[In the following essay, González-del-Valle argues that Doña Ana was not seduced by Don Juan in El burlador de Sevilla, observing that to interpret the play otherwise would call its moral and thematic unity into question.]

For a number of years there has been a controversy concerning Doña Ana's seduction by Don Juan in Tirso de Molina's El Burlador de Sevilla. Among those critics who do not think Don Juan was successful in the consummation of the sexual act with Doña Ana are M. L. Radoff and W. C. Salley,¹ Juan Villegas Morales,² Bruce W. Wardropper,³ Francisco Fernández-Turienzo,⁴ and Joaquín Casalduero.⁵ The opposite view is held by such scholars as A. A. Parker,⁶ Duncan Moir,⁷ and Vicente Cabrera.⁸ In this essay I will reexamine Doña Ana's disputed seduction and attempt to arrive at conclusions true to the play, conclusions not founded upon preconceptions as to what El Burlador de Sevilla should mean.

To determine if Doña Ana was seduced by Don Juan, one must study the two passages that are directly concerned with this matter in the play:

ANA:
¡Falso! no eres el Marqués,
Que me has engañado.
D. Juan:
Digo
Que lo soy.
ANA:
¡Fiero enemigo,
Mientes, mientes!
Sale Don Gonzalo con la espada desnuda.
D. Gon.:
La voz es
De Doña Ana la que siento.
ANA:
¿No hay quien mate este traidor,
Homicida de mi honor?

(verses 1562-68)⁹

D. Juan:
—A tu hija no ofendí;
Que vió mis engaños antes.

(verses 2762-63)

In the first quotation Ana declares Don Juan the killer of her honor and states that he has deceived her. These statements tend to support the interpretation of Parker, Moir and Cabrera, even though they lack precision (after all, Don Juan was deceiving Doña Ana by simply making her believe that he was El Marqués de la Mota; her honor, by the same token, was placed in jeopardy by Don Juan's presence in her home during the night). However, the second speech contradicts their interpretation and the apparent meaning of the first example as Don Juan tells Don Gonzalo of Doña Ana's purity before his death at the hands of the Comendador.

The contradiction I am speaking of is studied by Professor Cabrera, who concludes that “it is necessary to understand exactly how Don Juan, in vain, seeks a way to triumph or at least to escape” (p. 50) in his final confrontation with Don Gonzalo. To Cabrera, one should not use Don Juan's affirmation of Doña Ana's unblemished condition (as did Radoff, Salley and Wardropper), for these were the words of a desperate man seeking mercy at the hands of an enemy, a man whose basic characteristic has been treachery and who

would be expected (to maintain the consistency of his personality and behavior) to lie and deceive once again. Precisely because of the moral nature of this scene, Tirso wants Don Juan to rely blindly on his habitual tendency to lie so that his fall will loom larger and have more moral impact. Besides, Don Juan, in this scene, is still so confident in the success of his ability to lie that he thinks Don Gonzalo will let it pass unchallenged. Don Juan is, then, the victim of his own overconfidence in his deceiving nature. This overconfidence blinds him and prevents him from seeing that he cannot lie to Don Gonzalo. In this respect Don Juan may be seen entering death through the gate of engaño, the same gate through which he entered his successful career as a lover and sinner.

(pp. 50-51)

Professor Cabrera's views attempt to make Don Juan's final words comply with the overall moral meaning of the play by showing him a deceiver to the last instant. However, this interpretation fails to consider fundamental aspects of El Burlador de Sevilla and could lead us to a misconception about Tirso's moral commitment.

As A. A. Parker has indicated, throughout the play we have seen Don Juan disrupting social order not only with his seduction but with those “hideous” deeds that aggravate them, namely, his treachery toward Octavio and Mota, his abuse of the law of hospitality, and his profanation of a sacrament (pp. 48-49).¹⁰ These disruptions end with Don Juan's death and with the King of Castile, as preserver of harmony, ordering the marriages of Isabela and Octavio, Tisbea and Gaseno, Ana and Mota, and Aminta and Batricio (verses 2856-59). The men involved accept unanimously the king's command, well aware of the previous activities of their wives-to-be. Thus, Octavio feels that he can Marry Isabela now because she is the widow of Don Juan (verses 2860-61);¹¹ Mota, after listening to Catalinón tell how Don Juan exonerated Doña Ana (verses 2851-55), is happy to marry her; while the two men lacking formal nobility, Batricio and Gaseno, will marry without pausing to justify or qualify their decision as Octavio and Mota did.¹²

The moral purpose behind the application of poetic justice to achieve order in the cosmos requires the marriages of the four couples, marriages in which, as noted before, the men are aware of the activities of their spouses. To have Mota marry Doña Ana under the false impression that she was not seduced by Don Juan, as is suggested by Parker, Moir and Cabrera, will introduce deceit into the outcome of El Burlador de Sevilla (a moral evil not favored by Tirso, as is seen in the punishment given to Don Juan). It is illogical for social order to exist as a result of a misrepresentation of factual reality.

