To What Extent Is “El Médico De Su Honra” Principally A Play About Honour? Essay, Research Paper
??????????? Honour was one of the prominent issues in the
Spanish Golden Age dramas of which Calderón and Lope de
Vega were the main exponents. Indeed, the play is called a
“drama de honor”.? The very fact that Calderón
chose to include the word ‘honra’ in the title of the
play ‘El Médico de su Honra’ indicates that
indeed a certain element of honour must be present within. One
must find out whether honour is the principal cause of the play
or if other themes hold more importance.??? ??????????? In the “Diccionario de Autoridades”
– the first dictionary of the Spanish language,
“honor” is described as: ? “Se toma muchas veces por reputación y lustre
de alguna familia, acción u otra cosa…Se toma
assimismo por obsequio, apláuso o celebridad de alguna
cosa. Significa tambien la honestidad y recato en las
mugéres.” ? “Honra”, while interchangeable with
“honor” in many regards, has been said to impart
honour with a more interior connotation, as in “respect for
personal worth”: ? “Reverencia, acatamiento y veneración que se hace
á la virtúd, autoridad ò mayoría de
alguna persona…Significa tambien pundonór,
estimacion y buena fama, que se halla en el sujeto y debe
conservar…Se toma tambien por la integridad
virginál en las mugéres .” ? Despite using “honra” in the title,
Calderón uses “honor” far more frequently in
the play. In the first act, “honor” appears almost
exclusively and mostly refers to the honours of the women
Mencía and Leonor. In Act Two, Gutierre addresses his
honour as if it were a person: ? ?“¡Ay honor! Mucho tenemos que // hablar a solas
los dos” (1401) ? In terms of the whole play however, “honra” is
invoked with relative infrequency and usually as a synonym for
“honor”. It is safe to say that Calderón used
the former for variety and for purposes of rhyme and rhythm since
“honra” is stressed on the first syllable and
“honor” on the second. ?????? ??????????? Honour is often embodied, in ‘El
Médico de su Honra’ as social reputation by those
involved in it. The vast majority of the characters are of noble
birth; the King Don Pedro I, the ‘Infante’ Don
Enrique, Don Gutierre, Doña Mencía and Doña
Leonor. Perhaps it is Doña Leonor who, early on, sets the
climate which indicates the importance that honour will acquire.
She shows that she is a slave to public opinion and her
reputation. Thus arises her obsession to regain her honour which
was put in jeopardy when her lover, D. Gutierre, failed to marry
her “Diome palabra de que sería mi
esposo” and thus dishonoured her because of his
suspicions concerning her fidelity. Don Pedro, who is renowned
for being just in matters concerning honour, knows that
Doña Leonor’s grievance must surely be true, for she
dares to tell him of her dishonour in public: “Hablad
agora, porque si venisteis // de parte del honor, como
dijisteis,//? indigna cosa fuera //? que en público el
honor sus quejas diera”. ? Yet, despite her private desire for his
‘deshonra’, in public she keeps up appearances and
defends his name when confronted about him by Don Arias by
stating that he is “Un caballero que en todas las
ocasiones con obrar y con decir, sabrá muy bien cumplir en
sus obligaciones”. Importantly, it is seen via her
actions and also through those of other characters, namely Don
Gutierre and Doña Mencía that a passion for honour
is more important than love itself. ? Doña Mencía is an interesting character.
Throughout the play she struggles against her desire to restart
her love affair with Don Enrique who clearly is very willing for
this to happen. However, due to the fact that she is married,
although this may have been against her will, she remains
faithful: “Tuve amor y tengo honor”.
Ultimately perhaps she pays the price for her various acts of
imprudence, as envisioned via various small yet vital things that
she does, such as writing a letter to Don Enrique, only for Don
Gutierre to find it as the play reaches its climax. The letter
appears to condemn her actions and thus fuel Don Gutierre’s
rage even more, whereas in fact, had she been given the chance to
finish the letter, her actions would have been explained and
Gutierre would have seen that she was indeed still faithful to
him. ? Don Gutierre’s actions are dictated by the need to
uphold social reputation in the form of self-dignity; ultimately
honour. He is the character which relies most on the supposed
“injustice of dishonour” to justify his actions. He
could be described as “la encarnación la más
completa del sentimiento del honor en lo que tiene de irracional
y falso”. Thus, his actions are controlled by
honour/dishonour, and considering that ultimately his actions
shape the play, namely in dishonouring Doña Leonor paving
the way for her need to obtain justice and his suspicion in his
wife Doña Mencía being so great that he actually
cold-heartedly murders her, honour can be seen as the sole force
shaping the outcome of the play. By the end of the segunda
jornada, Don Gutierre’s state of mind is such that he makes
comments such as “Ay honor! Mucho tenemos // que hablar
a solas los dos” and more vividly “A peligro
estáis, honor, //? no hay hora en vos que no sea //
crítica; en vuestro sepulcro // vivís… Os he
de curar, honor,//? y pues al principio muestra // este primero
accidente //? tan grave peligro”. He does not see that
Mencía is honouring him precisely because of her belief
that “[Así] es como ha de ser, porque me he de
resolver a una temeraria acción”. This again
highlights the importance of honour above love and desire because
social reputation and the form of honour, is more important. ? Don Pedro I endorses honour to a great extent, yet only where
it is based on justice, as viewed in the scene between Don
Gutierre and Doña Leonor. Also, the insincere honour which
is shown by Don Enrique towards Doña Mencia is certainly
worth mentioning; for he is an example of how often selfish
motives can damage the good honour of others, namely
Mencía. Gutierre is also a culprit of this tendency. ? However, honour is not only embodied as social awareness in
nobility. Coquín, who is the only main character who does
