of deviancy or indiscretion renders her unsuitable for marriage. However, female desire is approached in very simplistic terms in the play. The abbess tells Dona Ines that the latter has retained her innocence because she knows nothing of the world. Additionally, having known nothing of the world, Dona Ines also cannot long for the pleasures of the world.

The abbess chooses to ignore the reality of sexuality. As a result, she does not comprehend Dona Ines's frustration. As for Dona Ines, she is herself ignorant of the source of her ennui. She thinks that her grief is mainly due to the knowledge that she must renounce all familial ties after taking her religious vows. For the remainder of her interaction with Brigida, she voices her fear of her deep yearnings. They frighten her, only because they are so foreign from everything she has ever experienced.

Later, however, Dona Ines begins to recognize what those yearnings contribute in her journey to full womanhood. Don Juan's caressing words awaken her to the reality of her innate sexuality. As for Don Juan, he courts Dona Ines with all the pomp and elegance of a courtly love. His profuse expressions of overpowering passion make Dona Ines fall under his spell. Here, in the tradition of courtly love, Dona Ines's moral purity cleanses the old sinner of his waywardness.

Then we see Don Juan remonstrating with Don Gonzalo, who refuses to bless the union between his daughter and the supposedly reformed rake. For his part, Don Juan accuses the older man of not caring about his salvation. Don Gonzalo's reply is ominous: "And what have I to do, Don Juan, with your salvation?" Don Gonzalo will not "save" Don Juan; he cannot, according to the dictates of convention. It is Dona Ines who must bequeath Don Juan his salvation.

However, Dona Ines cannot perform this duty at this point in the play. Her moral virtue has been subsumed within her father's convictions. In Don Gonzalo's mind, Don Juan has dishonored his daughter by his actions and cannot be allowed to marry her. Angered by Don Gonzalo's stance, Don Juan reverts to his innate self. He shoots Don Gonzalo and stabs Don Luis: both men die. This tragic scene demonstrates that honor in a patriarchal society is strictly defined. Any aberrations from respected convention result in censure and marginalization. Don Juan cannot redefine honor in such a society, even if his convictions are sincere.

In part 2, we again see the discrepancy between how female purity is defined in terms of the patriarchy and the philosophy of courtly love. Although both perspectives approach female purity as a worthy asset, the latter hails such purity as ennobling and redemptive in nature.

In a patriarchal society, female purity is viewed as an asset in that it substantiates the masculine reputation. Position in the social hierarchy is thus defined by honor. A bride's virginal status brings honor to her family and to her groom. To be cuckolded, therefore, is deeply wounding to the masculine soul and is socially humiliating. Therefore, a daughter's purity holds great implications for a man's position in society. Both the groom and the father of the bride are highly invested in it. There is a paradox at play, of course.

Although men like Don Juan and Don Luis seek to best each other in sexual conquests, both seek (above all else) sexual purity in a wife. The competitive nature is present even after marriage. The chastity of a wife ensures the impeccability of a man's lineage; by extension, a cuckolded husband must always wonder about his children's paternal heritage. He is thus seen as less of a man in other men's eyes.

Meanwhile, courtly love (derived from the system of chivalry) regards feminine purity as ennobling in nature. From such a perspective, women are not fallen creatures; instead, they are entities of virtue. Even in death, Dona Ines retains her purity, like the "fresh tint of the rose." Indeed, Don Juan sees her as "one of the guardian angels."

In part two of the play, Don Juan returns, only to see three massive statues of his victims erected on what should have been the grounds of his inherited home. He curses the hour when "heaven treated him so fiercely," even after he spoke with the "voice of a penitent." Don Juan laments his rejection. Here, Zorrilla suggests that God has also rejected Don Juan. The masculine soul seeks salvation, but it proves elusive to him. However, Dona Ines (in her transcendent self) answers. She represents the Madonna who answers when God is silent.

While living, Dona Ines exemplified all the feminine virtues men worshiped. Yet, she also displayed elements of the feminine imperative: the inherent desire to mate with the strongest and most dominant male. Don Juan answered everything that Dona Ines desired in a man. He could best any competitor in a duel, and other men feared his "satanic" predilections for violence. There was only one problem: Don Juan failed to fulfill all of the expectations of a fond father.