Other reasons beyond the illogical use of deceit to restore harmony prevent me from accepting the view that Doña Ana was seduced by Don Juan. For instance, it is Catalinón who informs the king and those surrounding him of Doña Ana's purity. This is significant on two counts. First, since Catalinón was confidant of Don Juan, he was fully aware of his master's evil nature,¹³ and as such would not have taken his words concerning Doña Ana seriously had they been untrue. Second, Professor Fred Abrams has shown that Catalinón “acts as a kind of spokesman for the Church and constantly preaches or ‘parrots’ to Don Juan in order to bring him to his senses. …”¹⁴ In view of Catalinón's knowledge of Don Juan and his function in the play, his words concerning Doña Ana give strength to the belief that she was not seduced by Don Juan.¹⁵

The significance of whether Doña Ana was or was not seduced by Don Juan is great in the overall evaluation of El Burlador de Sevilla. If my interpretation is correct, the play is successful in the presentation of a moral doctrine; if not, the thematic unity of El Burlador de Sevilla will be in question. The fact is that Don Juan tried to seduce Doña Ana and that from a moral point of view his purpose, as Don Gonzalo states (verses 2764-65), is sufficient to condemn him. Perhaps the interpretation suggested by Parker, Moir and Cabrera adds dramatic intensity to the work, but it goes against existing evidence in the play. We must remember that “El Burlador, como cualquier obra de arte, se analiza desde sí misma.”¹⁶

Notes

1. “Notes on the Burlador,” Modern Languages Notes, 45 (1930), pp. 242-44.

2. “La Doctrinal de El Burlador de Sevilla y Convidado de Piedra,” Anales de la Universidad de Chile, 118, 3rd Series (1958), p. 96, note 12.

3. “El Burlador de Sevilla: A Tragedy of Errors,” Philological Quarterly, 36 (January 1957), pp. 70-71.

4. “El Burlador: Mito y Realidad,” Romanische Forschungen, 86 (1974), pp. 291-92.

5. Contribución al estudio del tema de Don Juan en el teatro español (Madrid: José Porrúa Turanzas, S.A., 1975), pp. 22-24.

6. “The Approach to the Spanish Drama of the Golden Age,” Tulane Drama Review, 4 (1959-1960), pp. 48-49.

7. “Tirso de Molina,” in Edward M. Wilson and Duncan Moir's Historia de la Literatura Española. Siglo de Oro: Teatro (1942-1700), translated by Carlos Pujos (Barcelona: Editorial Ariel, 1974), pp. 147-149.

8. “Doña Ana's Seduction in El Burlador de Sevilla,” Bulletin of the Comediantes, 26 (1974), pp. 49-51.

9. Fray Gabriel Téllez (“Tirso de Molina”), El Burlador de Sevilla, in Diez Comedias del Siglo de Oro, 2nd edition. Ed. by José Martel, Hymen Alpern and Leonard Mades (New York: Harper and Row Publishers, 1968). All references to the work are made parenthetically in the text.

10. As F. Fernández-Turienzo has proven, Don Juan's crimes transcend the distruption of such order. By explicitly or implicitly invoking God as a witness when he seduces Isabela, Tisbea, and Aminta, Don Juan is rebelling against his creator (pp. 278-285). Do note that no such invocation exists with Doña Ana.

11. The king had decided that Isabela should marry Don Juan (verses 2495-2500).

12. Perhaps the low origin of these men justifies their lack of concern.

13. Catalinón's knowledge of Don Juan's evil traits is documented throughout the play (see verses 684-686, 878-913, 1272-81, 1349-53, and 1759-80).

14. “‘Catalinón’ in The Burlador de Sevilla: Is He Tirso de Molina?,” Hispania, 50 (1967), p. 473.

15. Fernández-Turienzo approaches the question of Don Juan lying to Don Gonzalo from a different angle and comes to conclusions similar to mine. To him, it is inconceivable to have Don Juan, a man fully aware of his nature and responsibility, reject his personality by seeking to find false extenuating circumstances to his misdeeds. That is why Don Juan can tell Don Gonzalo that he has not offended his daughter. He can say this because it is true and not because Don Juan, for fear of death, is lying about himself (p. 291).

16. Fernández-Turienzo, p. 284. I wish to express my gratitude to the Faculty Research Award Committee of Kansas State University for providing me with grants that have aided in the preparation of this study.