Alarcon's La verdad sospechosa: Meaning and Didacticism

he entered his successful career as a lover and sinner. At this point a question arises. Why is it important to prove that Doña Ana was indeed seduced? First, because her seduction contributes to the formal unity of the work in the sense that the consistency of Don Juan's personality and behavior is thus maintained. Also by maintaining this consistency, the effect of his one and only failure—that is when he confronts Don Gonzalo—is maximized, and the existence and significance of poetic justice is reinforced. The more successful and therefore overconfident Don Juan is portrayed in life, the more prominent, fitting, and inevitable his only failure becomes. NOTES 1 M. L. Radoff and W. C. Salley, "Notes on the Burlador," Modern Language Notes (April, 1930), p. 244. 2 Bruce W. Wardropper, "El Burlador de Sevilla: A Tragedy of Errors," Philological Quarterly (January, 1957), p. 70. 3 A. A. Parker, The Approach to the Spanish Drama of the Golden Age, Diamante VI ( London , 1957), p. 13. a 4 Duncan Moir, "Tirso de Molina" in Edward M. Wilson and Duncan Moir, The Golden Age Drama: 1492-1700 (London, 1971), p. 89. 5 A. A. Parker, dealing with the concept of poetic justice, writes, "The most severe punishment is damnation, consignment to hell. This is rare, but it occurs in two famous plays by Tirso de Molina El Burlador de Sevilla and El condenado por desconfiado. It indicates, of course, that the evil in question has been so great and so deliberate that there are no extenuating circumstances to redeem it." Parker, p. 7. ^&x*j^^ ALARCÓN'S LA VERDAD SOSPECHOSA: AND DIDACTICISM MEANING John G. Morton, Indiana University The nature of the resolution of Juan Ruiz de Alarcón's fine comedy, La verdad sospechosa, has long interested students of his theater. The liar, Don Garcia, is a thoroughly likable character although he is brash and misguided in his actions, and he is punished, for as the play ends he is bound irrevocably in matrimony to a girl not of his choosing . His final discomfiture is a punishment which some critics find to be too severe to be warranted by Don Garcia's "crime."1 Still other critics find the resolution to be a satisfactory one; the crime is so serious that the severity of the punishment is proper.2 The prevalent critical focus, however, has been on the crime-punishment thematic pattern. The implication of this focus and the logical extension of it is that Alarcón is a moralist who, in this comedy, explores the problem of moral insufficiency, specifically , lying.3 Such an interpretation of the meaning of La verdad, sospechosa is indeed supported by the dramatic events as well as by rhetoric of the play. The crime-punishment thematic pattern is obviously represented in the dramatic activity, and the concluding commentary of the gracioso (Act III, scene xiv)4 underscores verbally this aspect. Yet an interpretation of the play which focuses on the frustrated liar motif fails to account for a second strong thematic statement which is found in it, one which not only enriches our understanding of Alarcón's view of his main character but also reveals a didactic concern which is more complex than 51 previously thought. The purpose of this paper, then, is to show that Alarcón's didactic interest is by no means limited to the moral problem involving the liar, but that the play reveals a concern with a larger question. While in a sense the issue involves education,5 specifically the issue which Alarcón explores is the function of reason in the difficult passage from youth to maturity. The essential qualities of Don Garcia 's character are established early in the comedy in the very explicit expository scene (Act I, scene i) in which the young man's mentor from Salamanca in effect "turns over" the son to the father. The salient qualities are attractive ones. He is a likable young man, so much so that the mentor—if we accept his hyperbole—finds it painful to relinquish his charge. In his words, "a quien tanto amor cobré/ que no sé cómo podré/ vivir sin...