As I was reading this play, it instantly reminded me of a fairly modern (2006) movie titled “John Tucker Must Die.” Both Don Juan and John Tucker are womanizers in their own respective stories. Don Juan treats women like objects. He makes them fall in love with him for self-pleasure. Once he is done with them he leaves them and to go find another “wife.” John Tucker uses his charm and dates several girls at once; breaking up with them once he gets bored. I found Don Juan’s ability to convince both peasants, Charolotte and Mathurine, that he will marry them very amazing yet funny. He was able to pull it off with both girls right in front of him. Similarly John Tucker is able to hold on to multiple relationships with girls in the same school with his sly ability to talk. However, all good things must come to an end. Both characters’ plans backfire. Eventually Elvire, Don Juan’s wife, finds out and her brother is out for revenge. In John Tucker’s case his multiple girlfriends devise a plan to ruin his social life. In the end, the characters’ own downfall is due to their desire for lust.
Don Juan is such a colorful character. He is a very personable, young, trickster. In a way he is a magician. He makes an illusion of what he really isn’t. He uses his flowery language to persuade the lovely ladies into falling in love with him. Although the exact time period is not stated, it can be assumed that “Don Juan” takes place in the far past. Part of the reason why women are tricked by Don Juan is due to their plainness. Charlotte, for example, is a peasant and is uneducated. Although she has learned that many “court folk are cajolers” she instantly falls in love with him after she has a slight argument with her husband to be (Act II, Scene 2).
Even more hilarious is that in Act I Scene 2, Don Juan’s monologue justifies his actions of deceiving and playing with women. “What? Do you want us to bind ourselves…so that I might extend my amorous conquests there” (339). Don Juan not only questions, but also rebels against society’s norm of settling down with one woman. Beauty enchants him and he has to pay respect to the fair lady by giving her his heart. It sounds very superficial but, furthermore Don Juan claims that “nature requires” him to do so. Don Juan kind of has it set up for himself to die. He is disrespecting God and the social norms of his era and this foreshadows his death by heaven. Don Juan adapts the concept of love is ever changing and the passion dies out after a while. Although the vigor of finding new love is more of a modern day concept, Don Juan relishes his concept as Alexander conquering new worlds. Fresh love is rejuvenating and in Don Juan’s excuse, love for one another will run and, thus both needs to go their separate ways. He talks about his ambition to travel near and far and to conquer the heart of many. In a way, the challenge seems fitting for Don Juan because he seems to be in ecstasy when he successfully courts the “love of his life.” Even though he tries to justify his doings by making an eloquent speech, I can’t help but laugh and admit that Don Juan has a sense of swagger that will bring him great happiness, but cruel and regrettable death. Even his servant, Sganarelle, warns him about a tragic ending.
In his play, Don Juan, Moliere conveys social messages of atheism, adultery, and stupidity. Throughout the play, Don Juan refuses to change his views towards life. He believes the sole aim is to attain as much pleasure as possible. The pleasure of sex and conquest are attained through women. Thus, once the need is satisfied, women become disposable objects. And then it is on to the next one. Atheism, on the other hand, gives Don Juan the pleasure of complete freedom. Juan is free to do as he wishes since his parents seem to have no control over him. His parents only job is to preserve their own honor by creating excuses for their shameless son. However, as an atheist, Don Juan disregards any higher authority. He answers to no one and is morally responsible for nothing.
Don Juan accepts hypocrisy as a new way of living. Don Juan can still do whatever he desire, but now his excuse of “it’s what the Heavens wish” is less controversial than “it’s want I wish.” No one dares to question God’s will. In this way, no one truly knows his motives. Thus, he has no pressure by hearing the taunts from his father, servant, women, and society in general. Many, today, abuse holy scriptures and ideals to fit their own views. Contorting such truths enforces horrendous acts such as: terrorism in the name of Jihad, racism in the name of brotherhood, and suicide in the name of repentance.
From the very beginning, Don Juan surprised me. I could not figure out how a man could use women to such an extent. It was interesting to see how he twisted his words to Sganarelle and made it seem as though he was in the right. Sganarelle is a very humorous and sarcastic character. His reaction to Don Juan is often very sarcastic but he is also forced to be loyal for fear of his life. Sganarelle’s character is that of the audience because the audience also sees the true nature of Don Juan.
If this play was written today, it would be very unbelievable for Don to seduce a woman so quickly; however, in the time of Moliere, loyalty and the promise of marriage was very sacred and often unbreakable. I also felt sympathetic to Pierrot because he seemed to have sincerely loved Charlotte. However, the way Pierrot described her love for him foreshadowed that it would be easy of Don Juan to seduce her. Finally, it was amusing to see how Don Juan persuaded both Charlotte and Mathurine to believe that he loved and would marry both women. Even when he addressed both women he was careful not to mention anyone’s names and was very ambiguous.
