Tirso's Don Juan and the Opposing Self

Abstract

TIRSO'S DON JUAN AND TUE OPPOSING SELF EVERETT W. HESSE San Diego State University Some years ago Otto Rank studied the psychological interdependence of master and servant in Mozart's opera Don Giovanni. 'He views the Don and his servant Leporello as a single psychological entity. In his role as confidant, companion and servant, Leporello makes all kinds of admonitions which Don Giovanni permits because he has need of him. What Rank has done for an understanding of the relationship between Don Giovanni and Leporello has prompted me to investigate whether a similar relationship exists between Don Juan and Catalinón in Tirso's El burlador de Sevilla. Don Juan and Catalinón may be regarded as characters completely distinct one from the other as separate individuals (like Don Quijote and Sancho ), or they may be considered from a psychoanalytic perspective as complementary parts of a unified whole. That is, they resemble two projections of the same human personage seen as two because they are out of focus, much like what happens when one looks through the lens of a camera and sees two images, images that have not been brought into focus as one. This concept is not made explicit by the author but is implied in the way each character reacts on the other. This reduction of two characters into one is therefore to be considered latent rather than manifest. Don Juan represents the id, the instinctual, appetitive nature of man. Catalinón stands for the superego in both of its principal capacities, that of a censoring conscience dictating abstinence and the idealistic ego which imposes honorable duties and noble standards of conduct.2 Don Juan and Catalinón thus may and do quarrel; in fact Don Juan strikes his servant across the mouth for his moralizing but nothing can undo the tie that binds them together. The burlador as protagonist, or as agonist, thus has his double in the person of the play's gracioso. As is conventional in the comedia, the gracioso is a subordinate character in some way attached to the protagonist as friend or attendant , one whose function it is, as a kind of double, to play a portion of the 4 Bulletin ofthe Comediantes composite role of the protagonist. This role as double is, during the more serious conflicts, that of an ironical buffoon. It is recalled that an oft-observed phenomenon of literature is its depiction of endopsychic conflict as of an interpersonal nature; the seemingly separate characters represent psychological forces at odds. There is apparent a kind of defense mechanism by which an individual separates a part of the self from that which he wishes to escape. Don Juan's refusal to accept an indivisible oneness of his personality may be a part of his attempt to flee that aspect of it that fears the consequences of his being caught and thereby of terminating his pleasure. This is part of the self in Don Juan which he finds detestable in Catalinón and which he tries to exclude from his own personality. As Gerald E. Wade has pointed out in his edition of the play, the exact meaning of the name Catalinón has eluded commentators.5 It seems to connote a person lacking in courage, a fearful individual, a timid soul. It is an attribute which Don Juan detests, especially when Catalinón's warnings and advice would interfere with the master's pleasure. This gives rise to Don Juan's well-known response, «¡Qué largo me lo fiáis!» (905). Don Juan implies that he has no fear of carrying out his plan to seduce women because of his «condici ón,» and concludes that «Catalinón con razón/ te llaman» (906-7). Catalinón timidly consents to his master's profligacy, but as for himself,«...en burlar mujeres/ quiero ser Catalinón» (908-9). Throughout El burlador de Sevilla one gets an impression of Don Juan's valor. Don Gonzalo too notices it, «valiente estás« (2709), at a point near the crisis. But a closer scrutiny reveals that Don Juan's valor is merely a façade behind which lurks an inner fear common to all...