In part two, Don Juan recognizes his flaws. He approaches the statue of Dona Ines as he does a shrine, seeking absolution for his sins. In his mind, Dona Ines is the angel of his salvation. Yet, despite his yearnings, he is incredulous when Dona Ines's spirit appears before him. For her part, Dona Ines assures him that she has interceded for him before God and that her fate is now tied to his. For a short time, Don Juan is given the opportunity to repent and to redeem himself.

For his part, Don Juan believes that he is hallucinating. He imagines that the frightful apparitions he sees are figments of his imagination. He even invites the statue of Don Gonzalo to dinner in order to convince himself that he has been dreaming. After all, Don Juan has always valued courage above all else, and he is not going to be humbled by some spirits of the night. The last scenes of magical realism in act 3, however, tell a different story. Here, Don Juan's past actions condemn him, and Hell calls out for his soul. He must account for the deaths he has caused.

However, with Dona Ines awaiting, the blustering Don Juan eventually admits his deep need. The concept of salvation is subverted here: instead of being saved by a Christ figure, Don Juan enters heaven upon the ministrations of a Madonna. Zorrilla reinforces this point through his extensive use of magical realism.

Zorrilla's Don Juan Tenorio is a Romantic transformation, or re-think, of the basic Don Juan story. It follows the basic outlines of the narrative used by others in the previous two hundred plus years, but it adds important elements and changes the overall thrust of the play and its moral.

Part I of the play contains the five-act structure of a complete drama. Don Juan is presented, from the start, as the legendary seducer who, as in Mozart's operatic version of 1787, keeps a list of the women he has seduced. But in Zorrilla's version, Don Juan is shown in opposition to another man, Don Luis, who seemingly wishes to compete with Don Juan in "immoral" attempts and makes a wager with him to this effect.

Zorrilla's point here seems to be that other men envy Don Juan and wish to be like him to beat him at his own game. In this regard, Zorrilla is a prototypical Romantic writer. The tendency of nineteenth-century literature is to exalt characters who are individualistic rebels and who defy the norms of society and the laws of man and God. In versions of the Don Juan story predating the nineteenth century, this view of the character may have been expressed but not explicitly—partly because of censorship and partly because artists themselves had not yet adopted the defiant and anti-religious mindset that would later characterize the Romantic period.

In this wager between Don Juan and Don Luis, it's not at all surprising that Juan comes out on top, though the outcome ends up being Juan's undoing. Don Juan is meant to be seen as both despicable and admirable. Through a ruse he gains entry to the apartments of Doña Ana, the betrothed of Don Luis. That his other seduction attempt of the night takes a different turn is evidence of Don Juan's dual-sided character, which, in keeping with the Romantic ethos, is a combination of good and bad, unlike the mostly good-for-nothing seducer of Tirso de Molina's and Moliere's treatments in the seventeenth-century.

Don Juan becomes overwhelmed with the purity and beauty of Doña Ines, a novice, or nun trainee, who is the daughter of the Commander of Seville, Don Gonzalo. It's as if his previously diabolical nature now has the potential to become angelic, and he waxes rhapsodic over Ines, declaring his great love for her. This, however, precipitates tragedy: it is as if Don Juan's ability genuinely to love a woman results, ironically, in his destruction. Or, Zorrilla's message is, conversely, that one's past will always catch up with one. Don Luis wants revenge for Juan's having seduced Luis's fiancee Ana, and Don Gonzalo disbelieves, unsurprisingly, that Juan has "honorable" intentions towards his daughter Ines. Don Juan, then, is forced to kill both Gonzalo and Luis.

This development differs from the similar point in the previous versions of the story. The chief plot device in de Molina, Moliere, and in Mozart's opera is the killing of the Commander alone, whose ghost, in the form of a statue, then exacts vengeance upon Don Juan. By having two killings, Zorrilla is, arguably, representing the good and evil sides of Don Juan and of human nature. Don Luis confronts Don Juan and duels with him in order to avenge one of Juan's typical, ruthless seductions. However, it's Don Juan's "conversion" to one who is actually capable of loving a woman that forces him into conflict with Don Gonzalo. Juan is forced to flee from Spain, and Ines dies of grief, setting the stage for Part II in which the supernatural phase of the story takes place.

