SOURCE: Abraham, James T. “The Other Speaks: Tirso de Molina's Amazonas en las Indias.” In El arte nuevo de estudiar comedias: Literary Theory and Spanish Golden Age Drama, edited by Barbara Simerka, pp. 143-61. Lewisburg, Penn.: Bucknell University Press, 1996.

[In the following essay, Abraham deconstructs Amazonas en las Indias, the second play of Tirso's Pizarro trilogy, in order to demonstrate how the playwright privileges European culture and negates that of Native Americans.]

The encounter between Europeans and the native peoples of America provides much material for debate and analysis by scholars in all areas of study. Perhaps no other event in modern history has created more opportunities to evaluate, mostly from a European perspective, the culture and values of Western European nations during the fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth centuries. Spurred by economic, religious and social pressure, Europe became obsessed with expanding its empire and with the inhabitants of its new dominions. The relationship established between the European and anything other than European took the form of a confrontation for, according to Abdul R. JanMohamed (Gates 1986, 83) in his analysis of colonialist writing, “the imperialist configures the colonial realm as a confrontation based on difference in race, language, social customs, cultural values and modes of production.” With the widening of critical perspectives within academia has come an increased awareness of the shortcomings of past interpretations of the encounter. Instead of being swept along by the traditional, dominant discourse, scholars have begun to focus on the experiences of those people who do not write history books, but who nonetheless make history. Often writing from their own position of difference, they question the motives that drove one culture to dominate, nearly destroying, another and how this first contact still affects human relationships today. In order to better understand the complex workings of subjectivity and the creation of the other, especially on the level of whole societies, and expose their impact on the world today, theories of “otherness” highlight those moments when one subjectivity confronts another. They question the ways in which texts project their meaning by analyzing what they do and do not say. Portraying Spain's activities during the height of colonialism, Amazonas en las Indias [Amazons in the Indies] (1958), a play published in 1635 by Tirso de Molina as part of a trilogy dealing with the Pizarro brothers,¹ figures in the body of literature that deals with Spain's creation and interaction with the “other.”

Critics of difference study the relationship between two objects. Ferdinand de Saussure's pioneering work on the arbitrary relationship of words and their meanings destroyed the notion that the symbol for an object somehow represented the essence of that object. In Saussure's model, words serve as mere signs made up of a signifier and a signified. Within the context of writing, marks made on a page in the shape of a letter of an alphabet make up the signifier while the idea or concept to be expressed forms the signified. Of course, in order to be understood, the signifier and the signified must meet in a context or system that has meaning. For instance, the letter ñ in the Spanish linguistic system can be used as a signifier to express its signified phonetic sound, thus activating the sign to anyone reading a word in which ñ is contained. The reader understands what the letter means because ñ fits into their system. However, an English-speaking reader would not know how to interpret the sign, for it does not function as a signifier. The letter ñ does not figure in the English system of writing.

By studying the function of signs in a system primarily, but not exclusively, language, structuralists determined that the lowest level of speech, the phoneme, gives meaning to words. Each language uses a limited number of phonemes to impart meaning. Interestingly, meaning and understanding come from the ability to differentiate phonemes. According to Raman Selden (1989, 54), “We do not recognize sounds as meaningful bits of noise in their own right, but register them as different in some respects from other sounds.” By interpreting the differences between the phonemes, the individual assembles a meaningful sign that then leads to understanding. For instance, those individuals competent in the system quickly complete the process, because they have internalized the rules. For that reason, native speakers seldom notice this complex process going on around them as they participate in their linguistic environment, while non-natives pay particular attention to the rules that guide their speech.

Just as language functions as a system, so too does society. All societies follow rules, customs, or a set of beliefs that affects their behavior. Anthropologists study people in order to determine what makes up the system that governs them. They examine the differences between the studied culture and their own, focusing on those practices that seem the most distant from their own. Ultimately, structuralists seek to expose the wide range of behaviors evident in human beings. Unfortunately, some scientists associate a behavior in a culture unlike their own with a deviant or negative behavior in their own system. Often, the behavior in the foreign culture carries no such stigma. However, when reporting his/her findings, the scientist will interpret the behavior and label it negatively as compared to the “normality” of his/her own culture. A structuralist analysis challenges the interpreter to observe the system to be studied without attaching biases based on the interpreter's own experience while determining the mechanics of the other's environment.

