SOURCE: “Hell or Heaven? Providence and Don Juan,” in Renascence, Vol. XXXVII, No. 4, Summer, 1985, pp. 212-19.

[In the following essay, Howe compares de Molina's The Trickster of Seville and the Stone Guest to Zorilla's Don Juan Tenorio, concluding that although the Don Juan plays have very different endings, Don Juan receives the proper punishment in both.]

In Spanish theater, a reversal of the protagonists' expectations marks the two principal plays which feature Don Juan Tenorio as the hero. In the seventeenth-century version by Tirso de Molina, The Trickster of Seville and the Stone Guest, Don Juan pursues his anarchic pleasures confident that salvation is only a deathbed confession away. He acts with impunity throughout the play, ignores the repeated admonitions of others, and ultimately finds damnation rather than salvation in the final apotheosis. On the other hand, in the nineteenth-century Romantic version by José de Zorrilla, Don Juan Tenorio, the hero acts out his role expecting damnation for his crimes only to be taken in hand and led to salvation by Doña Inés. These different endings prompt the present discussion, for in each play the dramatist presents a Providential design which is completed in the final destiny of the two Don Juans. At the same time, each playwright intertwines doctrinal considerations in the fabric of his play so that the story of Don Juan speaks to larger questions than the eternal reward or punishment of a single libertine.

If, as Lane Cooper maintains, “there is … but one agency against which a … hero may not hope to contend—and that is the poet … [since he], not destiny, controls the action,” (82, 83) then the playgoer must concede that the playwright is himself the ultimate providence of the world he creates on stage. Nevertheless, each playwright brings to his work his own beliefs and so imbues it directly or indirectly with his notion of the Providential design to be depicted in the unfolding action of the play.

Certainly the Mercedarian monk, Gabriel Téllez (better known to Spanish playgoers as Tirso de Molina), reflects in The Trickster of Seville and the Stone Guest the theological debates concerning Providence, predestination, and free will current in seventeenth-century Spain. Leo Weinstein offers the most succinct explanation of such theories for the contemporary reader. Some scholars regard the play as an implicit refutation of the Molinist doctrine concerning free will and salvation, upholding instead the “strict constructionist” view propounded by Aquinas. Rather than a dry, theological argument transposed to the stage, however, Tirso's play personalizes the controversy by depicting a man of flesh and blood insatiably indulging his appetites, confident that somehow he can “beat the devil” in the end. The ordering of events on stage manifests Tirso's interpretation of these disputes by means of an intricate pattern of foreshadowing and symbolism.

The opening scenes of The Trickster introduce the words and actions which inevitably point to Don Juan's final end. As the play begins, the darkened set reveals the muffled figure of a man confronting the bewildered noblewoman, Isabela. He replies to her desire to light a candle “to convince my soul / of the good that is coming” by responding: “I’ll douse the light if you do” (Trickster, I.I.i.23). He identifies himself only as “a man without a name.” In these few lines, the playwright prepares the audience for the denouement by cloaking the figure of Don Juan in anonymity and obscurity. Juxtaposed with him is the noblewoman who, while hardly an innocent figure in the seduction, uses references to light (“glories,” “truths,” “light”) to underscore the contrast between good and evil. When Don Juan closes the scene by commanding Isabela to give him her hand (“Give me your hand, Duchess”), he symbolizes the seducer's power over women and anticipates the final scene where the stone guest makes a similar and fatal demand of him: “Give me your hand. / Don’t be afraid. Give me your hand!” (III. VII.xxi). The initial request for the lady's hand is but the first of many throughout the play, for Don Juan seals his promise of marriage to Tisbea by stating: “This is my hand and my word” (I. V.xvi.50) just as he seals the fate of the young bride, Aminta, by requesting her hand (III.I.vii.85). The seducer's consistent abuse of this simple gesture of friendship and honor makes the Comendador's command in the final scenes a truly fitting retribution for the reprobate.