We can see that Zorrilla's Don Juan is similar to other literary characters of the age, such as Heathcliff in Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights and Julien Sorel in Stendhal's Le Rouge et le Noir. He has at least as much in common with these characters as with the Don Juan of Byron's epic poem, since, though one can see Byron's general influence on Zorrilla, Byron's Don Juan character and treatment of the story differ so much from the traditional version that there would have been little in them for Zorrilla to take as direct points of departure. Zorrilla prefers to stick to the basic outline of the legend and most of the literary versions. Probably, the most immediate antecedent for Zorrilla's version is Mozart's opera, which fired the imagination of the Romantic generation. Mozart's hero-villain has been interpreted by various commentators and writers (such as E.T.A. Hoffmann) as the prototype of the Romantic rebel, who, though on the surface he appears a cynical, manipulative seducer, is actually a kind of existential superhero who restlessly searches for the ultimate woman with whom he can bond. This is exactly the way I would interpret Zorrilla's Don Juan. In Ines he finds this idea, ultimate partner; she is the one who remains chaste, and rather than relinquish her, Don Juan confronts her father and kills him. Though at this point the reader, or audience, has no way of anticipating the outcome, in Part II it leads to Don Juan's salvation. As in the earlier versions, the animated statue of the Commander intends to drag Don Juan to hell, but the ghost of Ines intervenes and redeems him. The ending also has something in common with that of Goethe's Faust and its verse that "the eternal feminine leads us on high."

In summary, Zorrilla's treatment of the story is a Romantic re-think, an interpretation not grounded in the concepts of sin and guilt but in the dual, or multi-faceted nature, of human beings, who contain within themselves both good and evil. Don Juan makes the choice, unexpectedly, and perhaps unrealistically, to abandon his life style of seduction and crime when he encounters Ines. Both his flaws, and the better qualities within him, lead him to this, and the resulting tragedy of his killing both Gonzalo and Luis has the effect of both destroying and saving Don Juan. It is a typical Romantic juxtaposition of opposites, one in which the complexities and unexpected qualities of human nature are to be celebrated, and are the elements that enable man to strive towards the divine and the eternal, as the Romantic artist so often has him do.

Don Juan: Skip the extraordinary idea, it’s well known to me, as to who in the space of a year, could do more harm with more good luck, Juan Tenorio or Luis Mejia.
This quote explains the bet that Don Luis and Don Juan made a year ago. Their intention was to do harm—not just to have fun or seduce women. The bet required that they both seduce women and murder men. This villainous bet is the action that causes Don Juan's father and future father-in-law to see that he is not a good man.

Don Gonzalo: I should like to see without them seeing me or being recognized.

Don Gonzalo is the father of Don Juan's intended bride. He decides that he wants to know what kind of man Don Juan is and sneaks into the place where the two Dons will discuss their bet after a year. He listens and is horrified to see what kind of man Don Juan really is.

Don Juan: Bah. I’ll satisfy you doubly, since I tell you that, just for fun, I’ll add a friend’s lady to the novice nun whom he’s about to marry.

Even after he has won the bet, Don Juan decides he does not want to have an incomplete list of the types of women he has slept with. Don Luis tells him he needs a novice from a convent. He adds in a friend's lady, which leads to him seducing Don Luis's fiancee.

Don Gonzalo: Don’t think now of Dona Ines. For rather than consent that she marry you, by God, I swear it’s true, I’d make sure to the grave she went.

Don Gonzalo foreshadows the death of Dona Ines when he says this. If he agreed to let her marry Don Juan, everyone might have lived. However, his refusal results in his death, Don Juan's exile, and Ines's death as well.

Don Luis: I don’t know what strange foreboding, what disastrous change my afflicted soul is fearing. By God, I never really thought I would love Ana so or feel for anyone though what I feel for her.

Don Luis realizes too late that he loves his fiancee. If he had realized it before, he might not have made the bet with Don Juan.

Dona Ana: Oh! Sleep in peace, Don Luis, his audacity and prudence will never succeed with me, for I’ve settled on you, you see, the glory of my existence.

Dona Ana reaffirms that she loves Luis and has no intention of sleeping with Don Juan. Of course, she cannot know then that he is willing to trick her to win the bet.

Brigida: I spoke to her of love, of the world of pleasures, the court, how gallant you are, how prodigious a talent you possess with women. I told her you were the man chosen for her by her father, and I have painted you rather as dying for her love.

Don Juan enlists the help of Brigida, Ines's servant, to help him appear in a good light. She primes Ines to fall in love with Don Juan. Ines has spent her entire life in a convent and is completely unaware of her potential fiance's real character.

Ciutti: It’s an undertaking fit only for such a man. But, devil take it, it’s as if fortune is always with him, chained at his feet while chance sleeps in submission.

