reflections at the end of the day

Having read a couple of passages from these authors before taking this course, it was satisfying to re-encounter them and read them fully within their literary context, along a continuum of evolving philosophical, political, and moral positions about the Americas. It was interesting how the Spaniards attempted to reconcile their identity with that of their newfound "other" and how no matter how much benevolence was shown towards the indigenous people, it always came with notions of superiority and thoughts on how to make them useful to the Spanish Crown. Cabeza de Vaca and Las Casas were deeply faithful to the king, no matter how much havoc was wreaked by his forces in the Americas. We discussed the hegemonic power that the Spaniards sought to exert over the indigenous people, by preaching God to them and teaching them European practices and habits, but what of the Spanish government over its own people, as to convince them of the legitimacy of a nation-building project that enslaves a continent of fellow human beings. Ideology proves to be a more powerful force in certain circumstances than compassion for others or repulsion to extreme violence.

We also saw a new national consciousness arising in colonial Mexico through the texts. It is interesting that the idea of performance and the manipulation of words are prominent here. Both Sor Juana and Lizardi had some scathing criticisms of their contemporary society, but it could only be said through a veil of carefully constructed language. Both of them described utopic alternatives to their current realities; Sor Juana dreamed of a society governed by reason rather than prejudice and trivialities, where mental quality not gender determined the opportunities open to one in life, and Lizardi hoped that Mexico would be ruled by responsible people who were from that land and personally invested in its healthy development, rather than an imposed and inadequate Spanish government. I liked how none of our readings were exactly representative of their genre, but they reveal a great deal about the times in which they were written, through how they decry injustice and stupidity, call for reason and morality, omit certain subjects and favor others.

audaces fortuna juvat

What interests me most about this text is that el Periquillo Sarniento is not portrayed as an inherently flawed individual (prone to listlessness, irresponsibility, arrogance and deceitfulness) but instead as a mirror that reflects the hollow morality and lack of reason in colonial society. The protagonist reminds me of a kid who has just seen an authority figure doing something they shouldn't, and while this moment causes disillusionment it is also an invitation to anarchy, because the kid can say "If you do it then so can I."

El Periquillo Sarniento has seen that governors have merely an economic rather than personal connection to the land they govern and that doctors and lawyers don't even use or understand the books that line their library shelves - if they can pass off as respectable members of society then why can't he? The second half introduces us to the hypocritical professional class and the useless nobles who can't stand to work. The doctor for example is, ironically, an unhealthy fellow with a bulky stomach and no teeth, and he is also something of a thief. In reference to the doctor, the protagonist invokes the adage "quien roba al ladron..." which indicates that people must resort to their own morality, perhaps even a "natural" or divine morality, when the official one fails.

In the final part, when El Periquillo finds himself shipwrecked and has an interesting exchange with a Chinese man, there are various echoes from the first part, when he is relating his flawed upbringing. The other man says that citizens are poorly defended by hired soldiers (using the term "brazos alquilados" just like el Periquillo's childhood nurses) and that in his country every citizen is a soldier. This is one of the ways that Lizardi rejects the Spanish colonial government, by asking how Mexico can prosper if governed by those whose heart resides in another country and interests lie only in the accumulation of money and power. In the end it is not el Periquillo's fault that he is without knowledge or purpose, but that of society for allowing this to be so.

El Periquillo Sarniento

The first half of El Periquillo Sarniento was an amusing read as its hapless and irreverent protagonist gets into one calamity after another. The stories reminded me somewhat of Don Quixote in that they were short and more-or-less unrelated episodes in which the hero, or anti-hero, bumbles confidently into a situation he is not prepared for, risks his hide, then beats a hasty retreat on to the next misadventure. The difference is that one is a work of great literature about an ageing knight and the other is a novel about a young rouge that weaves moral preaching into bawdy and outrageous behavior. I wonder what audience this novel was intended for; it’s not aimed at highbrow readers but I don’t know who would have wanted to read a novel in which, as the editor says, “for every two or three pages of action there are twenty or thirty of moral digression.”

However, El Periquillo Sarniento serves us well as a historical text, for it tells us a great deal about Mexican society as it split off from Spain and grew into its own cultural entity. As we’ve been discussing in class, it was at this time that new social roles and racial identities were being negotiated, so it’s ideal that we read a novel in which the main character hops on and off a carousel of different trades and social positions. We also get a glimpse in what could have been common attitudes or popular knowledge of the day, like in the protagonist’s self-righteous account of his wayward upbringing. Here the protagonist links a person’s physical condition to his or her moral condition, which gives rise to all types of unfounded prejudices, and is deterministic in charting the progression from having sickly and vice-ridden nurses and being coddled as a child to turning out as an arrogant and lawless adult. Racial inequalities come through in this text as well, and it is clear by the authour’s language and the scenarios he creates that society was intensely stratified and marked by bigotry. For example, the protagonist boasts of his “limpia sangre” in the beginning of the novel and later describes making a brutal mess as a barber on “un pobre indio” as his second trial run after his first unsuccessful one on a dog.

A Room of One's Own

When I read Respuesta a la muy ilustre sor Filotea de la Cruz I was trying to get an idea of how Sor Juana perceived the world and see where her concerns fit into a long lineage of feminist thought. Then when I was reading her poems a comparison between Sor Juana and Virginia Woolf struck me, and I finished the reading with Woolf's famous essay "A Room of One's Own" in mind. Though this essay covers many topics, one of Woolf's main points is that "a woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction," in other words a woman must have financial autonomy and a personal space for creative self-realization.

For Sor Juana, the only avenue that led her to "A Room of One's Own" was in a convent, and she renounced the pleasures of society and the security of marriage in order to have this private space to do what she wished, which was to amass a library of books, conduct scientific experiments, challenge social boundaries through her writing, and essentially exercise her great mind. Woolf was very aware of the double standards that determined the lives of women and men by restricting the opportunities open to the former, and that as a result of this inequality many extremely intelligent women who could have contributed to the scientific and cultural world were left to languish in the long shadows cast by men. Woolf illustrates this fact with the Judith, Shakespeare's fictional sister, whose talents matched those of her brother but no doors were open to her by virtue of being a woman. This would have happened to Sor Juana had she not received money from benefactors she met at Court and been able to enter a convent that was liberal enough to permit her studies.

Interestingly, Woolf shares a number of rhetorical quirks with Sor Juana, such as their interest in exposing the prejudices of the reader and testing the capacity of language to convey the truth or form a web of lies. Like Woolf, Sor Juana presents a number of critiques on society, such as how sexual politics maneuver women into impossible situations in "Hombres necios que acusais" and how society puts too much emphasis on fleeting beauty over eternal wisdom in "En perseguirme, mundo ¿que interesas?" Sor Juana also expresses herself through parodies and half-truths, playing along with the invented "Sor Filotea" and pondering the relationship between language and truth. As Woolf says in her own piece "Lies will flow from my lips, but there may perhaps be some truth mixed up with them" and goes on to critically discuss the fictional university Oxbridge, a satirical hybrid of Oxford and Cambridge. If I knew both writers better I could probably draw more comparisons, but even so it fascinates that women from such diverse social contexts would have the same concerns with space and language.