As the play progresses, Don Juan becomes increasingly Satanic-like. Thus, what Tirso hints at in the opening scenes becomes clearer as the action unfolds. Don Pedro, his uncle, muses that “the devil himself / took human form in him” (I.II.ix.33), an observation the protagonist seems to echo when he tells Tisbea that “from that hellish sea / I am cast into your shining heaven” (I.III.xii.40). The demonic comparisons resonate with each other to illuminate his character, a man seduced by his own sense of power and determined by his fate. Thus, his abuse of the handshake not only symbolizes his power to seduce women but also his increasing contempt for all civil authority and social mores. When, prior to dishonoring Aminta, he remarks that the villagers “always have their honor in their hands / and they are always looking out for it” (III.I.iii.80), he manifests his contempt for law and order. What one “has in hand,” one controls, yet it is inevitably Don Juan who takes matters in hand (Orozco, 786). The unwillingness or inability of society to take in hand the rebellious protagonist is also established early in the first act.

Having successfully compromised the lady's honor in the first scene, Don Juan next demonstrates his ability to manipulate the civil authorities. Taken into custody by an armed guard led coincidentally by his uncle, he manages to escape with his kinsman's help. Don Juan's disregard for society's laws manifests itself in anti-social behavior which the temporal authorities are unwilling or unable to curb. The king tries to redress the wrongs committed by his errant nobleman, but he proves powerless either to control or to punish Don Juan. The failure of temporal authorities necessitates the direct intervention of the divine into the secular realm in order to castigate the sinner and to restore harmony. Through the instrumentality of a “diabolus ex machina, God intervenes in the affairs of men. In rejecting Don Juan's plaintive cry for a last minute confession, the stone guest reminds him that “This is God's justice. / Whatever you do, you pay for” (III.VII.xii).

The statue's rebuff of the protagonist, like his request for the nobleman's hand, is the culmination of a series of similar admonitions uttered throughout the play. Don Juan's uncle warns him of divine punishment as do his servant, Catalinón, and the women whom he betrays. All are turned aside by the blithe rejoinder, “How long you give me credit!” which bespeaks the protagonist's misplaced confidence in his own invincibility. Like the fatal auguries of Greek drama, the repeated warnings directed at Don Juan fall on deaf ears. Weinstein points out that Don Juan's procrastination embodied in the “How long” tag transforms the story from that of a licentious seducer to one of divine retribution inexorably approaching the presumptuous sinner (16). In sum, “Tirso condemns neither a devil nor a saint, but a man who, in accordance with his own theological precepts, could have and should have saved himself” (Fernández, 45). Don Juan's infernal end serves notice not only to the sinful who presume too greatly on the mercy of God to forgive their transgressions, but it is also a warning to temporal authority who tacitly accepted his disorderly behavior. In damning eternally Don Juan, Tirso implicitly upholds St. Thomas Aquinas' doctrine concerning man's ultimate end: “since a rational creature has, through its free choice, control over its actions, … it is subject to divine providence in an especial manner: for something is imputed to it as a fault, or as a merit, and accordingly there is given to it something of punishment or reward” (Summa, I.Ia.20.ii).

Tirso's nineteenth-century Romantic counterpart, José de Zorrilla, emphasizes instead eternal reward through divine mercy in his version of the legend. Sub-titled a “religious-fantastic drama in two parts,” the play presents Don Juan in a form that recalls his predecessor while at the same time altering the character and the message. Zorrilla's Don Juan remains both seducer and social outcast, but with a Romantic flair for action. Nevertheless, as the sub-title indicates, the playwright balances religious questions against the fantastic qualities of the Romantic rebel.

Emulating Tirso's opening scene, the Romantic Zorrilla presents a protagonist “nameless” in disguise but with a curse on his lips. A series of scenes follow in which Don Juan's dual nature as seducer and rebel is neatly synthesized. Claiming victory in a year-long wager with his friend, Don Luis de Mejía, Don Juan catalogs an incredible list of conquests and adventures which firmly establishes his ignoble reputation while laying the foundation for his ultimate demise. Witness to his boasting are his father, Don Diego, and his intended father-in-law, Don Gonzalo de Ulloa, both of whom are outraged at what they hear. Each in turn chastises him—Don Gonzalo with a curse which proves prophetic and Don Diego with the warning that God will punish him for his misdeeds.

