Lord Byron

Don Juan
FAMILY, EDUCATION AND UPRBRINGING
Family
Father-Don Jose
-Born in Seville
- Is a nobleman, Hidalgo-member of minor nobility in Spain, true nobleman without
Moor or Hebrew blood.
-Not interested in learning but he was very much interested in women and he had
mistresses
-He is presented as a mortal of a careless kind, he went where he wanted and did what
he pleased.
-We dont have much description of Don Jose as we have of Juans mother Donna Inez.
Mother
-Donna Inez
-She isnt a noble but she has great knowledge.
-At first she seems like a perfect woman: well-educated, well-mannered & virtuous.
-She speaks several languages Latin, Greek, French, English, Hebrew.
-Her favourite science is mathematic and Byron calles her a walking calcuation (16)
implying that she was very calculated.
-However by listing her qualities Byron points out that her strife for perfection is her
biggest flaw (16), and that her relation with her family (especially with husband)
suffers from it.
-Despite looking flawless in the worlds eyes she fails as a wife and a mother.
-She proves to be hypocritical and self-righteous person.
-It is possible that Byron modified Donna Inez after his wife Annabella Milbanke who
was also a highly moral woman, intelligent and mathematically gifted.
On the other hand she embodies Byron's own mother's violent hatred toward her husband
and neglect that he also experienced.
-Donna Inez and Don Jose are complete oposites.
Their marriage has a lot of faults.
-They have nothing to talk about considering that their knowledge and interest are
not nearly alike.
-It is a loveless marriage and Byron related this marriage to his own, thats why he
symphatizes Don Hose, while being very ironic and satiric towards his wife.

-The adultery that Done Hose commits is just a drop in the ocean with everything
that is wrong with their relationship.
She even welcomes it knowing that she would have a chance to prove herself as a martyr
bcs as Byron said neglected, indeed, requires a saint to bear it (20).
-She even tried to get rid of Hose by declaring him mad, and got doctors and lawyers
to prove it, but her effort was invain.
-Motivation for her actions is that is her duty to both man and God...which seemd
very odd (Byron 215-216). Here Byrons thoughts on society are revealed.
-Donna Inezs justification is her duty to God. This can be interpreted that she was
avoiding her responsibility and taking responsibility for ones actions is important.
Byron saw in his society too much responsibility was shifted away from the
individual to God or someone else.
-She even kept a journal with her husbands faults in case she needs to use them
against him. (28)
-Her next step was to divorce Jose, but that didnt happen bcs he died of fever.
-She took the loss of her husband so spartanly (29) and with such sublimity that she
was even admired by others.
-This is what Byron sees as wrong with society, the basic hypocritical nature of people,
the masks people wear in public and carelessly toss away in private.
Therefore he shows the immorality in society through their hypocrisy.
-Byron makes a commentary unconscious the unconscious hypocrisy, and dishonesty of
love and marriage in Society
- From all fights and troubles that his parents had Juan sufferd most , in the sense that he
was neglected, his parents were too bussy quarreling that they never thought of sending
him to school or teaching him manners. Without any control or care from his parents he
was a very troublous child or as Byron called him a mischief-making monkey (25) .
-All of this changed after Joses death when conveniently for Donna Inez, Juan was the
sole heir and completely under her control.
Education
-After Jose death Inez decided to make Juan a perfect cavalier, role model and
worthy of nobles pedigree (38).
His education consisted of
-physical activity like - riding, fencing, gunnery, climbing.
Which is all common for nobles
-He was thought many languages, most of them were dead and useless but
respectable in educated circles.
-Arts and Sciences were taught with extreme censorship, especially classic poetry
and mythology (bcs his mother considerd gods potrayed without enough clothes on)/