Critics of alterity focus on the comparison between cultures and the traditional failure in the West to understand the distinction between something different and something negative. In the past, when the two subjects came into contact, one tended to be viewed positively and the “other” negatively. The structure of the last sentence demonstrates how discourse categorizes the subjects, converting the positive term into the dominant subject position and the negative into the “other.” As a subject, any person distinguishes himself or herself from other people. In fact, groups of people come to share a common subject position, often called “culture.” Of course, within the group not every position contributes to the group's identity; rather, the more powerful in financial holdings, military strength, or intelligence favor their own position and determine the values that the group will honor. Traditionally in Western Europe, the subject position of the male has dominated over all other subject positions. Needless to say, the dominant subject position viewed all others as different, as the “other” and, consequently, not as an equal. Tirso de Molina, as a European male writing from within this tradition, identifies the natives encountered in the Americas as Others. His national pride and historical circumstance encouraged him, indeed forced him, to write from a position in which Spain found herself firmly anchored in the center. The customs and beliefs of the Iberian Peninsula thus served as the measuring stick from which all others were judged.

Contemporary critics, employing several theoretical strategies, investigate the nature and function of two-party or binary relationships. Although deconstruction first exposed the mechanics of bipolar associations in Western thought, psychoanalysis, feminism, and Marxism have all contributed to a better understanding of subjectivity. In 1966, Jacques Derrida changed the course of literary criticism by questioning the “metaphysical assumptions of Western philosophy since Plato” (Selden 1989, 87). He argued that all Western thought presupposes a center or presence that he labels logos. The Greek term means “word,” which Derrida understands as the beginning of all things. He exposes the West's propensity to believe that being exists only when there is presence. By attacking Western society's privileging of speech over writing and showing that speech has no more presence than writing, he creates the notion of différance. Meaning both “to defer” and “to differ” in French, the word demonstrates the ambiguous relationship between words and their meaning and, because words, spoken or written, merely represent ideas, the lack of presence in any utterance. The space of différance between the two terms can be measured as the trace of the one element as it signifies its difference from the other. The systematic play of the traces of difference within each element, therefore, make up the sign.

The most important element of deconstruction for critics of otherness lies in its ability to identify the hierarchical nature of the coupling of any two elements and then reverse their order. The supplement or unstable hierarchical relationship between any two elements exposes the falsity and violence committed by Western logocentrism to favor one term, while proving that neither term deserves to be given preference. Instead, the two equal terms participate in a process that gives both of them meaning. The deconstructive process disarms the West's ability to put itself at the center and gives any “other” term or subject position equal footing from which to engage the dominant discourse. Thus, Amazonas en las Indias merits a reinterpretion to expose the position from which Tirso writes the play and a reevaluation to give all the characters sense and identity.

In his book, Representing the Other: “Race,” Text, and Gender in Spanish and Spanish American Narrative, Paul Julian Smith (1992) introduces an analytical framework based on Derrida's (1978) engagement of the writing of Emmanuel Levinas. His account of the deeply philosophical article provides the basis for the following summary. According to Derrida, Levinas seeks to escape “the tyranny of Greece” by rethinking the horizons of philosophy. Levinas believes “Western thought to be based on a false universalism and a violently imposed neutrality” (Smith 1992, 40). He wants to start thought from outside traditional boundaries, “a space beyond or outside essence” (41). However, Derrida identifies Levinas's own recognition that such a leap, crasing the foundations of thought, proves impossible. According to Paul Julian Smith, Levinas's thought departs, then, from an awareness of origin as irreducible difference: difference between self and other, difference between Hellenism and Hebraism (41).

Derrida tracks philosophy's tendency towards violence in that it ignores the relation to the other. Whether from a Platonic or Aristotelian perspective, philosophy assumes an “unacknowledged totalitarian homogeneity,” since knowledge cannot be separated from power. The relationship between seeing and knowing points to the narcissistic nature of the self identifying its reproduction in a mirror and, thus, creating its form. Levinas believes the space beyond this omnipresent discourse to be metaphysics or desire. Desire is formed by an awareness of the irreducible exteriority of the other. Derrida relates this consciousness of infinite separation to the Hebraic sense of separation from the absolute. According to Derrida, “the other is invisible because it lies beyond the ‘light’ of philosophy” (Smith 1992, 41). Although invisible, the other still maintains a presence that serves not merely to negate the same or the self. The only response to the self can be one of absolute interrogation: “absolute questioning, distress and destitution, a demanding prayer addressed to a certain freedom” (41) Before the self can have any sense of identity, it must be aware of this relation.