Dialogue and circumstances thus recall the earlier play by Tirso even as they expand on it. Don Juan Tenorio begins as a man without a name, but, as Carlos Feal points out, “Zorrilla's Don Juan insistently affirms his name … [He] becomes the man who portrays himself, who plays the role that other men, other Don Juans before him have helped create” (378). At the same time, Zorrilla's Don Juan glories in his abilities, boasting to Don Luis that he will complete his seductions of women from every social strata:

… because I promise you
that with the novice I’ll also bed
the lady of some friend
who’s just about to wed. (Tenorio,
I.I.xii.145)

His boast not only confirms his role as trickster, but also his disregard for the rules of social order represented by Don Gonzalo and Don Diego. When Don Juan chooses to ignore the admonitions of divine retribution awaiting such licentious behavior, his father hurls a final epithet comparing the young libertine to the devil: “children like you / are sons of Satan” (I.I.xiii.149).

Other characters, including Don Juan, take up the theme through the course of the play when they intimate that the protagonist is the devil incarnate. Zorrilla emphasizes this association in the title of Act IV, Part I: “The Devil at the Gates of Heaven.” As the quintessential rebel against all authority, Satan is a logical extension of the Romantic hero pursuing self-gratification in defiance of social restraint. Don Juan's intentions to seduce a bride on the eve of her wedding and a novice about to take vows both draw attention to the almost demonic forces which motivate him, emphasizing his likeness to Satan. Ironically, these intentions prove Don Juan's undoing as villain and “doing,” if you will, as redeemed hero.

The key to Don Juan's salvation lies in the innocent Doña Inés, the woman to whom he was betrothed, but who is now about to be professed as a nun. While Don Juan utilizes the good offices of Brígida, the young woman's maid, to seduce her, Doña Inés feels a presentiment that her destiny and that of the protagonist are intertwined when she remarks: “Heaven joined / our two destinies / and engendered in my soul this fatal longing” (I.II.iii. 182). While Zorrilla appears to espouse a faulty theology concerning salvation both at this point in the play and at the conclusion, Feal presents a symbolic reading of this section that addresses the problems raised.

This transformation of Don Juan begins to manifest itself in his conversation with the go-between Brígida. He talks of tearing Inés ‘from the arms of Satan’ (I.II.ix), but it is he himself who has been compared to Satan. In reality, he must tear Inés 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 Inés as symbolically representing Don Juan's soul, as she clearly does at the end of the play. Thus Juan and Inés are saved together (or, had one been condemned, the other would have been condemned as well). (377)

The playwright cleverly lays the foundation for just such a symbolic reading of the play in a number of references to Doña Inés. In her conversation with Don Juan, for example, Brígida describes her mistress as a “poor caged heron / born within this very cage” (I.II.ix. 167). On the one hand, the comparison describes the sheltered existence Doña Inés has experienced up to now. On the other, however, it evokes the language of religion which envisions the soul held captive by the body in this earthly existence. Zorrilla emphasizes the religious imagery in the letter of Don Juan to Doña Inés. In it, the protagonist states that “the heavens joined / the destinies of us both” then goes on to address her as “heart of my heart,” “light of my eyes,” and “Inés of my soul” (I.III.iii). While such language reflects the excesses of amorous rhetoric, it also sets the stage for the intertwined destinies of the two characters.

The conversion of Don Juan occurs during the famous couch scene when the seducer himself is seduced by a higher love. Doña Inés alludes to the strange, magnetic attraction he exercises over her, remarking that “Perhaps Satan put in you / his captivating look / his seductive tongue / and the love that denied God” (I.IV.iii. 197). When she succumbs to his blandishments, he again addresses her as “my soul,” then succumbs himself to the stirrings of a genuine love which she has aroused in him. He professes his faith in God even as he rejects his past behavior when he states:

It isn’t Satan, Doña Inés
who places this love in me;
it is God, who desires because of thee
to win me for Himself, per chance.
… I feel in your presence
capable even of virtue. (I.IV.iii. 198)

The amorous scene is soon shattered, however, by the sudden appearance of Don Gonzalo, the Comendador, who demands satisfaction from Don Juan for dishonoring his daughter. Don Gonzalo rebuffs the hero's attempts to beg the father's pardon and humble himself. Instead, the outraged father insults him. When Don Juan reminds the Comendador that his salvation may depend on Doña Inés, Don Gonzalo ridicules him. The duel which follows results in the Comendador's death at the hero's hands. Don Juan expresses his despair at this turn of events when he laments that heaven has deserted him at the very moment of his conversion. As Part One of the play closes, he deserts the grief-stricken Doña Inés, convinced that he has lost both love and eternal salvation.