Don Juan's servant Ciutti sees him as he is for the first time as they work out the plan for Don Juan to sleep with Ana and kidnap Ines. He explains Don Juan's character—he is lucky enough to get away with things that other people would be in trouble for.

Ines: Let’s leave here . . . I can go to my father’s house.

Ines showcases her virtue when, waking in the home of the man she loves, she immediately wants to go to her father's house. Of course, her servant convinces her that she cannot go.

Ines: I have never left the cloister, but I’m noble, Brigida: I have honor and I know, by every creed, that Don Juan’s house for me is no good place to be.

Ines is innocent, but she is also self-aware. She has the innate feeling that the house she is in is not right for her. It foreshadows what happens later when her father comes to take her back.

Don Juan: Mejia, please tell me how I can satisfy your honor. I won the wager fairly, but if it has pained you so, if there’s some answer you know, I’ll apply the remedy.

Don Juan apologizes and tries to make amends for the first time. He recognizes that he hurt his friend—a person he might actually care about.

Don Luis: You’re not the winner, Don Juan, since you acted as me in the game.

Don Juan pretended to be Luis to sleep with Ana. Luis makes the point that he had to be himself to win and, thus, lost the bet.

Don Juan: Comendador, I idolize Dona Ines, persuaded that Heaven intended to grant her to me, to lead my steps along the true path.

Don Juan still wants to change. He offers to live with Gonzalo and do everything he says to prove that he is a good man. He also offers to let Gonzalo monitor his estate and fortune. Once Gonzalo is convinced, he will marry Ines.

Don Gonzalo: Never. You her husband? Never! I’ll kill her first. Hand her over to me immediately or, unable to control myself, I’ll strike you dead in that vile pose.

Gonzalo refuses again and once again foreshadows Ines's death. He says he will kill her before allowing her to marry Don Juan, and the events that follow to lead to her death.

Don Juan: Consider well, Don Gonzalo, that you, perhaps, will make me lose my own salvation.

Don Juan sees Ines as his salvation. He loves her and believes that love can change him into a man worthy of God's grace.

Don Juan: And you, man without grace, who call me a vile thief, too, let this speak to show it’s true, I’ll destroy you face to face.

Don Juan kills both Luis and Gonzalo when the men refuse to forgive him. He shoots Gonzalo and stabs Luis rather than accepting the consequences of his prior actions.

Todos: Justice for Dona Ines.
Dona Ines: But not against Don Juan.

Even after he kills her father, Ines does not want Don Juan hurt. This foreshadows her eventual bargain to save his soul.

Don Juan: I should explain, for years now I’ve been gone from Spain, and it shocked me, as I passed, as I reached these gates today to find this distinct, strange, entirely different change from when I went away.

When Don Juan returns to his family estate, he finds a place where all his victims were buried. He is shocked to see that his father did such a thing with his inheritance.

Sculptor: He left his entire property to the one who would fashion a wonderful pantheon to astound posterity. He made one condition that they should bury here those who died, in fear, at the cruel hand of his son.

The sculptor explains to Don Juan what happened to his estate. It is another reminder to Don Juan of the awful things he did, and the way it affected other people.

Don Juan: Don Juan’s only yearning was for Joy with Dona Ines, now, seeking her loveliness wretched Don Juan returns: see with what pain he burns, finding her tomb, his distress.

Even after five years, Don Juan still yearns for Ines. This shows that the love he felt for her was not something he faked to seduce her and trick her father.

Ines: I offered my soul to God, the fee for your impure soul, and yes, God, on seeing the tenderness with which I loved a man, said, “Wait then for Don Juan in your grave’s loneliness. And since you want to be loyal to the love of a son of Satan, you’ll be saved with Don Juan or be lost with him.”

Ines bargained with God so that Don Juan could be saved. Either he goes to Heaven with her or they will both be damned to Hell. Even though she appears to him, he does not believe that she is real at first and puts himself in danger of damnation.

Don Juan: But her statue was here to see. Yes, I saw it and touched it: even gave a trifling fee to the sculptor who carved it. Now there’s only the pedestal and the urn from her funeral.

Don Juan tries to convince himself that what he saw was not real. He does not believe that her spirit appeared, but it still haunts him when he goes to spend time with his friends. Even the statue disappearing does not convince him the apparition was real.

Don Gonzalo: God, in his holy mercy, still grants you time, I say Don Juan, till the new day to set your conscience free.

