[In the following essay, Ruano de la Haza argues that Don Juan's actions in El burlador de Sevilla suggest that Doña Ana was not seduced by the infamous deceiver.]

Was Doña Ana physically seduced by Don Juan? In attempting to answer this question, two articles, published in the pages of this journal, have arrived at diametrically opposite conclusions.¹ This was probably inevitable, for Tirso has left us with little positive evidence on which to found our assumptions. On the one hand, we have line 1563 (Act II) in which Doña Ana explicitly calls Don Juan “homicida de mi honor”.² These words do not, however, necessarily imply that Don Juan was successful in physically seducing her, since Doña Ana may very well have been referring here to the sort of honor which is synonymous with reputation, and based on el qué dirán. According to this meaning of the word, she would have been technically correct in calling Don Juan “homicida de mi honor” from the moment he gained access to her house; for, from that moment, as Professor González-del-Valle argues, her reputation would indeed have been placed in jeopardy.³ On the other hand, there are Don Juan's words to the stone statue of Don Gonzalo before he is dragged down to hell: “A tu hija no ofendí, / que vio mis engaños antes” (2757-8). But yet again, this does not constitute conclusive evidence because, as Professor Vicente Cabrera observes, Don Juan, the arch-liar, utters these words when he is trying to escape death, and “it is unlikely that he would tell the truth for the first time in his life when the truth would make his death imminent”.⁴

Thus, the two pieces of evidence usually adduced as proof for or against Doña Ana's seduction do not really settle the question. It seems to me that if the question is to be settled at all we must look for that elusive piece of conclusive evidence not in the utterances of the characters of El burlador which, as shown above, can be either ambiguous or false, but rather in their actions and motivations.⁵

The scenes in which Isabela and Ana respectively discover Don Juan's deception are parallel as far as the reactions of the two ladies are concerned: both are shocked at the discovery, and both try to raise the alarm. The difference between the two scenes lies in Don Juan's reaction. When his deception is discovered by Isabela, in the first of these scenes, Don Juan's response is true to type:

ISABELA.
¡Ah, cielo,! ¿Quién eres, hombre?
DON Juan.
¿Quién soy? Un hombre sin nombre.
ISABELA.
¿Que no eres el Duque?
DON Juan.
                                                            No.
ISABELA.
¡Ah de palacio!

(14-17)

Don Juan is not a sensualist; he is first and foremost a trickster, a burlador, and, as he confesses,

                                        … el mayor
gusto que en mí puede haber
es burlar una mujer
y dejalla sin honor.

(1314-17)

Part of his enjoyment consists in witnessing the discomfiture of his victims when they discover that they have been tricked.⁶ This is why he is not reluctant to let Isabela know that he is not the Duque Octavio, even though he has just refused to disclose his real identity to her. This revelation constitutes of course a fitting climax to a perfect burla. However, when Don Juan's deception is discovered by Doña Ana, in the second of these scenes, his reaction appears at first sight to contradict the behavior pattern we have come to expect of him:

DOñA Ana.
¡Falso, no eres el marqués;
que me has engañado!
DON Juan.
                                                            Digo
que lo soy.
DOñA Ana.
                                        ¡Fiero enemigo,
mientes, mientes!

(1557-60)

Don Juan's insistent “Digo / que lo soy” clearly indicates that on this occasion he is striving to maintain the deception for as long as posible. Why? Obviously, because he has not succeeded in perpetrating the burla: Doña Ana discovered that he was not the Marqués de la Mota before the seduction took place.

Why did Doña Ana succeed where Isabela failed? A plausible explanation has recently been advanced by John E. Varey. Comparing Doña Ana and the Duquesa Isabela for imprudently inviting their respective lovers to their rooms at night, he concludes that “whilst there was nothing to prevent the marriage of the Duquesa Isabela and the Duque Octavio—and thus nothing to warrant the invitation—Doña Ana's action is more excusable, although not pardonable, since she had been put into a false position by the King of Castile's rash promise to bestow her hand on the Duque Octavio without first discovering whether her heart was otherwise engaged”.⁷ Be that as it may, there is no doubt that Tirso wished us to believe, with Catalinón, that Don Juan “a Doña Ana no debía / honor, que lo oyeron antes / del engaño” (2847-49).

Notes

1. Vicente Cabrera, “Doña Ana's Seduction in El burlador de Sevilla,” B Com, 26 (1974) 49-51, concludes that Don Juan succeeded in seducing Doña Ana, whilst Luis González-del-Valle, “Doña Ana's Seduction in El burlador de Sevilla: A Reconsideration,” B Com, 30 (1978), 42-45, holds the opposite view. For the position adopted by other critics, see the introductory paragraphs to these two articles.

2. I quote from the edition of El burlador de Sevilla y convidado de piedra by Joaquín Casalduero (Madrid: Cátedra, 1977).

3. pp. 42-43.

4. p. 50.

5. Gerald E. Wade in “Hacia una comprensión del tema de Don Juan y El burlador,” RABM, 77 (1974), 665-708, noted that in order to understand the character of Don Juan we must look at his actions rather than at his words (p. 687).

6. See Rosina D. Navarrete, “Don Juan: el impulso destructor,” B Com, 21 (1969), p. 47: “Y no nos referimos solamente al daño moral de destruir el buen nombre de una mujer; sino al material, al goce de ser testigo de la pena fisica en su víctima.”

7. “Social Criticism in El burlador de Sevilla,” Theatre Research International, New Series, II, no. 3 (1977), 197-221. The quote is on page 211.