Don Juan - FAMILY, UPBRINGING AND EDUCATION

DON JUAN - Family, upbringing and education

Don Juan lives in Seville, he is the son of an aristocratic father, Don Jose, and an intellectual mother, Donna Inez. He is an overprotected teenager, a lover and a slave.

Don Jose is Juan’s father, a true cavalier, who wanders around a lot and does not have too much respect for women. He is not able to understand his wife’s worries or the things that are important to her. In ninth stanza we see his origins (that he is a Hidalgo, i.e. a member of the Spanish nobility)

Donna Inez, Juan’s mother is very different (or at least wants to be) from her husband. She’s described as a known-all (we can see this in stanzas 11, 12, 13, 14) but in a very ironic way. Byron says that her favourite science is mathematics, and later says explicitly why (says that she is a “walking calculation”). He mocks her when he says she’s a prodigy, because the whole description of her abilities is ironic, and we can see that in fact all the things enumerated are of limited knowledge. She is very self-confident (perhaps a little too much) which sometimes makes her lose touch with reality, thinking very superior of herself). Her greatest wish is to educate Juan according to the highest standards and in the most moralistic way. She is careful to hire maids that are old and ugly because she doesn’t want to risk and put Juan in temptation. But the narrator is very skilful in presenting his irony, because we see later that Inez’s best friend is Julia, a young and beautiful woman, and it somehow happens that Juan gets a lot of her company.

Don Jose and Donna Inez have a very problematic marriage, maybe because of her bad temper or because they appear to be very different. We can see Byron’s irony here, too, because there are many things that happen which clash with Jose’s noble blood and Inez’s moralistic way of life. Don Jose has an affair, which causes Inez to attempt to gain a divorce, but he dies before this can go ahead, leaving young Juan as his only heir.

After his father’s death, little Juan is educated according to his mother’s plan. Byron’s irony is seen here as well because it is known that when the education of a child is concerned, both parents should decide about the major questions. But in the 37^th stanza, he says, ironically though, that young Juan will get an excellent education. But being without a father, Juan has no choice but to listen to his mother. She is very manipulative, but young Juan is stuck with her. She’s all he’s got, and being so young and naive at the same time, he cannot really distinguish good advice from manipulation. She has him tortured in art and sciences, but forbids him to be in touch with anything salacious. For example, when studying literature, he is allowed to read only expurgated versions of poems. She intends to educate him in a classical way, to shield him from inappropriate material. She thinks that by educating him in this way, he will become a better man. But her effort proved to be unsuccessful eventually. The narrator protests against this kind of education (stanzas 51, 52 and 53).

Donna Inez, the moral and intellectual woman, has an affair with Don Alfonso (a 50 y/o man who is married to a 23 y/o woman, Julia). But the narrator drives our attention off this act by introducing a new Platonic love between Julia, a pretty young woman, and Juan. They fall in love with each other, but being educated in a traditional way, they both try to maintain their love Platonic. Having knowledge from books rather than from a real-life experience, Juan is confused and does not know the actual reason for his discontent. He tries to find answers in nature, poetry and philosophy, because that’s the only known way to him. Their love being too strong to hide, they surrender to the feelings. He learns new things with Julia, things that were forbidden for him by his mother, and has his first sexual experience with Julia. We can see the irony throughout the entire work. Juan is not really protected from all the “bad things” his mother didn’t want him to know, on the contrary – he gets to experience all of them, but in the wrong and immoral way.

When the young lovers get caught, Donna Inez keeps hiding behind her mask of a moralistic women, has her son sent abroad, punishing him for being so immoral and for making such a scandal. There’s also an obvious irony here, because what she actually did was not punishing him. He was sent to Italy and France, which are among the most beautiful countries. So, in fact, this journey he was sent on was not a punishment, but a kind of a pleasant vacation in a way.

Donna Inez, wanting to be a good mother, tried to create a perfectly moral person out of her son. In fact, she tried to correct all her errors on Juan, she wanted him to be the person she herself would like to be. Through his irony, Byron wants to show us how parents should try to educate their children in the best way they can, but that they should also not push it too hard, because it will not have a positive outcome. We should also try to improve our personal behaviour, rather than hiding our flaws and trying to correct them on another person.

p.s. ja nisam josh dobila nazad pregledani referat, ali sam sada izbacila neke stvari koje su mozhda bile netachne...josh neshto shto je jako bitno (a ne nalazi se u mojoj prezentaciji :P ) jeste kako su Juan-ovi roditelji njega odgajali i kako su se ophodili prema njemu...e, pa nisu bili bash neki roditelji :),dobijao je batine i tako to :)...ima to u par strofica, pa kad to budete prochitali pre usmenog - videcete. samo imajte u vidu da je SVE IRONICHNO...

p.p.s. ako neko josh ima neka pitanja shto se tiche ove prezentacije, samo neka post-uje komentar...

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