In the field of psychoanalysis, Jacques Lacan's work with subjectivity asserts that human beings are made to enter a preexisting system of signifiers that can only be interpreted to have meaning from within that same system. Rejecting Sigmund Freud's notion that randomness links the unconscious and primal instincts, he developed a theory of the conscious and unconscious in which, bound by the inner structures mapping of the outer conceptualizing, linguistic experience governs (Wright 1984, 107). Because infants do not experience a separation between need and satisfaction, Lacan believes that they do not experience any repression, nor does there exist an unconscious. The illusion ends as the child enters the “Symbolic Order.” The father introduces the child to society and its rules, laws, and ordering. As the child learns to speak, he/she must develop and accept a set of predefined societal notions such as “mother” and “child.” Here, the infant begins to take his/her place in “a predetermined linguistic network, which forms identity and mind in conjunction with the process of mimetic identification (Ragland-Sullivan 1986). Forced to put his/her desire on hold, the infant experiences a split between desire and satisfaction that divides the conscious and unconscious. The split creates “the repression that is the tax exacted by the use of language” (Wright 1984, 109). Here, society assigns a gender role to the infant that will determine how he/she acts. However, since the identity does not coincide with the unconscious, the newly created subject realizes that the Symbolic also proves illusory. According to Wright, “the metaphor of the Father's word becomes a kind of trick, playing with an interanimation of the old desire with a promised, forever deferred satisfaction of that desire” (112).

Spain's mission of colonization fits into Lacan's notions about the creation of subjectivity. With the homogenizing program of eliminating the Moors and Jews from the peninsula and the solidifying project of Nebrija's dictionary, national identity in Spain assumed the forefront with respect to the other countries of Europe. As the first modern nation, Spain, more so than any other country in the West, was ready to encounter the “other.” Clearly, Spain enjoyed this time of perfect union as Europe and the newly encountered lands feed its needs. Like the child in the mirror stage, Spain experienced a sense of wholeness in which the church received more converts, the government gained more territory, and Spanish pride soared. Unfortunately, the transition into the Symbolic Order proved very painful. With competition from the other countries in Europe and the expense of satisfying its desires to support Catholicism in the Low Countries, Spain suffered a split between its desires and reality. According to psychoanalysis, during this stage, the infant is assigned a gender role. Spain, however, as a country, was assigned a role that still haunts its past. The Black Legend, attributed to Spain because of the atrocities committed in America and exploited by other European countries to serve political agendas, forced the country to react rather than initiate. Spain no longer relished the direct, unitary satisfaction of its imperialist desires; rather, it competed with the other nations and took its place within the Western enterprise of colonialism.

Materialist-feminist critics from traditions other than Anglo-American or European ones have expanded both Marxist and feminist theory to better expose the text as a social construct in order to investigate the process of colonization and imperialism and its effects. Authors such as Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, Chandra Talpade Mohanty, Barbara Smith, and Gloria Anzaldúa write about the relationship between sexual difference and imperialism. Identifying the tendency to value the white or European term as the central, beneficial, or valued one, they demonstrate that white authors, male and female, have created, in the representations of all those not like themselves, characters devoid of identity. Gayatri Spivak in her article, “Can the Subaltern Speak?” (1988) explores the relationship between Western intellectual efforts to problematize the “third-world” subject and European international economic interests. According to Spivak (1988, 271), the history of Europe as Subject, “narrativized by the law, political economy, and ideology of the West,” pretends it has no “geo-political determinations.” In fact, she theorizes that recent critiques of the sovereign subject actually inaugurate a Subject. My reading, applying the critique leveled against Europe as Subject by Spivak, focuses on Tirso de Molina's conception of the encounter between Spanish explorers and the native peoples of America. In this case, the playwright draws from classical mythology and popular legend to cast the “new” beings that inhabit unknown lands into an already familiar mold: the myth of the Amazon. Ultimately, while on the surface allowing the subaltern to speak, the play actually reflects the West's tendency to speak for and marginalize the other, while maintaining its place as Subject.

