Mummy's boy : Don Juan in the modern Spanish and Spanish-American novel

• Main Author: Shephard, Marion
• Published: Birkbeck (University of London) 2002
• Subjects: 863; Literature
• Online Access: http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.271032

The four main thesis novels are Alas's La Regenta (1884), Gald6s's Fortunata y Jacinta (1886-7), Puig's Boquitas pintadas (1969) and Cabrera Infante 's La Habana para un infante difill1to (1979). Specific criteria for the Don Juan novel are drawn up and seducers not fulfilling the prerequisites of the attractive, vain, sexually potent, deceitful and diabolically impious Don Juan rejected. Classical literature ( myths of Zeus, satyr stories, Ovid's AI'S AlI1atoria) and early Spanish ballads concerning irreverent gallants are posited as influences on the Don Juan legend. The two key plays are Tirso de Molina's EI bur/adOJ' de Sevilla (1630) and Zorrilla's Don Juan Tenorio (1844). Other sources include Don Juan works by Zamora, Espronceda, Moliere, Shadwell, Byron, Lenau, Shaw, Mozart and Sh'auss and the memoirs of Casanova. The progression is h'aced from the early Don Juan plays, in which the seducer's father is the sole parental presence, to the novel, in which Don Juan's domineering and adoring mother exercises a powerful influence on her son. Early classical mother figures such as Venus (Cupid), Liriope (Narcissus) and Jocasta (Oedipus) are analysed as her predecessors. The three main psychologists consulted regarding the seducer's umesolved Oedipus complex are Freud, Jung and Otto Rank. Other theorists include Maraft6n, Kierkegaard, Lafora, Brachfeld, Weinstein, Miller, Aramoni, Mandrell, Smeed and Kristeva. The thesis counterbalances the views of those who see Don Juan as immature, effeminate, melancholic or hysterical with others who consider him to be powerful, masculine, confident and eloquent, revealing the modern Don Juan to be a complex and multifaceted figure. The importance of the novels' musical themes is considered together with the different ways in which Don Juan is made to suffer in variations ofTirso's hellfire, The thesis demonstrates that, in spite of being metamorphosed into a mother's boy, Don Juan continues to wreak his infernal charm over author and audience alike.