It seems that Blanca should be happy about the chance to court her fiancé before marrying him. But she is actually unhappy about following through with the marriage. I believe the reason for this lies within the fact that in this relationship, Blanca feels like a commodity that has been promised to a stranger. She also might assume that once she and her fiancé marry, he will not try to love her because men are in love for the challenge of conquering women. Since she would already be “his,” she would become uninteresting to him automatically. Blanca is probably aware that true love cannot exist between them, and so, to gain a sense of control, she tries to learn to love through reason, not desire or emotion. She has to rationalize love by saying things such as “Before you buy merchandise like a dress or a jewel, you must always examine it first to determine…whether it pleases your taste” (246). What is interesting is that she is making him seem like a commodity instead of herself when she says that. The sonnet supports the idea that she feels objectified in this relationship. One line mentions “So long as I see myself in your eyes” which reminds me of our class discussion about men seeing their own reflections in the eyes of women. Of course, this meant that to men, love was more a form of self-love than actually caring about another person. Blanca knows she cannot enjoy a relationship like this.
Gossip can serve to validate or justify certain beliefs because it is a way to find others who will agree with you about something or somebody. It is also a way to scrutinize others and force them to obey the status quo (like the code of honor) because if they don’t, they will be rejected or punished. So in general, speech is a way for individuals, and sometimes, entire communities, to achieve an underlying motive(s). For instance, in the story, Clavela uses her power of speech to anger Alonso because her motive is to punish Mencía for being the center of Enrique’s affections. We have control over our words in a sense because we use them to persuade others. To do that, we have to choose just the right combination of meaning. Although we were all born using words with preexisting significance, we do understand different meanings and manipulate them. We see the power of speech on page 277 when the messenger convinces Mencía to love Enrique, be disgusted with her brother and father; on page 283 with Clavela; and on page 294 when Marco Antonio convinces Alonso to kill Ana. These different passages seem to exemplify how speech plays on insecurities as well.
It is surprising that a female would be the perpetrator of all the death and destruction instead of a male. After thinking about it, I believe that Zayas was attempting to accomplish a few things. One is to reinforce the idea that through their deception and vice toward women, men have taught the skill to them. It is not just Florentina who deceives, but also her maid. But if women learn to deceive from men’s deceptions, then men are also to blame for the havoc women wreak using this craft. Another goal of Zayas’ could be to exemplify the perfect nobleman in Gaspar. He never tries to force Florentina into loving him, and he rescues her, helps her even though she caused many deaths. This seems likely when, after telling the story, Lisis asserts that true noblemen, like Gaspar, are kind, generous, and protect women.
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