La Celestina: Characters, Themes, and Plot Analysis
La Celestina by Fernando de Rojas
A play written by Fernando de Rojas, a lawyer of likely Jewish origin. It is believed he wrote the entire play, possibly expanding upon an existing first act.
Plot Summary
The story revolves around the tragic love affair of the young nobles Calisto and Melibea. It begins when Calisto accidentally encounters Melibea and falls instantly in love. Following her rejection, he employs the services of a renowned procuress named Celestina.
Once Celestina successfully arranges the affair, she is murdered by Calisto’s servants, Sempronio and Pármeno, because she refuses to share the reward Calisto gave her. The servants are caught and publicly executed. Two prostitutes who worked for Celestina, Elicia and Areúsa, decide to avenge her death.
Fate intervenes tragically when Calisto dies accidentally, falling from a ladder or wall while leaving Melibea’s garden after a secret meeting.
Upon witnessing her lover’s death, a devastated Melibea decides to commit suicide by jumping from a tower.
The work concludes with Melibea’s father, Pleberio, mourning her death and lamenting the power of fortune and love.
Genre Classification
The work defies easy classification. It cannot be considered a novel because it is not narrated in prose, nor is it purely theatrical in the traditional sense, as its length and complexity made representation difficult in its time. It is often considered a tragicomedy or a humanistic comedy, intended to be read aloud in small circles or university groups. Nowadays, adaptations allow it to be performed on stage.
Dramatic Speech Elements
The book is written entirely in dialogue. It features various forms of dramatic speech, including:
- Dialogues: Conversations between characters.
- Monologues: Characters speaking their thoughts aloud alone.
- Asides: Characters speaking directly to the audience or themselves, unheard by others on stage.
Key Themes Explored
Love
Love is presented in several ways:
- Parody of Courtly Love: Calisto initially appears as a parody of the courtly lover, impatient and unwilling to overcome obstacles honorably.
- Love and Sex: Physical love and the desire for pleasure, often devoid of commitment, are predominant. Sexuality is portrayed as a fundamental human trait shared across social classes.
- The Madness of Love: Love is depicted as a force that drives characters to irrationality and madness, leading them to commit foolish and dangerous acts.
Other Major Themes
- Magic: Celestina practices magic, performing rituals and using love potions to influence events.
- Death: Death is a constant presence, with nearly all main characters meeting violent ends. It serves as the ultimate consequence of the characters’ lust and greed and acts as an equalizer across social classes.
- Fortune: The classical concept of Fortune as a blind goddess, randomly spinning her wheel and dictating fate, plays a significant role.
- Greed: The overwhelming desire for money and material gain drives many characters’ actions, often above all other considerations.
Character Analysis
Characters are often grouped by social class, though each possesses a distinct personality.
Upper-Class Characters
- Calisto: A young nobleman driven by instinct and the ‘madness’ of love. He is often portrayed as foolish, selfish, and impulsive.
- Melibea: A young noblewoman initially presented as virtuous. She becomes a victim of Calisto’s desires and Celestina’s manipulations, eventually discovering her own desire to live and love freely. Her character arc is arguably the most tragic, and she ultimately chooses her own fate.
Lower-Class Characters (The Marginalized)
- Calisto’s Servants (Sempronio and Pármeno): They act as disloyal and dishonest servants, motivated by self-interest and resentment towards their master. Their greed leads them to murder Celestina and ultimately results in their own deaths.
- Celestina’s Associates (Elicia and Areúsa): Prostitutes who represent primal survival instincts. They show the harsher side of reality and harbor jealousy, vindictiveness, and resentment towards the upper class.
- Celestina: A complex and central character whose influence is so significant that the work is named after her. An old procuress and former prostitute, she dedicates her life to manipulating others, particularly in matters of love and sex, often boasting of her skills. She is highly intelligent, astute, manipulative, and possesses a powerful gift of persuasion. Her defining traits are selfishness and greed. Her violent death triggers a chain reaction of further deaths.
Purpose and Meaning
The work carries an ambiguous meaning. On one hand, it serves a moralizing purpose, warning against the dangers of lustful love and worldly desires. On the other hand, it can be interpreted as a defense of living life to the fullest (Carpe Diem) and individual freedom, particularly in Melibea’s case.
Overall, the play presents a pessimistic and disillusioned view of life. The world depicted is governed, according to the author’s portrayal, by greed, violence, lust, and betrayal.
Structure of the Work
La Celestina is divided into acts. The first act may have existed before Rojas completed the work. The earliest known versions had 16 acts, which were later expanded to 21 in subsequent editions.