Between the end of Part One and the beginning of Part Two five years elapse, a period in which the protagonist has apparently continued his wanton ways. When he reappears he learns that Doña Inés has died and that society's condemnation of him remains unaltered. As in Part One, the events of Part Two transpire in the course of a single night. The final scene reunites the three principal characters in a demonstration of the mercy of God and an apotheosis of love. Vestiges of Tirso's play are evident in the graveyard setting, the presence of the vengeful stone guest, and the foreboding request for Don Juan's hand which the Comendador makes. Don Juan's steadfast refusal to believe that God will still forgive him increases the tension. Throughout the play, however, he has consistently misread the signs put before him by Providence. Early in the play, for example, he laughs off Don Luis' suggestion that the price of his wager to seduce Doña Ana and Doña Inés will be his life. Yet when another guest in the form of Doña Inés' ghost explains that God has, indeed, joined their fates, Don Juan finally throws himself on His mercy. Through diosa ex machina, Don Juan is saved from hell and led to salvation. As Feal observes, “Inés is the true redeemer, or intercessor in Don Juan's redemption, and is thus associated with the Virgin Mary. Like the Virgin of Catholic theology, Inés intercedes between man and God” (381).

Zorrilla dramatically turns the tables on the Don Juan legend. In doing so he skillfully combines religious and Romantic motifs. While Tirso's trickster presumes that time is on his side only to be condemned for his excesses, Zorrilla's Don Juan is convinced that salvation is denied him only to discover heaven through the intercession of a virtuous woman. In a Romantic exaggeration, Zorrilla suggests that even Satan might be saved. Hector R. Romero finds in Zorrilla's resolution of the play a Molinist reply to Tirso's ending, for the Romantic Don Juan does use his free will to repent not once but twice (15, 16). Whether the playwright had in mind the theological question concerning free will and predestination that inspired Tirso's work is debatable. Still, he concludes in keeping with Catholic orthodoxy which exalts God's mercy. As Aquinas observes: “God acts mercifully, not indeed by going against His justice, but by doing something more than justice. … Hence, it is clear that mercy does not destroy justice, but in a sense is the fulness thereof” (Summa, I.Ia.2e.iii). Zorrilla shows God “doing something more than justice” when he ties the fate of Doña Inés to that of Don Juan. Her willingness to suffer even damnation with him convinces the hero both of the depth of Inés love and of God's mercy. That is his salvation.

Both plays deal with the design of Providence. Each Don Juan is warned of the need to repent, but both seriously misread the signs given them. The trickster continues his licentious ways confident he can confess in time, only to be brought up short by God's justice. Zorrilla's Don Juan Tenorio underestimates the power of grace as a result of the death of the Comendador and the loss of Doña Inés, only to be surprised by God's mercy. Both learn in the moment of death that nothing is determined in the unfolding of man's life. Through literal “dei ex machina,” the playwrights effectuate their Providential designs. Justice and mercy are the two facets of divine Providence; each receives its just due in the two Don Juan plays.

Works Consulted

Abrams, Fred. “The Death of Zorilla's Don Juan and the Problem of Catholic Orthodoxy.” Romantic Notes 6 (1964).

Aquinas, Thomas. Providence and Predestination, Truth, Questions 5 and 6. Chicago: Regnery, 1961.

———. Summa theologiae. V Cambridge: Blackfriars; New York: McGraw, 1964-1976.

Cooper, Lane. The Poetics of Aristotle, It’s Meaning and Influence. Boston: Marshall Jones, 1923.

Feal, Carlos. “Conflicting Names, Conflicting Laws: Zorilla's Don Juan Tenorio.” PMLA 96 (1981).

Fernández-Turienzo, Francisco. “El Convidado de piedra: Don Juan pierde el juego.” HR 45 (1977).

Gonzáles, Angel Custodio, ed. Don Juan: El burlador de Sevilla por Tirso de Molina. Don Juan Tenorio per José Zorilla. Santiago de Chile: Zig-Zag, 1947. Selections translated by Elizabeth Teresa Howe.

Orozco, D. Sebastián Covarrubias. Tesoro de la lengua castellana o española. Madrid: Turner, 1977.

Romero, Hector R. “Consideraciones teológicas y románticas sabre la muerte de Don Juan en la obra de Zorrila.” Hispano 54 (1975).

Weinstein, Leo. The Metamorphoses of Don Juan. Stanford: Stanford UP, 1959.