The Burlador and the Burlados: A Sinister Connection

Two popular views of El burlador de Sevilla are that it is a misogynic work and that the relationship between the burlador and the burlados is that of victimizer and victim. This essay takes issue with both these views.

First, through a psychoanalytical study of the burlados, the figures in the play most hostile to and suspicious of women, it establishes that rather than extolling or defending misogyny the work exposes this reaction to women as a pathological aberration. Second, it argues that the relationship between Don Juan and the men he cuckolds, contrary to appearances and traditional understanding, is not that of victimizer and victim. Instead. Burlador and burlados are two halves of a misogynic configuration, with Don Juan's pointless humiliations of the women attached to these men expressing their baseless distrust of women generally, and of these females in particular. (RC)