Posted by Victoria Melnikova on March 09, 192003 at 17:00:23:
Los pastores
The striking thing about “Los pastores” is a combination of elements that may seem somewhat imcompatible. While the major theme of the play is religious - the shepherds’ offering of gifts to Christ, in terms of character presentation (the main characters are singing and dancing shepherds who display their generosity, wit, and closeness to nature, as well as talk about love) and overall structure (a pilgrimage; a neoplatonic view of the world) it is a pastoral. These two motifs (ecclesiastic and pastoral) are quite in line with each other, given a strong religious undertone of the pastoral in general (Christ as the shepherd, mankind as the sheep who need guidance). What I did find peculiar though is the way some other elements, as minor as they are, coexist. On the one hand, the play is heavy on its religious agenda. One of its major constituents is the dramatic confrontation between the good and evil (angel Michael and Lucifer), which is full of pathos. At the same time, we see how the shepherds namely, Cucharón, also defy Lucifer, but in a quite different manner. Cucharón’s use of “equívoco” (when he pretends not to understand who Lucifer is referring to as Messiah) is a device widely favored by Baroque courtly comedies, and is also common in the folk tradition (cf. Gueguense). It might be typical for this context, too, but I have difficulty recalling any work where the devil would be teased and treated in such a jocular manner, especially since this episode is juxtaposed to the quite more “serious” duel between the demon and the angel.
Perhaps, the character I found most fascinating in “Los pastores” is actually Lucifer. Which is not surprising, given that “the bad” character is always more enticing than the good one. What makes Lucifer a complicated figure in this what seems to be a “mainstream” religious play, is the fact that his inner world is exposed to us more than that of any other character in the play. His suffering, his ambitions and pride that made him fall, his quest for freedom and identity (“I scarcely know myself, so lost!”) make him a kind of a Romantic hero. A devil, he almost invites for compassion! In terms of performance, in the scene of Lucifer’s and the angel’s encounter, the former seems to occupy the central place as well.
Los Comanches
As Sandra Dahlberg comments, there are no clear religious motifs or even safety considerations accompanying the Spaniards’ extermination of the Comanche tribe. The reference of Don Carlos Fernández to Cuerno Verde, the leader of the Comanches, as “this untutored savage beast”, as well as many other references to the Indians as wild, savage people, reminded me of Sarmiento’s dichotomy “civilización vs. barbarie.” However, in this case, the Spaniards are not even driven by the desire to annihilate “the other” as somebody unknown and therefore dangerous, but by pure greed.
I am not sure if I completely agree with Dahlberg’s analysis of the conflations present in the play, i.e. two Comanche leaders becoming one, and the merge of two Spanish military commanders. With respect to the latter, Dahlberg argues that “the conflation of Fernández and Anza effectively amounts to a literary censure of Anza’s punitive policies by deliberately denying Anza the honorable recognition usually accorded a successful military leader.” Without denying the validity of this argument, I also think that the author synthesized the characters in order to achieve a higher degree of dramatic tension. With only one leader on each side, the confrontation between the Spaniards and the Indians seems to follow the chivalric cannons, according to which a duel between two leaders could decide the outcome of the battle. Indeed, Cuerno Verde throws the glove, and Fernández accepts the challenge, while other participants in the battle follow their leaders’ decisions:
“Plan your battle, give your orders,
We shall follow where you go.”
I was also disturbed by the anticlimactic ending of the play. The carnivalesque final scene is in stark contrast with the pathos of the preceding lines. The question I ask myself is why Cuerno Verde’s death - something that could be a both logical and dramatic conclusion,- is not shown. An obvious answer is that there is no triumph of good over evil, since the New Mexicans are no heroes, and the Comanches are not as bad as the Spanish militiamen would want them to be. To provoke a strong sympathy for the Indians could not have been a viable option for political reasons. Thus, we are left with a sense of emptiness, which could suggest the author’s disillusionment with the conquest. The honorable cause of the conversion campaign is canceled by the character of Barriga Duce, whose greed, gluttony, and lack of compassion place into doubt the religious and moral integrity of the proselytizers. The lack of such integrity is symbolized by the “hueco” at the end of the play.