In her analysis of British writing in India, Spivak points out the colonist's misuse of language to speak of the relationship between the colonizer and the colonized. Besides taking land, these authors and their imperialist brothers and sisters steal the voice of those they conquer. Spivak labels Kipling's representation of the British and Indian speech in William the Conqueror “translation-as-violence.” The violence occurs on two levels. First, the author uses Hindusthani words out of context and incorrectly. The narrative authority of the British writer passes this incorrect usage off as correct and even legitimizes it. Ultimately, readers believe “Hindusthani is a language of servants not worth mastering ‘correctly’” (Spivak 1990). Secondly, Kipling transposes the Indians' Hindusthani into archaic English or represents their English phonetically. Both techniques serve to belittle rather than to portray accurately. Because of the West's logocentrism, any attempt to speak of the “other” fails miserably, for the author privileges the British subject position and delegitimizes the importance of the Indians. In order to gain a true identity, Spivak calls for all peoples to speak for themselves, to create their own literature and define themselves. Although it is too late for Tirso's subjects to speak for themselves, theories of otherness can help modern scholars to recognize colonial discourse as an act of violence committed against the native peoples of America. In the process of writing about native Americans, colonial discourse speaks about the colonized, not as they would write about themselves but as Spain's economic, religious, and cultural institutions needed to see them.

Amazonas en las Indias centers on Gonzalo Pizarro's adventures, political misfortunes and subsequent execution in South America. Tirso de Molina produced Amazonas en las Indias with a specific goal in mind: to vindicate the name of the Pizarro brothers in a play presented to one of their heirs, Don Juan Hernando Pizarro, Marqués de la Conquista. The title had actually been granted to Francisco by the emperor Charles V in 1537. However, Francisco never “enjoyed” his honor, since the twenty thousand Native Americans of which he was to have control were never identified. Because of their excesses in America and their participation in the civil wars of Peru, the Pizarro family fell into disregard by the crown. For two generations the title lay unclaimed until public opinion shifted from condemning the conquistadores to obsessing about the wealth to be gained. With the more favorable climate, Juan Hernando Pizarro sought the twenty thousand vassals originally promised and petitioned the king. In 1630, the king granted the Pizarro heir land near Trujillo in Extremadura. Interestingly, Tirso also inhabited the town of Trujillo during this time. He served as Comendador of el Convento de la Merced from 1626 to approximately 1629.

Opening in medias res during the expedition into the land of the cinnamon trees, the play begins with an encounter between Gonzalo and his companion, Caravajal, and two Amazons, Menalipe and Martesia. The Spaniards are surprised to find

¡Que en los límites últimos del orbe,
armada la hermosura
nuestro valor estorbe,
y en trance de tan bélica fortuna
nos pongan una república, que, sola,
sin admitir varones,
forma del sexo frágil escuadrones
y se atreven a sacar sangre española!
Aquí Naturaleza
el orden ha alterado,
que por el orbe todo ha conservado,
pues las hazañas junta a la belleza.

(1.2.36)

[That in the outer limits of the earth,
beauty armed
impedes our valor,
and in danger of such warlike fortune
there was put in front of us a republic, that,
without admitting males,
is made up of squadrons of the fragile sex
that dare to take Spanish blood!
Here Nature
has altered the order
that all around the world has been maintained,
of deeds as well as beauty.](2)

While Caravajal engages Martesia in combat, Gonzalo refuses to use his sword against Menalipe. He holds firm to his chivalric beliefs, stating:

Armígera Belona,
los que nacieron como yo al respeto
que la fama corona
obligados, y estiman el conceto
en que el valor los pone,
adoran las bellezas;
y por más que ocasione
el peligro su enojo, las noblezas
en defender las damas se ejercitan
y en fe de esto su amparo solicitan
Amarlas y servirlas
es solo mi blasón, pero no herirlas.

(1.2.62)

[Bellicose Beauty
those that were born like I in the manner
that fame crowns
obligated and honor the idea
in which valor puts them,
adore beautiful women,
and for as much as excites
danger their anger, nobles
practice defending ladies
and in assurance of this, they ask for favor.
To love women and serve them,
is my only cause, but not to hurt them.]