Although Moliere’s famous play Don Juan is considered a comedy, it nonetheless has very strong and serious messages. The play was so scandalous for its time that, in fact, it was banned after only fifteen performances.
The play centers around Don Juan, a manipulating womanizer, and his servant, Sganarelle. Don Juan is a hedonistic atheist, seducing women into “marriage” and abandoning them after he gets bored. Sganarelle secretly does not approve of his master’s lifestyle, and tries to get him to change his ways several times, but to no avail. Sganarelle eventually foresees the demise of Don Juan, but refusing to listen, Don Juan dies horribly and is dragged to Hell for his misdeeds.
Moliere’s play clearly has a serious meaning: we must be moral, pious, God-fearing people, or else we will face punishment and damnation. Don Juan is the ultimate sinner. He breaks laws, ruins women, destroys marriages, and tears families apart. Towards the end of the play, he also adopts a false “religious” front, so he can continue his immoral ways behind a facade. Therefore, he is also a hypocrite, which, perhaps, in Moliere’s opinion, is his greatest sin. Sganarelle is like Don Juan’s faulty conscience. He vehemently opposes Don Juan’s blasphemous ways, but does not have the courage to actually confront him about it.
Written during the seventeenth century, a time when religion practically governed society, the play would seem to be a work that many would appreciate, since Don Juan does “get what he deserves” in the end. However, many were shocked at the boldness with which Moliere treated the subject, and the play was pulled off the stage for being “offensive towards religion.” Despite this, Don Juan teaches a message of morality and faithfulness in religion. The beauty of Moliere’s play is that this strong message is craftily stated in a comedic, clever drama.
Don Juan is a very interesting character. He does not refute God as an atheist, but at the same time he feels that religion is somehow not all its hyped up to be. His attitude can be described as feeling above religion, as if it doesn’t apply to him because he is more important than other people(Pride). What we see in Don Juan is the collection of several of the “Deadly sins” being consistently repeated throughout the play. Don Juan’s numerous marriages, divorces, and mistresses exhibit his extreme lust for women, and especially beautiful women. He reasons that he has the right to pursue any beautiful women, due to the fact that their beauty should be enjoyed by man, and what right does man have to keep that beauty from the rest of the world. His argument, although extremely flawed, makes sense to him. It also shows that Don Juan is addicted to the chase. He loves the beginnings of a relationship, where one has to work and use romance to charm a woman, but once he has become the master of that woman he loses passion for her and needs to find a new woman to entice him.
Don Juan’s character is extremely immoral to say the least. He is lustful, proud of his lifestyle, and even seems to boast of this lifestyle to his servant Sganarelle. He is the perfect example of an “addict,” someone who can’t live without romance, but this does not make him a hopeless romantic. His actions do not benefit women, he only breaks their hearts. Instead he only cares for himself, and this narcissistic attitude is what leads him to his eventual doom. Don Juan’s narcissism and lust for women, along with repeatedly breaking the hearts of these women, ironically become his fate when Karma eventually catches up to him.
As I walked out of the East Meets West classical music concert at the 92nd Street YMHA, I couldn’t get the insane violin performances out of my head! In a world of rap, hip-hop, reggae and bad Beiber-like songs (with very few exceptions), it was refreshing to hear some classical music in Manhattan.
Daniel Hope, the “man behind the musical magic,” is a truly talented performer who has hands that move faster than the sounds the instrument produces, haha! As I listened to the Spanish, French, American, Japanese and Middle-Eastern music, I was reminded of a few video game scores I’ve listened to in the past.
One song was entitled Dancers On A String, from the BioShock Original Soundtrack. This song is definitely more macabre (and features more instruments) than any one at the East Meets West concert, however there was something about the violin in Tzigane, rapsodie de concert that reminded me of this.
The other song is titled Deference to Darkness, from the Halo 3: ODST Original Soundtrack. Although saxophones weren’t present at the concert (that’s the main instrument used in this song), the piano sections resembled those of Simon Crawford-Phillips.
I thought it was weird that these classical compositions reminded me of modern day video games, but I believe that this comparison just goes to show us how effective and powerful the music really is. The songs that were composed hundreds of years ago have come a long way to reach where they are today. As they’re performed freshly in concerts like East Meets West, younger generations can relate them to “the music of today.”
As a side note, I was confused as to whether we were supposed to blog today about the East Meets West performance or Don Juan. I know it said blog briefly about the play in the syllabus, but I interpreted that to mean the performance we attended last week. If this blog was supposed to focus on Don Juan, I would like to add this:
Towards the end of my senior year of high school, I played Raoul in The Phantom of the Opera. Our high school was one of the only ones in Queens that was given the rights to put on the show. Throughout the musical, there were references to the opera Don Juan, and I was never sure what that was. Now that we have to read the play for this seminar, I’m gaining a whole new aspect of The Phantom of the Opera and its references to other musical works.