-He was forbidden to read anything that hints at continuation of species and cannot
read any of the looser and subjective poems.
-By this Donna Inez intended to make sure that Juan doesn become like his father
and more like herself.
-The classics are published in altered versions in which any lines with sexual references
in them are removed from the text, so they could be thought without fear of corrupting
Juan.
-Ironically, we are than informed that in respect for great writers the editors put all
the removed lines in the appendix at the back of the book, thus giving Juan a
concentrated material of pornographic reading.
-This gives Byron oppurunity to ridicule sexual repression and a puritanical
approach to education.
-Furthermore, this education will not provide Juan any practical skill or knowledge,
bcs his mothers only concern was how will he be presented to the world, and not
that he wont be prepared for life.
-Byron expressed his personal protest against this way of education (52 and 53),
suggesting college as the best and only way of education.
-Trying to remove any temptation from Juan, Donna Inez only employed not good
looking and old women. (48)
-But on the other side the most often visitor to their house was beautiful and young
Donna Julia.
The reason why Donna Inez was consorted with Donna Julia is that it was rumored
that Donna Inez had an affair with Don Alfonso, Julias husband, so by seeing them
together as friends, those rumors will seem less true.
-Again we see ,that what people thought of her, was the most important for Donna Inez.
(66)
-Another reason why Inez was imposing Juan to Julias beauty is because she wanted to as
Byron says open Don Alfonsos eyes so that he may see who his wife is, and maybe find
a better one, her. (101-CI)
-And again we see the irony that a woman who is so righteouss and moral had an
affair.
-All in all, this kind of upbringing and education left Juan vulnerable and shy, and
more prone to turn to immorality than his mother would anticipate.
Bcs he seems so simple and nave and hes very handsome, every woman finds him
charming so there is no need for him to seduce them bcs they approach to him.

THE CHARACTER OF BYRONS DON JUAN, CANTO I

Legendary Don Juan
Don Juan follows the travels and relationships of a youthful protagonist who,
though he shares the same name, bears little resemblance to the heartless
libertine of popular European legend that originated in the early seventeenth
century.
The two Don Juans both have numerous love affairs, but there are few other
resemblances between the two figures. Byron's Juan is completely lacking in the
field of cruelty which shows up in the actions of Tirso's Don Juan. The tone of the
two works is completely different. Far from considering his hero to be entirely
evil, Byron shows him to be no more evil than most men and does not feel
obliged to send him to Hell. The author begins by saying that since his own age
cannot supply a suitable hero for his poem, he will use an old friend, Don Juan.
The character of Don Juan
Don Juan is an atypical epic hero; he is a parody of the romantic hero. Byron
reversed the original plot, portraying Juan not as a womanizer but as
someone easily seduced by women, suggesting that he is passive when it comes
to seducing them. He is not a subject of action, but rather an object. He
reacts to, rather than manipulates, the world around him. Unlike true heroes who,
in the face of danger and difficulty or from a position of weakness display
courage and heroism for some greater good of all humanity, Don Juan is acted
upon rather than active, who does not seek out but is sought out, putty in the
woman's hands and he is more often a toy in the hands of fate. He is not an
active figure even though he is the title character. Actually, we see that
male characters are all passive in the first canto. On the other hand, the female
characters are very active over the male characters. So, the narrators purpose is
to impose all the responsibility of the story upon the shoulders of the female.
In the early episode, Donna Julia breaks somewhat out of the role of idealized
heroine by being the older, married woman and not the innocent girl. Byron thus
somewhat reverses gender roles and has the sexually-mature woman take a
more active role in seducing the naive and innocent young man. He's not the kind
of hero to be feared and respected, but there is nevertheless something
attractive about him. He is in part likeable for the very things that do not
make him a traditional hero.
The dominant character
Lord Byron establishes a protagonist in his stories that are similar to each other.
These have been named Byronic heroes. These protagonists are
arrogant, yet somehow lovable; an odd sort of character who is dark, but is
not seen as evil. Although they seem to be raised in an aristocratic manner,
these heroes reject societal values and follow their own standards and do