Gonzalo attempts to conquer his bellicose adversary with sweet words, flirtatiously stating:

Para que triunfes de España
las flechas y el arco deja.
¿No es arco en ti cada ceja?
¿No es arpón cada pestaña?
Ese de azabache, bello
monte, que mi asombro alaba,
¿de rayos no es una aljaba?
¿No es flecha cada cabello?
Pues ¿qué más armas pretendes,
si en fuego y nieve deshecho,
lo que hielas en el pecho
con las mejillas enciendes?

(1.4.224)

[So that you may triumph over Spain,
let go of the bow and arrows.
Isn't each eyebrow a bow?
Isn't a spear each eyelash?
That black stone, beautiful
mountain, which my astonishment praises,
isn't it a quiver of thunderbolts?
Isn't an arrow each hair?
Then, what other weapons do you seek,
if in fire and ice that which
you freeze in your chest
and enflame by your cheeks is destroyed?]

Menalipe agilely sidesteps the Spaniards tired discourse aimed “to trick simple ladies” (para engañar simples damas) (1.4.249) and counters,

Pues si en contrarios extremos
a los hombres nos comemos,
¿cómo los querremos bien?
Carne humana es el manjar
que alimenta nuestra vida.

(1.4.253)

[For if in opposite extremes
we devour men,
Don't we love them well?
Human flesh is the food
that nourishes our life.]

Finally, the Amazons lay down their arms and reveal that they have fallen deeply in love with the conquistadores. Amazingly, the women warriors speak Castilian and recount the legendary deeds of the two men. In turn, both women propose marriage, offering the Spaniards precious jewels and metals, an army of female solders and “un alma nunca rendida / que dueño te reconozca” [a soul never surrendered / that recognizes you as master] (1.4.596). Caravajal rejects Martesia's petition fearing the religious repercussions of marrying the “Señora comisaria del infierno” [Mrs. Deputy from Hell] (1.3.185). Martesia sends him off with a prophecy: “Pues guárdate de dar la vuelta a Lima; / que por cruel y a mis suspiros falso / perderás la cabeza en un cadalso” [Beware on your return to Lima; / Because of your cruelty and my false love / you will lose your head on a chopping block] (1.3.193). Gonzalo, showing his blind dedication to the Spanish crown, also denies the proposal, reasoning:

no llevará bien mi gente,
si tus finezas admito,
el no dar la vuelta a Quito.
Seis meses he estado ausente;
dejaron sus prendas caras
hijos y esposas en ella,
…
Para casarme contigo
eres de contraria ley;
vengo en nombre de mi Rey,
leal sus órdenes sigo.

(1.4.626)

[it will not sit well with my people,
if I admit your excellence,
and don't return to Quito.
I have been absent for six months,
The men have left behind their precious guaranty
wives and children to be protected
…
Marry you
you are of a different faith;
I come in the name of my king,
loyally his orders I obey.]

The next scene pivots around Don Diego de Almagro, el mozo, Gonzalo's rival and political adversary, who plans his domination of Peru due to the absence of the Pizarros.³ The first act ends with the approach of Gonzalo to Cuzco and Almagro's call to arms.

As the second act begins, Almagro's forces have been defeated and Vaca de Castro has come from Spain to take control of Cuzco. Upon his return to the city, Gonzalo agrees to leave control of Peru to Vaca de Castro. The Amazons magically appear in Cuzco to spy on Gonzalo, who happens to be proposing to his niece, left in his care by the death of his brother, Francisco.⁴ Menalipe reacts jealously and, foretelling Gonzalo's misfortune, vows:

con don Fernando,(5) tu hermano,
celebrarán regocijos
las bodas, que no mereces,
porque él solamente es digno
de ser de tu dama esposo,
y con generosos hijos
resucitar del marqués
los hazañosos prodigios.

(2.10.1099)

[With Don Fernando, your brother,
they will celebrate joyfully
the wedding, which you don't deserve,
because only he is worthy
to be the husband of your lady
and with numerous sons
revive from the marquis
the heroic marvels.]

