choice is revealed. Ulysses returns, looking old, but still strong and disguised as a beggar. He suggests the drawing of Ulysses' bow as a test for the suitors. All fail. He then uses the same bow to kill the suitors, including Amphion.

Penelope then turns on him, not just for killing the suitors, but for a series of things: his staying away for twenty years, returning in disguise, killing the suitors without giving them a chance to defend themselves (Amphion was given the chance), and fearing that Penelope had aged. She tells him that Amphion had showed her what true love is although she has been faithful to Ulysses in the physical sense. She will guard Amphion's memory and at the same time preserve the hollow shell of her marriage. Ulysses seems to accept this position provided that his reputation in history is intact.

Penelope reveals further her human characteristics by showing her envy of Helen and suggests that there is a parallel between her game of holding her suitors at bay with Helen's game with Menelaus and Paris which started the Trojan War. Ulysses suggests another parallel in that he knew of Clytemnestra's murder of Agamemnon and Orestes' vengeance as a lesson to him to return home in disguise.

William Giuliano considers the role of women in Buero (wife mistress) as primarily that of loving and being loved.⁴ If a female places something other than love first in her life, she betrays herself and suffers tragic consequences. He cites Adela of Las cartas boca abajo as the most convincing example, contrasted with Amalia of Madrugada. According to this criterion the mistresses in Buero's plays recognize their role and try to conform though they are at times torn by sympathy for more innocent males instead of their tyrant lovers and have trouble becoming complete rebels. The wives would be responsible for the tragic turn in their lives, and to some extent in their husbands' for placing other considerations ahead of love.

Buero offers no attack upon the institution of marriage; in fact, he clearly shows it to be a preferred status for women. There is no mention of the sacramental character of marriage, however, and certainly he holds that the basic character of a woman is more important than her marital status. Where the relationship consists of man and mistress, the woman tries to be faithful to a man who is a pragmatist, unworthy of her. She almost instinctively shows protectiveness toward another man, one full of dreams and ideals, but she cannot help this man except in an ineffective or symbolic way. There is no suggestion that liberation from the tyrant can be her salvation. Even in the plays in which the woman is the protagonist, her role is that of dependence upon her man. If he is worthy, e.g. Velázquez or Esquilache, the woman is usually a weak or unworthy wife. If the man is essentially selfish and incapable of love, e.g. Valindin or Goldmann, the woman is mistress, not wife, but is worthy of the audience's sympathy. In La tejedora de sueños, Buero, with the same basic ideas about the man-woman relationship, breaks out of this mold, and the result is his creation of a more complete and much more interesting woman—Penelope, faithful wife and loving mistress.

Notes

1. Antonio Buero Vallejo, El sueño de la razón (Colección Teatro, No. 655. Madrid: Escelicer, 1970), p. 99.

2. Ibid., p. 100.

3. One Buero play, La señal que se espera, does not fit the scenario; in fact, it seems to contradict my thesis.

4. William Giuliano, “The Role of Man and Woman in the Plays of Buero Vallejo,” Hispanófila, No. 39, pp. 21-28.