not come from a noble background and who serves as a jester to
King Don Pedro I, sheds light on situations and views honour, and
subsequently, acts and reacts in a very different way from the
others. His honour is more a moral one than a social one, as
described in the previous characters. He cares little about the
‘qué dirán’ aspect that Doña
Leonor in particular shows herself to be loyal to. He states,
after Don Gutierre was released from prison for the night on good
faith, that he simply shouldn’t return. This is simple, yet
effective. “El honor de esa ley no se entiende en el
criado”, yet in fact, his honour is being saved for an
action which deserves it, namely trying to save Doña
Mencía’s life at the end: “ésta es
una honrada acción de hombre bien nacido, en
fin”. He will not risk his life just to “bien
parecer”. When compared to other characters, who go to
such lengths precisely for what Coquín would see as the
‘wrong reasons’, a sense of ridicule ensues. ? Although honour is, undeniably, a vital force behind the
development of plot, being the emotion from which other more
minor themes emerge, perhaps it is not honour in itself that
Calderón is examining, rather the degree of prudence with
which characters such as Doña Mencía and Don
Enrique reacted to it. The imprudence of many of the
characters’ actions feature largely in the play. That Arias
should enter Leonor’s house at night is an
“atrevimiento” against the social standards of honour
since she had not allowed him to enter. Nonetheless it is Leonor
who admits that she must take the blame: ? “Yo tuve la culpa, yo // la pena siento; y así //
solo me quejo de mí,// y de mi estrella.” ? Leonor places the question mark against her honour and must
spend the rest of the play trying to have it removed. ??????????? Leonor’s second imprudence is when she goes to the king
to ostensibly request the “dowry” that will enable
her to enter and live in a convent . although an unhappy
decision, in the circumstances it is the prudent one, and it is
right to appeal to the royal bounty. Leonor states to her maid
that justice, in effect, would be vengeance if the king heard her
plea. This plea is a disclosure of her grievances – a
breach of promise and a denial of legal redress. Her imprudence
lies in not accepting the verdict of the courts and in appealing
to the highest judicial authority for an impossible reparation
(since Gutierrez has married). At the end of the Act, Leonor even
states that she seeks vengeance: “…venganza me
dé el cielo!” ??????????? The king’s imprudence lies in him ignoring the practical
solution of sending her to a convent and in offering her the
false hope of a redress that is in fact impossible. In saying
that the poor cannot expect justice in Pedro’s kingdom,
Leonor has injured the king’s pride of being the “rey
justiciero” which is why he personally takes up her
cause. ??????????? Gutierre’s imprudence was to jump to the conclusion that
Leonor had dishonoured him: “quien hizo al amor ofensa,
// se le hace al honor en él…” But there is more than imprudence here, there is a rigid pride
that does not shrink from injuring the woman he loves. The
initial rashness of Arias and Leonor is turned into an
unpardonable offence. This act of injustice sets the play in
motion for a series of fateful events. Gutierre had thought he
could shrug off this act of injustice but it rebounds to strike
at his marriage, to affront his pride a second time and to make
him repeat an injury to the woman he loves- this time by
murdering her. At the end of the play, Gutierre must fulfil his
promise of marriage that he should never have broken, but
fulfilling it at the cost of a terrible injustice of a far
greater kind. ??????????? ??????????? ?? The different sub-themes which arise from
honour in the general sense are all very important in
contributing to the outcome of the play. All of them, jealousy,
disillusionment, loyalty, justice, guilt, revenge and ultimately
tragedy resulting in death, are interlinked in arising from
honour. As already seen, Doña Leonor, on behalf of her
honour, calls for justice; as Don Gutierre proposes death he
states “Mi honor perdí, mi muerte
hallé” for lack of honour is even worse than
death, and this also links in with the theme of revenge which is
what ultimately pushes Don Gutierre to kill Doña
Mencía, not as a result of a passionate row, but as a
result of careful planning. ? However, having stated that there are indeed other themes in
‘El Médico de su Honra’ , do any of these
surpass their creator (honour) and become fully-fledged themes in
themselves? The importance of jealousy is great, for
Coquín, in his final act of honour in trying to protect
the ‘innocent’ Doña Mencía states
“Gutierre mal informado por aparentes recelos,
llegó a tener viles celos de su honor” and thus
he is suspected of wanting to kill Mencía. Although
therefore jealousy as felt by Gutierre is the immediate cause,
fundamentally it is his need to protect his honour that drives
him to this point. The same occurs with other aspects of
behaviour or provocations of behaviour: revenge, in
Leonor’s case because she feels that she has been wronged
to the extent of her good reputation being scarred for life. If
one is dishonoured publicly, the way in which the culprit should
repay should be public too; hence Don Gutierre and Doña
Leonor’s marriage at the end of the play. By this stage,
justice has been performed by Don Pedro, decreeing that they must
marry, and whereas Leonor had previously stated “Pues es
mejor que sin vida, sin opinión, sin honor viva, que no
sin amor, de un marido aborrecida”, she now remains
satisfied at the outcome, perhaps not so much due to the fact
that they have married, but because he has been publicly
humiliated as she was. ?????? ?? ??????????? In short, “El médico de su
honra” is a play fundamentally about honour. It cannot be
denied that other themes enter the play as it develops and that
ultimately the climax of the play (Mencía’s death)
is an act of betrayal and jealousy. But although there may be
immediate reasons for certain actions in the play, the
underlying, driving cause is honour itself.??