As Francisca accepts Gonzalo's proposal, Caravajal interrupts them with news of the arrival of the viceroy Núñez Vela, who brings with him the latest Spanish policy towards the conquered lands, namely the end of the encomienda system. He also informs Pizarro of the pleas of the Spanish encomenderos of Lima, begging him to come and take command of the city so that their economic interests will not be harmed. Refusing to go himself, Gonzalo sends his niece.

Act 3 begins at Gonzalo's estate, where he lives in semiretirement. Suddenly, Trigueros, the gracioso, appears after having been kidnapped by the Amazons. He tells of the Amazons and delivers their message that Gonzalo should beware of the viceroy. Not until Gonzalo receives word that Francisca has been taken prisoner on a ship and that the people of Lima have arrested the viceroy and named him (Pizarro) governor does he move into action. First, conquering the viceroy on the battlefield, Pizarro then must engage the incredible forces of Pedro de La Gasca, sent by the king to pacify Peru. The odds prove insurmountable; his troops desert him and Gonzalo finds himself set up as an enemy of the crown and left to be executed as a traitor.

Previous interpretations of the representation of the Amazons have dealt with the characters within the context of the Spanish stage. Otis H. Green in his article, “Notes on Pizarro Trilogy of Tirso de Molina,” (1936, 209) hypothesized that the Amazons in the play serve the requirements of the comedia. Although stories of encounters with Amazons circulated throughout Spain, Green believes that Tirso did not take them seriously. Rather, according to Green, the Amazons enable Tirso “to meet the natural requirements of the comedia—gallantry, love making, novelesque interest—and they provide him with a means of foretelling the future.” Considering the purpose of the play (to change the public's recollection of the Pizarro disgrace), Green also reasons that the Amazons play the role of the Greek chorus in that they make an appeal to the audience for justice (208).

Working within the Amadís Cycle, Alison Taufer (1991) examines how the Spanish interpretation of the woman warrior differed from the original Greek tradition. According to Taufer, the Greeks felt threatened by the Amazons because they refused to conform to Greek standards of civilization and practiced customs feared by its patriarchal structure. For that reason, the Greeks conquered, dominated, and destroyed the Amazons. Taufer states, “To the ancient Greeks, the only good Amazon was a dead Amazon” (1991, 36). Within the Spanish tradition, the renewed literary interest in the Amazon directly reflects Spanish political interaction with peoples that they had never seen. Like the people they encountered in the Americas, the Amazon represented an inversion of European culture. With their alternative social orderings, sexual practices, and possession of gold, these alien cultures titillated Spanish preoccupations with honor, religion and wealth. Rather than liquidate these cultures, the Spanish attempted to convert them, religiously as well as culturally. Unlike the Muslim and Jewish communities, the Native Americans were not viewed by the Spanish as enemies of the faith, because they had never rejected Christianity. Therefore, the Spanish actively preached Christianity in order that the alien cultures might freely accept it and submit themselves to its law. Early in the encounter, the propagation of Christianity became the central mission of Spanish activities. The confrontation between Christians and the non-Christians could be played out in the form of a bipolar relationship. The West valued Christianity and, thus, deemed all activities related to the church's mission positively, while casting all the beliefs and customs of the native peoples negatively.

