Wikipedia Trailblazin' and Other Tales

Last night, I was reading through some of the posts, and I got to thinking about Erinne's post about "Romeo and Juliet," and how it compares to "El sí de las niñas." I ended up in a lengthy wikipedia trail (where you click on one thing, and then click on another, and then 2 hours later you're reading the plot summary for "Shakespeare in Love," completely forgetting why you originally started wikipedia-ing in the first place), and got distracted...so, here we are.

In class, I was thinking of how Don Carlos and Francisca communicated while she was in the convent, and how similar it sounded to the balcony scene in "Romeo and Juliet." After a little bit of "research," I found that critics have previously noted a large presence of "light/dark" word use in Shakespeare's play. While light for the star cross'd lovers seems to take on a romantic vibe ("it is the East and Juliet is the sun"), light in "El sí de las niñas" stands for knowledge... or in the case of Moratín's characters, awareness of the situation.

At the beginning of the play, it is evening... the audience imagines a dusky setting as Simón and Don Diego discuss his "love" for Francisca. Don Carlos/Félix has not yet arrived, and the foil to Don Diego's plan has not been introduced. When the sun sets, however, secrets begin to be traded between the characters, all under the mask of the dark night. Private conversations take place, sometimes in the presence of others who are lurking in the background. It isn't until the sun begins to rise that Don Diego realizes his foolishness, and he is "enlightened" to become an "hombre de bien" who makes his choices after carefully considering them.

While Shakespeare's frequent mention of light and dark has been suggested to be merely utilitarian (stage lights were pretty hard to come by in the 16th century, and he had to let the audience know through prose what time of day it was), Moratín's use of light and dark is utilized to show the initial ignorance, and then eventual enlightenment of his characters.