Don Juan is a well-known legend and has featured in many literary and musical works. Such works include; Moliere’s play Dom Juan, ou Le Festin de pierre (1665), Mozart’s opera Don Giovanni (1787), Lord Byron’s unfinished poem Don Juan (1819-1824) and George Bernard Shaw’s Man and Superman (1903). The traditional depiction of Don Juan is that he is very arrogant and damned. However, in the passage discussed below, he is portrayed as a different person. He is described as a naïve, passive young and responsible young man who is being seduced, instead of being the seducer. In this passage, Don Juan is the narrator and has a very distinctive voice. He portrays himself as cynical and weary of the world. Most of the time, he does not agree with the story thus digresses a little bit. He stresses his age and deliberately makes the narrator a hero. He makes the readers think more about the story as he exploits the way the poem identifies with its creator. The form of the poem is mock-epic. Epics are usually long narrative poems about significant events or influential people. The dedication is lengthy, though it was suppressed in Byron’s own lifetime. This essay intends to explain the themes in this passage and their place in Spanish society at the time and as well as some analysis on the style of writing.

The main theme is the theme of Seduction; and here, men are brought out as individuals who seduce with looks, movements, gestures, voices, sounds and sighs, words of promises and even stories. Seduction involves a set of actions that are done jointly. They are never random gestures as this will not capture the wanted art of seduction. In Spanish culture, seduction should be done through culturally prescribed codes. Gestures or promises that are meant to seduce should be done in a certain order. It must follow a prescribed form, and a specific language should be used or else the seduction process will not succeed. Above all, for a seducer to succeed, he must persuade the audience, or else it will be considered that there is no seduction (Felman, S., 2003, 45).

Another theme is that of the law. The Spanish culture has a legal process whenever there is an infringement of promises. Such cases are usually prosecuted in church courts. For a suit to be instituted, a certain formula had to be followed and it merely involved copying the complaint word by word, filling in the names of the parties involved and filling in the name of the lawyer of the suit at the end of the petition. However, the Spanish law looked deeply at the sequence of events rather than the rhetorical tactics.  The passage reads, “The legal phrases reflect an explicit cultural construct of seduction, the conviction that sexual activity from a woman’s being deceived.”

Moreover, culture has been depicted in this passage. A cultural analysis, either done through history or sociology, has addressed questions of how and why and this is because,“cultural analysis deals with the motivations, emotional expectations, and systems of signification by which a whole or part of society understands itself. In colonial Spanish-American society, this entails understanding the cultural dynamic of mutual emotional expectations intervening in the process labelled seduction.”  Due to large instances of illiteracy in Spanish culture societies, the emotions of men and women are very scarce. Also, the culture stated that for a woman to be seduced, they must be a virgin (Wright, S.,2012, 234).

The theme of emotion analysis can also be seen. This theme shows how the art of seduction and romance is largely related to women due to the vast contemporary culture of the “female sphere.” However, the art of temptation in the Hispanic culture is mostly related to men as it is seen that seduction is an action of men to women. Even the church officials in Mexico had labelled the men’s behaviour as ‘seduction.’ Emotional suasion can also be seen when the writer explains it in terms of courtship. Courtship automatically qualifies the art of seduction, and in case of any breach of any of the promises, the man will be liable to the court church.  The Spanish people acknowledge and significantly embrace emotional vulnerability by declaring their desire to marry, unlike other cultures.

There is also the theme of religion. In the passage, church and religion have been mentioned several times. The writer acknowledges the fact that cases are solved at the church courts. There is also an acknowledgement that lawyers stay in the church. The passage reads, “Lawyers in Mexican church court pleas sometimes employed a set of related terms….” All that mattered in a church proceeding was showing that a promise existed before sexual relations occurred. Moreover, a woman asked Don Juan to pray to God so he will not lie and he replied, “Then pray to God lass, that I drown in water, so I end my life sane, and not die crazy for you.”

The theme of untrustworthiness is depicted when Don Juan was making promises to Tisbea. He says, “How can you ignore my loving conduct? You wrap my soul in your hair.” There and then, Tisbea promised him to be his wife and Juan too swore to be her husband. Tisbea, however, did not trust Juan’s words as she had been promised marriage before and it did not happen as she wished. Her first deceiver wrote, “I do not intend to deceive or trick you, but to marry you.” The passage goes on and states that Don Juan too, like the first man, was a deceiver. Again, this ended up with Don Juan killing the father of the girl he seduced from a noble family because the father had tried to avenge for his daughter(Novellino, M., 2006, 43).