From a materialist-feminist position, no one would argue that Spanish activity in the Americas was not imperialistic. In the most serious cases, the colonization led to the complete annihilation of whole cultures, while in the majority of others it severely altered traditions and customs. Back in Europe, however, Spaniards sought “the justification of imperialism as a civilizing mission” (Spivak 1988, 305). Few, with the exception of members of the clergy, most notably Bartolomé de las Casas, questioned what Spivak calls the “beneficial ruthlessness” of the conquistadores (1988, 305). Kwame Anthony Appiah points out in his chapter on race in Critical Terms for Literary Study (1990) that, when speaking about justifying colonialism, colonizing nations often separate themselves from the events that take place in order to avoid bloodying their hands. However, Appiah believes a nation should be held responsible for its actions when justifying “especial brutality of the colonization of nonwhite peoples” (1990, 278). The great debate in Valladolid in 1550 between Las Casas and Juan Ginés de Sepúlveda demonstrates Spain's recognition of the importance of its activities. The fact that such a debate took place shines a positive light on Spain. However, the lack of representation on the part of those being discussed, the continued insistence on speaking for the “other,” and the unfailing territorial expansion and subjugation of the indigenous peoples underscore the unbroken rhythm of logocentrism. Tirso's play mirrors the duality of Spain's activities in South America and Central America. While writing about America, he both glorifies and nullifies humankind. Like the other plays written about America, Amazonas en las Indias concentrates “en defender los hechos de los conquistadores y en la vindicación de España, y sólo secundariamente se ocupan (las obras que tratan del tema de América) del increíble drama de subyugación de tanto territorio y gente por un puñado de hombres” [in defending the deeds of the conquistadores and in the vindication of Spain, and only secondarily addressing (the works that deal with the theme of America) the incredible drama of the subduing of so much territory and people by a handful of men] (Dille 1988, 496). However, due to the slippery relationship between text and reality, this imperfect balance cannot be maintained on a permanent basis. Today, Tirso's text cannot control the representation of the Pizarros nor eliminate the presence of the “other.” Relying on deconstruction's notion that “a text signifies in more than one way and varies in its explicitness” (Johnson 1981, xiv), I would like to critically attack the language of Amazonas en las Indias, especially the speech and role of the Amazons. My task, then, as a critic will be “to do away at all costs with the ambivalences (in the text); by reducing them to contradictions, blotting out the disturbing parts of the work or, more subtly, by manipulating the systems of valorization that are operating within the text” (de Man 1983, 111). Tirso's play glosses over many events recorded by the chroniclers present in America during the time of the Pizarros. The playwright embellishes the “other,” namely the Native Americans, and introduces a representation stemming from the roots of Western society rather than the true inhabitants. Although seemingly giving voice to the “other,” the use of the image of the Amazons in place of the native peoples of America furthers the misunderstanding between the Spanish audience and the people on the other side of the Atlantic. Applying a deconstructive approach to this system of valorization, the play's traditional meaning slips while giving ground to a new interpretation that exposes the West's need to always locate itself at the center.

First, like the Greek Amazons, the women warriors of Tirso's play are beautiful, valiant, and mysterious. At the opening of the play, Gonzalo can't believe his eyes as he engages Menalipe in battle. She shows her superior agility with arms and soundly defeats the conquistador. Clearly intrigued by his opponent, Gonzalo reveals his feelings about how Spain has socially constructed women. Relaying on his previous conception of “woman,” he refers to Amazon society as formed “del sexo frágil” [from the fragile sex] (1.1.42). Although not unknown on the Spanish stage, la mujer varonil, or manly woman, woman dressed as a man, found very little in common with a “typical” Spanish woman of the seventeenth century (McKendrick 1974). In the sexually polarized atmosphere of Spain, men and women had very clearly defined spheres of activity. In fact, as the spectators watched the play, the men and women were segregated. Thus, Tirso's use of the woman warrior demonstrates that Gonzalo's conception of “woman” and the “other” is erroneous. However, Caravajal offers a quick explanation. He passes the Amazon's superiority off as the work of the devil, historically a common charge leveled against any woman who spoke out or threatened the established rhythm of patriarchy. Nancy Mayberry (1977, 40) believes Tirso tries to veil the overly pagan character of the play through Caravajal's religious objections to the Amazonian ways. Nevertheless, they remain mysterious, neither fitting into the ranks of Spanish citizenship nor observing the “natural” division between the sexes.

Menalipe and Martesia also outdo some of Pizarro's own paisanas in their speech. In fact, they hold more wealth in the means of exchange, speech, than those living in Spain. Miraculously, they speak “en lengua castellana / mejor que las de Sevilla” [in Castilian / better than the women of Seville] (2.3.581). Within the dramatic frame, these “subalterns” do speak their own history, for Menalipe informs Gonzalo of the Amazons origin. She tells of the Amazon nation's birth in Greece, its constant battles with patriarchal Greek society, and the subsequent escape of some of its members to the mouth of a great river. According to Menalipe, three hundred leagues up the river, the argonauts decided to build their civilization. They established towns, worked the fields, and advanced the techniques of battle and science. Interestingly, Menalipe is allowed to speak freely about her society. In her antipatriarchal discourse, she attacks the concept of gender difference as “natural,” rather than a social construction, by saying,

Pero, como acostumbradas
las mujeres por sí solas
al imperio de su gusto,
exentas de las argollas
que anudó Naturaleza
al cuello frágil que doman
opresiones varoniles,
pues si alegran aprisionan,
por no asegundar coyundas
rebeldes las armas toman.

