Roderigo protests that he would rather marry a beautiful woman whom he saw watching the play, a woman he does not recognise as Clara, his victim. Fernando agrees, if Roderigo can persuade her.
After the marriage, Fernando has one more surprise for Roderigo, when he tells him 'Thy wife's a wanton' and accuses him of having committed some terrible sin to deserve this.
Under the onslaught of Fernando's cross-examination, Roderigo breaks down and confesses:. Turn from me then, And as my guilt sighes out this monster, rape, Oh, do not lend an ear! Like a skilful psychotherapist, Fernando has got the subject to confront his guilt, and further, brings him to acknowledge what remedy he should have made: 'Oh!
That Roderigo's cure is complete is testified to by his reply: 'How can I turn mine eyes and not behold On every side my shame? Middleton and Rowley have substantially re-written Cervantes's text to make it say many of the things we might want it to say, but which it pointedly does not say. At the same time, they have stripped the novela of much of its core symbolism. This is hardly surprising, since they were writing for a particular audience within a protestant context.
Prince Charles was a follower of William Laud and the new 'High Church', Arminian theology; in this theology, images and ceremony were acceptable to enhance the dignity of the communion service. The crucifix which Clara takes from Roderigo's bedroom would not have been problematic. But a preference for decoration in churches should not be mistaken for a rejection of protestant doctrine: the Church of England was still a Church which attached paramount importance to the Word rather than to images, and which put responsibility for its salvation on the individual soul rather than on any intercessionary.
An important text was St Paul's Epistle to the Romans , which is particularly strong on repentance and says in the second chapter:. But after thy hardness and impenitent heart [thou] treasurest up unto thyself wrath against the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgement of God; Who will render to every man according to his deeds: To them who by patient continuance in well doing seek for glory and honour and immortality, eternal life: But unto them that are contentious, and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, indignation and wrath, Tribulation and anguish, upon every soul of man that doeth evil.
This, surely, was a strong encouragement to penitence, and one with which any English protestant would have been familiar. The cultural framework in which Middleton and Rowley were writing required self-knowledge as a way to repentance and was keen on retribution and punishment: this was a society in which the sermon, the homily and biblical exposition were woven into the fabric of life, and collections of sermons were best-sellers.
As Patrick Collinson notes. The Bible was not a straitjacket but a rich and infinitely varied source of imaginative and formal inspiration. In this society, Roderigo has to take responsibility for his actions: it is part of the confessional culture in which he is created. Cervantes, however, is writing for a different culture, one in which intercession is still possible and blood representing Christ's sacrifice can in itself be redemptive. For Cervantes, then, it is sufficient to rely on the pattern of events to bring about a satisfactory ending to his story, which one might view as a hagiography of Leocadia rather than a study of Rodolfo's conscience, of justice achieved through the patterning of events rather than the development of character.
It is notable that, in bringing about the remorse and confession in Roderigo which we think we want from Cervantes, Middleton and Rowley move the focus of the play from the wronged woman to the man who wronged her.
For the English playwrights the man is at the centre of our vision and it is a story of a troubled conscience. For Cervantes, however, it is the woman who is in focus and the story is of her courage and virtue. A comparison between Cervantes's La fuerza de la sangre and Middleton and Rowley's The Spanish Gipsy shows two things: first, that it is not at all anachronistic for a modern reader to respond indignantly to Rodolfo's behaviour and attitudes, because some of Cervantes's contemporaries clearly did the same to the extent that they felt the need to 'correct' the lack of remorse shown by Rodolfo by creating their own character, Roderigo, who does demonstrate that remorse; and second, Cervantes's provocative lack of interest in the question of Rodolfo's conscience shows that, for him, Leocadia is at the centre of his interest, not Rodolfo.
What is challenging about La fuerza de la sangre is that it presents its readers with a series of deafening silences and asks them to interpret those silences in terms of what else is said.
The absences from the story throw into relief what is there but which could easily be overlooked. It is intriguing to note, for example, how Cervantes frames the story of La fuerza de la sangre with multiple references to the family. The story opens with Leocadia's family returning to Toledo from the riverside on a warm summer night. The sixteen-year-old girl is Leocadia, but who is the little boy? Is he her brother? And why does Cervantes emphasise the father's age?
This is a family which is particularised with great care: the father is quite old, the eldest child appears to be the girl, and there appears to be a son who is quite a bit younger, and who never appears in the story again. Why is he there, and why that age gap? Were there other children who did not survive?
Is he an afterthought? Cervantes appears to underline the link by using the diminutive ending '-ico' for Leocadia's brother and son. For as Adriana Slaniceanu reminds us, 13 revenge in matters of honour is traditionally the role of the brother. Leocadia has a brother, but he is conspicuously absent, by virtue of his age if nothing else, from the stage on which this drama will be acted out. This is clearly a story, Cervantes seems to be saying, in which the wronged woman will have to fend for herself.