The art of deception occurs later in the passage. Don Juan was almost leaving Duchess Isabella, the Queen’s lady-in-waiting after making love to her at the royal palace when the curtains rose. He had made a promise to her that he will keep his pledges towards her. In the seventeenth century, the question whose answer was yes was so unfamiliar compared to that of the English society. The problem is the unwritten but implicit question, “will you marry me?” and it is fully cross-cultural when translated in English. Deception occurs when the queen demands to know who Juan is and she started screaming for help. Juan’s face was illuminated by light as he remembers how he had confessed how he had deceived Isabella and therefore later enjoyed her. The deception is quoted, “‘I pretended to be Duke Octavio,’ Isabella’s intended.”

Also, politics is embraced in the passage. This was evident when there was a pursuit of the beautiful daughter of Mexico City baker in 1768. Here, similar kinds of the rendering of political standing and social status occurred in the litigation over seduction in Mexican church courts. While at it, the passage states that, “..I will send you documents, and a title from His Majesty.” This shows how the royal family was respected in the Hispanic culture.

Moreover, sexual relations are discussed too. Through seduction in the Hispanic culture, sexual relations are involved followed by a promise to marry, and this is usually considered a lawful contract. In the formula recommended by the significant Hispanic legal handbook, a breach of this contract is subject to a legal suit and statutory damages to the victim by the one who broke the promise. Good evidence usually involves a woman telling the church court that the seduction was initiated through a commitment. Males can do sexual relations leading to promised marriages on behalf of the third party. In the narrative, Dona Ana had been promised hand in marriage to someone she does not know and cares nothing for by the king of Castile.  Therefore, Dona Ana was not impressed and started looking for ways to prevent the marriage; she does not want to be in. She does this by seeking guidance from customarily employed couples.

The passage entails some styles of writing, and this refers to the form in which a writer brings out their thoughts. The elements that make up a writing style include things like; choice of words, descriptions, and creative devices. The techniques of writing used in the passage, therefore, include; narrative, expository, and descriptive.

At the start of the narrative, the writer used the expository style of writing. First, the author asks the question, ‘How do men seduce?’ Then he goes further and explains the process.  He goes ahead and states, “With looks, gestures, and movement, with voices, sighs, and sounds, with promises, words and stories. Seduction is not any one thing said, seen, or done, but a whole elaborately joined a set of scenes containing movement, sounds, and gestures.” This way of writing is expository because it is explaining about seduction, and how it comes about. In this excerpt, we can already see that the passage is about seduction (Yokota, T. et al., 1998, 456).

Descriptive writing has also been used so widely in the passage. This type of book is mostly poetic, describes places, people, situations, events, or situations in a highly detailed manner; and mostly uses adjectives. An example is, “Tomorrow you will put on your beautiful feet shoe ornaments of polished silver embellished with nails of gold from Africa, and imprison your alabaster throat with necklaces and rings on your fingers with settings of pearls so fine they appear translucent.” Don Juan was praising his woman by describing how she would dress the following day.

Narrative style has been used too. The main purpose of this style is to tell a story. There is often a creation of different characters and an explanation of what happens to them. In this story, there are some characters, from Ana to Tesbia. There are also some conversations quoted in the passage. Don Juan while conversing with Tesbia told Tesbia that he will marry her. Tesbia then told him to swear that he means it and Juan actually swore (Thieme, J., 1984, 75).

Generally, the narrative explains the art of seduction, especially in the Hispanic culture. Spanish men have embraced this art compared to the other nations. They believe that it is the work of the man to engage a woman in seduction. They even have rules on how to seduce and what exactly amounts to successful seduction. To them, once a woman has been successfully attracted, they are automatically sexually related to the man, and they will finally get married. Only virgin ladies are to be seduced. In case of breach of any promises by the man, there existed rules to be followed. One would be taken before the church court to explain themselves. In as much it was an adored art, there were challenges such as untrustworthiness among some men which greatly affected the lives of many women. While writing this passage, the writer mostly concentrated on three writing styles; narrative, descriptive and expository. These styles enhance the appearance and the understanding of the passage to the reader.

References

Felman, S., 2003. The scandal of the speaking body: Don Juan with JL Austin, or seduction in two languages. Stanford University Press. PP.45.

Novellino, M., 2006. The Don Juan syndrome: The script of the great losing lover. Transactional Analysis Journal, 36(1), pp.33-43.

Thieme, J., 1984. A Caribbean Don Juan: Derek Walcott’s Joker of Seville. Journal of Postcolonial Writing, 23(1), pp.62-75.

Wright, S., 2012. Tales of seduction: the figure of Don Juan in Spanish culture. IB Tauris. PP.234.

Yokota-Murakami, T. and Yokota, J., 1998. Don Juan East/West: on the problematics of comparative literature. SUNY Press. PP.456

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