(1.4.360)

[But, as accustomed
the women by themselves
to the empire of their pleasure,
free from the shackles
that Nature chained
to their fragile necks mastered by
manly tyranny
for if they make men happy women imprison themselves
in order not to return to the yolk
to arms the rebels take.]

Next, she describes the maintenance of the all-female society. The women, “Sólo en los meses que adorna / de flor Amaltea los campos / y el sol al Géminis dora” [Only in the months that Amalthea / decorates the fields with the flowers / and the sun gilds Gemini] (1.4.393), seek out male prisoners who would forsake their freedom for the pleasure of procreating with the Amazons. The town celebrates the birth of females, while those babies born male are destroyed. Obviously, this discourse contradicts the dominant European ideology in which males traditionally choose the moment of sexual interaction, keep their wives captive in their homes, and privilege male offspring. The female characters in Amazonas en las Indias differ greatly from the historical people whom they represent. As Tirso creates his account of the Pizarro brothers and the Amazons, he also participates in imperialism for, as Spivak writes, “Western intellectual production is complicit with Western international economic interests” (1988, 271). According to Chandra Talpade Mohanty (1984, 333), colonization affects more than economic interests. Responsible for judging and categorizing all “others,” against itself, colonial discourse “has been used to characterize everything from the most evident economic and political hierarchies to production of a particular cultural discourse about what is called ‘Third World.’” Tirso's appropriation of the Amazon as a metaphor for the indigenous peoples of the Americas ultimately proves problematic. Writing from a dominant subject position, he cannot help but write the “other” mistakenly. Although he attributes great battle skills and honor to his Amazon characters, they serve only to appease Spain's guilt and uneasiness in the face of its expansionist enterprise. The women seem worthy adversaries because they use modern weapons effectively. In the face of religious doctrine, they need to be exposed to the church's teachings in order to be saved. However, the play, along with other plays, narratives, and studies of the indigenous peoples misrepresents and furthers European misconceptions of the American continents, for it names from a European center that can only compare those things “other” to itself. Tirso, attempting to portray the new subjects, relies on European models to give what Spivak would call an “alibi” in the form of an occasional play.

Ironically, he writes into the play the exact opposite of what actually happened. Although Menalipe offers to Gonzalo:

a tus pies estas provincias;
diamantes que al sol se opongan
te rendirán esos cerros;
perlas, almas de sus conchas,
a montes la plata pura;
el oro a cargas que brotan
esos ríos, esas fuentes;
esmeraldas, pluma, aromas,
y un alma nunca rendida
que dueño te reconozca.

(1.4.588)

[At your feet these lands;
diamonds that oppose the sun
to you these hills will yield;
pearls, souls of their shells,
in the mountains pure silver;
abundant gold that springs
from those rivers and springs
emeralds, feathers, aromas,
and a soul never surrendered
that recognizes you as master.]

he leaves her behind and goes off to his face his destiny. Spain, however, did marry the New World hoping to gain all that she possessed. The play, like much of the discourse flowing out of Spain, sought to erase the trace of the “other” in its dealing with the inhabitants of America. Nevertheless, the marriage, as well as the deeds of the Pizarro brothers, can no longer be disguised as paradisiac, for it both reflects the uneven balance of power and the exploitation present in human relationships. The play should encourage the reader to look at his/her own relationships critically with an eye to the uneven balances that still plague Western society. Perhaps with an increased awareness of how and why these differences come about, every individual can actively pursue a world that sheds so much light on difference that it becomes impossible to hide behind stereotypes any longer.

Notes

1. The other two plays are Todo es dar en una cosa and La lealtad contra la envidia.

2. All translations from Spanish to English are mine.

3. At this point, Francisco Pizarro has been killed, Hernando Pizarro has been sent back to Spain to serve time in jail, and Gonzalo Pizarro explores the Amazon region.

4. Gonzalo wants to produce offspring in direct descent from Francisco in order to maintain the bloodline of the colonizer. Interestingly, if the marriage were to be consummated, Gonzalo, following the honor code, would serve as Francisca's father, uncle, and husband.

5. Tirso wrote the play to pay tribute to Juan Hernando Pizarro, great grandson of Francisco and grandson of Hernando.

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