Tuesday, October 27, 2009

Celestina Day 2

1. At the end of Act III we see Celestina preparing her thread with a potion for Melibea. How do we see her lack of confidence? What do you make of this?

I don't see a lack of confidence here; in fact, I see overconfidence. The lack of confidence comes afterwards. But first, she threatens the god Pluto, "Lord of the Infernal Regions Subterraneous, Emperor of the Court of the Damned [and so on]," that if he doesn't do her bidding, she will "savagely accuse [him] of continual deceptions; and [she] will with harshest words squeeze out [his] name for all the world to hear." Wow! So this old whore with peeling makeup is going to battle a bona fide god if things don't go her way? If this isn't a prime example of an overestimation of one's own powers and skills, I don't know what is.

Some might say that in this passage, Celestina's threats are idle and empty. Perhaps she is just saying these things to boost her own ego. But I think she is a little off her rocker, and that she means what she says. Also, she has played enough tricks in her lifetime to expect this one to work. As Celestina gets the prep work done, I believe that she is not lacking in confidence but that she is simply doing a thorough job, one that she feels will ultimately procure the correct result.

It is only after she comes down from the high of magic-making that the doubts start to set in. I have to say that, for Celestina's worldly character, this sudden self-doubt comes as a surprise after such powerful exclamations previously. What I think is that this self-doubt serves a dramatic purpose: of creating a fear in the audience (or readers, as the case may be) that Melibea and Calisto won't work out. Of course, in the end they won't, and so Celestina's fear is a kind of foreshadowing of the very end of the play, when things are bound to fall apart. But in the meantime, things have to get better before they can get worse, and so I think that Celestina's dread here simply serves the purpose of creating rising dramatic tension and establishing dramatic irony.

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