Don Gonzalo also appears to Don Juan. He tells him that he has only the night to unburden himself to God and ask for forgiveness. Even when he walks through a wall, Don Juan has a hard time accepting that the situation is real.

Don Juan: Holy God, I believe in You: may it be though my sins are mighty, I admit, that your mercy indeed be infinite . . . Lord, have mercy on me.

Don Juan is dying and is being dragged to Hell, and he recognizes that he can ask for forgiveness. Even with a minute of life left, he can ask to be forgiven and find salvation.

Dona Ines: I gave my soul for you, and God grants that it is true your despaired-of salvation. This is a mystery of creation no mortal may comprehend, and only in that life without end, the just shall understand that love has saved Don Juan before he could descend.

Don Juan goes with Dona Ines to Heaven just before he would have been damned. Her faith in him was rewarded with the saving of his soul and the two of them being able to spend eternity in Heaven together.

Don Juan Tenorio is the main character in the play. He is a young man who chases thrills, which is best illustrated by the bet he makes with his friend to see who could do the most damage to others in a single year. Don Juan wins by dishonoring more women and killing more men; he admits that he does not believe in God's salvation and thus seeks his pleasure while he is alive. Don Juan is easily able to manipulate and charm others because he is charismatic, intelligent, and sneaky. Despite this, he does fall for Ines, a young woman he intends to marry who has been living in a convent. When he tells her father that he will change for her, though, Don Gonzalo refuses to accept it and instead rejects him. When he is rejected, he reverts to form and blames others for his problems; he kills Don Gonzalo and Don Luis. This puts him back on the path to reject God until Ines, dead because of Don Juan's actions, bargains her soul to save him. Don Juan still does not accept her offer of salvation until he is literally about to be dragged into Hell. He is stubborn, self-assured, and convinced of his own rightness even in the face of evidence that the ghostly apparitions he is seeing are real. When he finally accepts her, he is taken to Heaven with her and saved from Hell.

Dona Ines de Ulloa is the opposite of Don Juan. She loves God and seeks to please Him in her life; when she is brought to Don Juan's estate, she immediately wants to go to her father's house to preserve her virtue. She also loves Don Juan and wants to be with him. She is loyal enough that she is willing to bargain her soul with God to save Don Juan. She has one night to get him to accept salvation, or they will both be taken to Hell. Ultimately, she succeeds and the pureness of her soul cleans his own.

Don Luis Mejia is much like Don Juan. He also spent a year dishonoring women and killing men in order to win the bet. He did not achieve the same numbers and lost the bet but does not repent of his actions. He is also reckless, charming, charismatic, and pleasure-seeking. Despite his actions, he is enraged when Don Juan decides to try to seduce Ana, his fiancee. When he, like Don Gonzalo, rejects Don Juan's attempts to say he has changed, Don Juan stabs him, and Don Luis dies.

Don Gonzalo de Ulloa is the father of Ines. He is tricky and stern. He sneaks into the tavern where Juan and Luis meet to discuss their bet and hides from them so they will not know that they are being overheard. He is clever enough to realize his future son-in-law might hide his true character from him. Gonzalo is also honorable and loves his daughter deeply. He thinks to himself that he has to know because, though he is a gentleman, he is a father first. He goes to confront Don Juan and refuses to yield when Don Juan says he is a changed person.

Don Diego Tenorio is the father of Don Juan. He, like Don Gonzalo, is noble and intelligent. He sneaks into the same tavern to learn the truth of his son and hides so that it will not be kept from him. Once he knows the kind of man his son is, his honor compels him to use the family fortune and lands to create a graveyard where his son's victims can be buried.

Cristofano Buttarelli is the owner of the tavern where Don Luiz and Don Juan meet to discuss their exploits. He is driven by profit; he allows Don Gonzalo and Don Diego to hide in the tavern and listen to the conversation the two other men have. He thinks to himself that even though he has good wares, it does not matter that they are spending money for nothing as long as they are spending. He also admires Don Juan greatly, even though he sees the results of his evil misdeeds. He is not a moral person and clearly thinks of Don Juan as someone to look up to.

Marcos Ciutti is the servant of Don Juan. He appreciates the pleasures that serving the man gives him; he tells Buttarelli at the beginning that his own indulgences have been paid for by his master. He is also immoral; he is willing to help trick Ines and her attendant so that Don Juan can kidnap her to fulfill the terms of the second bet.