If Leocadia is to bring about her own retribution, she makes a very promising start. Both the reasoned arguments with which she meets and fends off Rodolfo's attempts to repeat his assault, and the 'discreet design' with which she removes the crucifix, point in one direction: honour and vengeance.
At the very moment in which she is raped she appears to understand that the only way she is going to be able to right the wrong done to her is to take deep cover within the patriarchal social system, and bide her time. Don't get mad, she seems to say to herself; get even. This also appears to be the message she receives from her father when she is reunited with her family.
Critics have often commented on the enlightened reception she is given. Far from disowning her, or throwing her out, which might have been the expected responses, her loving father teaches her two lessons, one soft and one hard. On the one hand he tells her quite rightly that she has committed no sin 'ni en dicho, ni en pensamiento, ni en hecho' and so has lost no private honour.
It is difficult to know whether this is wisdom, complacency or a world-weary acceptance that people of their social rank could not expect justice in these circumstances. We have constantly to remind ourselves that words like 'honra' which are apparently so glibly bandied about in the literature of the time are merely euphemistic shorthand for this socio-economic fact of life.
This was a society which was obsessed by the transmission of property through legitimate patrilinial descent, a society defined by mayorazgo. And the high value placed on legitimacy placed an equally high value on the virginity of an unmarried woman.
In La fuerza de la sangre , Cervantes graphically reveals the sordid reality of honour and its loss. Robbed of her virginity, Leocadia is literally worthless within the patriarchal system.
And her attendant loss of identity is intensified when she gives birth, and her son is sent away to be fostered until he can be passed off as a nephew.
Leocadia cannot be identified as a mother, nor Luis as her son. It is easy for the reader, who is present at both the conception and the birth, to overlook this fact.
In some ways, then, there were two crimes committed by Rodolfo when he raped Leocadia: he not only took away her personal, physical integrity but also her sense of self in a social context. She ceased to be the person she once was. In this respect, Leocadia is like a number of Cervantine women who are the victims of a crime which takes away their identity. These are all reworkings of a very common narrative structure in Cervantes, the narrative of captivity and redemption, in which a character is abducted, stolen or otherwise misplaced geographically, culturally or socially, lives their life as another person, and is eventually 'redeemed' or repatriated back into their proper place.
Examples can be found throughout Cervantes's work: in Persiles y Sigismunda the three 'mediterranean' narratives in Book I , and in Don Quijote , where the Captive's tale I.
The importance of the captivity narrative in early modern culture has been underlined by the English historian Linda Colley. The prevalence of this narrative type is undoubtedly a function of the high probability that early modern Europeans would find themselves captive at some time in their lives.
Colley estimates that some 20, British and Irish captives were held in North Africa between the beginning of the seventeenth century and the mid eighteenth-century p. Cervantes's experience as a prisoner in Algiers was by no means exceptional. But what is striking about this phenomenon is not the number of people taken captive, but the number who wrote about the experience, which was clearly a formative one for many of them. But in spite of his defensive measures, a bold youth succeeds in penetrating the fortress of conjugal honour; and one day Carrizales surprises his wife in the arms of her seducer.
Surprisingly, he pardons the adulterers, recognizing that he is more to blame than they, and dies of sorrow over the grievous error he has committed. Cervantes here deviated from literary tradition, which demanded the death of the adulterers; but he transformed the punishment inspired, or rather required, by the social ideal of honour into a statement on the responsibility of the individual.
Castiglione, Baldasarre. El cortesano. Madrid: Saturnino Calleja, Cervantes, Miguel de. La fuerza de la sangre. Clamurro, William H. New York: Peter Lang, Ignacio Arellano and Rafael Zafra. Madrid: Iberoamericana, El Saffar, Ruth. Novel to Romance. A Study of Cervantes's Novelas Ejemplares.
Baltimore: John Hopkins UP, Fernie, Ewan. Shame in Shakespeare. London: Routledge, Forcione, Alban K. Princeton: Princeton UP, Gitlitz, David M. Studies in Honor of Everett W. McCrary, J. Madrigal, and J. Guevara, Antonio de. Hainsworth, George. Paris: Champion, Howe, Elizabeth T. Forum for Modern Language Studies 30 : Huarte de San Juan, Juan. Examen de ingenios para las ciencias. Esteban Torre. Madrid: Editora Nacional, Ife, Barry W. Kartchner, Eric J. Romance Languages Annual 9 : Konstan, David.
Toronto: U of Toronto P, Lappin, Anthony. Levisi, Margarita. Lewis-Smith, Paul. Modern Language Review 91 : Collective Guilt: International Perspectives. Nyla Branscombe and Bertjan Doosje. McKendrick, Melveena. Mujica, Barbara. Hispania 62 : Parker Aronson, Stacey L. Cervantes Hispanic Review 70 : Piluso, Robert V.
Hispania 47 : He died on April 23, Cervantes had a profound influence on the Spanish language. The manga adaptation was created by Variety Art Works, a manga production studio noted for sales topping 2. Convert currency. Add to Basket. Blue U Book Description Paperback. Condition: New.
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