Don Juan is someone who enjoys seducing women and causing problems for them and their lovers. This is a lot like the star of The Phantom of the Opera, The Phantom, in that he seduced Christine and fought with Raoul. I’m not that far in the play yet, but I expect to learn much more as it progresses.
I’ve always been interested in the story of Don Juan, and I really enjoyed reading Moliere’s version of this story. Moliere’s clever and humorous take on the tale really highlighted what I was most drawn to about it: the moral character of Don Juan.
While of course we can clearly label Don Juan as a charlatan without morals of any kind, it is in some way a charming quality. Even while we are scandalized, we can’t help but be intrigued by the antics of a perfect rogue. This is especially true when his misadventures fall upon themselves in such comical ways, like when assuring both Charlotte and Mathurine of his undying affection and loyalty, at the same time. Even Sganarelle’s exasperated attempts to lead Don Juan to the path of morality seem lighthearted.
It seems to me that we only truly realize how devious Don Juan is when he decides to live the life of a hypocrite: accusing everyone else of impiety while flagrantly living in sin. As convoluted as it seems, previously to this decision Don Juan was almost noble in his conviction to live immorally. He truly believed, I feel, that it was his right to seduce every beautiful woman he saw. At the same time he also had a clear sense of what was right and wrong, even if he chose only sometimes to act on them, like when he helped Don Carlo when he was outnumbered. Don Juan may have lived by his own rules, but at least it meant that he chose to do good of his own volition, not because he was taught to do so in the name of some higher being. This is why it seems especially wrong when he chooses to live hypocritically, and it leads ultimately to his downfall.
I recently finished watching an anime called “Cowboy Bepop” when I started reading “Don Juan.” In one of the episodes, Faye, one of the protagonists, ends up meeting a man from her past. Faye had always believed that this man loved her, until it is revealed that he used her to push off his enormous debt. He pretended to love her, then pretended to die in an effort to protect her. He then gave her all his assets. However, he turned out to have only debts. As it turns out, he had been continuing this scam for years, using the same scheme to trick other women into taking the debts he continues to accumulate because of his lavish lifestyle.
Don Juan reminds me of the man in that episode. He is a womanizer and feels no shame in using women simply for his pleasure. When he is warned about continuing his deceitful ways, he ignores it. His demise is inevitable. As realized by the other man, as long as their sins are known, they will pay.
The play of Don Juan carries a very important message of morality, faithfulness and religious undertones. It is these religious undertones which guide the storyline and allow readers to understand the gravity of Don Juan’s actions.
Don Juan is what we would call in today’s society, a “player”. He knows how to manipulate women and he lifts their hearts up with the idea of marriage and then quickly leaves them as soon as he becomes bored. Don Juan believes uses the excuse that all women should have their beauty appreciated by him and that he should not confine himself to commitment. Throughout the play, Don Juan’s servant, Sganarelle, (who also attempts to teach Don Juan morality) points out that the action of cheating on women and abusing their emotions is a direct violation of the contract between man and the heavens. He tells Don Juan that surely the heavens will become angered and seek revenge against him.
As the play continues, Don Juan performs various selfish actions, most importantly:
-Stealing a country girl away from her fiancee
-Breaking women’s hearts after telling them he is to marry them
-Asking a poor man to beg for money and to swear his allegiance against God
-Lying directly to his father by saying he reformed his ways
-Mistreating his servant and abusing the trust of others.
Don Juan sets himself up on a downward spiral of lies, deceit and manipulation which is immorally correct. His great ability to control situations allows him to escape the consequences of these actions, and he lives his life by destroying the dreams of others. Eventually, Sganarelle, foreshadows the demise of Don Juan after he lies to his father, saying that a talking statue that they saw was a direct indication that the heavens wanted Don Juan to change his ways. Don Juan dismisses these claims and instead goes to eat dinner with the statue. This results in Don Juan being dragged to hell for his actions against the heavens and Sganarelle living without a payment for his services.
The moral of Don Juan is one of morality, faithfulness and religious belief. At the time this was written (1665), religion played an important part in society and women did not have any power unless they were married. By promising marriage to women and then leaving them, Don Juan ruined their lives because a woman’s status was defined through marriage. If a woman was not married, she was not considered powerful in these societies. Don Juan basically teased the women into happiness and then left them. The strong religious beliefs of the time prohibited lies about marriage because marriage was a Christian sacrament to be honored. Any act mocking marriage or acting against it would anger the heavens and thus the offenders were thought to have sinned and would face the consequences. Don Juan highlights the idea of a religious vow being broken and a punishment being enacted. The play ends with educating the reader that they should be faithful, or else they may truly be damned for life (as the women were when they were refused marriage).
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