what they wish. This isolates the hero from society. At the onset of Byrons
Don Juan, one would immediately think the main character, Don Juan, to be the
Byronic hero. This is true as Juan does exemplify the characteristics of the Byronic
hero, but what about other characters? The narrator is also a Byronic hero, which
is shown through his narration. A third Byronic hero is Byron himself, who stands
behind both Don Juan and the narrator, but can easily be seen through his
writing.
Don Juan is strikingly similar to Byron, a reflection of himself. It is quite
possible that Byron wrote Don Juan in an effort to tell the story of his
own life. . The narrator also has a tie to Don Juan, saying hes going to talk
about his friend, Don Juan. Since the narrator has the knowledge and courage
to call Juan a friend, there has to be some merit to show that the narrator likes
Juans ideals and lifestyle. He holds the same values as Juan. Juan, the narrator
and Byron are working together to create a single character that
envelops all the traits of the Byronic hero. None of these characters could
exist on their own without the existence of the other two, they add up to a
single voice: a single, uncommon hero.
Unlike many other poets who start mid-story, Byron started this story ab ovo. The
narrator is therefore almost as prominent as the hero, even more prominent, as
the introduction conveys more about the writer than it does about the central
character. In this poem, it is not the main character that is dominant, it is the
narrator. This poem presents a kind of a "double-plot": the story and the
writing of the story. The narrator expresses his need to diverge from the
usual method of epic poets and write an epic in his own style. He is
demonstrating his rejection of formal poetry, and letting the audience in on
his inner thoughts. By doing this, he again expresses a characteristic of a Byronic
hero, the one that is against rules.
Not only does the narrator narrate what happens, but he also gives his opinion on
subjects and events, and tells his opinion like it is fact. The writer is very
persuasive and manipulative as he frequently interrupts the plot and digresses,
so we often hear about the narrators experiences.
Don Juan's Education
Byron uses Don Juans education to satirize the circumstances and fault of
education in contemporary upper class society. Juan was the product of an
experiment in education which was arranged for him by his mother. One of the
reasons why education is mocked is its association with sexual repression and a
puritanical approach. In stanza 44, Byron makes fun of a ridiculous aspect of
repressive education: The Classics are published in expurgated versions, in which
any lines with sexual references are removed from the text, so that the text may
be taught to schoolboys without fear of corrupting them, since Donna Inez
wanted her son to become strictly moral. Despite all of his mother's
precautions in assuring him of a virtuous and moral education, Juan is headed for
a similar career as his father, who sets an example for his son by having affairs

behind his wife's back. His affair with Julia is in opposition to everything his
mother taught him about morality. The more he is hid from sexuality, the more he
becomes curious and later turns vicious; because curiosity is very dangerous.
His education is to a certain degree impractical, for he is taught nothing about life
and studies the classics from censored editions. In short, his mother wants him to
receive an education calculated to repress all his natural instincts and keeps the
facts of life from him.

The Function of Byron's Satire

By showing outside forces as corrupting influences on a character traditionally
depicted as extravagant and heartless, Byron reversed popular legend to suggest
that society, not the individual, bears responsibility for evil in the world. Byron's
use of a narrator with a distinct personality, as well as the presence of the poet's
own voice in the work, allows him to simultaneously tell Juan's story and to
comment on it from various perspectives. Byron's satire is aimed at
pretentious seriousness, which we can see from stanzas 63 and 64:
What men call gallantry, and Gods Adultery,
Is much more common where the Climates sultry.
Happy the Nations of the moral North!
Byron's comic epic laughs at the high expectations and ideals embodied in the
epic, seeing them as excessive and unrealistic. Through the character of Don
Juan, Byron makes serious satire on the hypocrisies of high society and their
double standards and thus he made Don Juan victimized by this society. For
example, Byron satirizes the societys double-standard of punishment for the
illegitimate relationship. Juan is sent to the European countries for moral purpose.
But actually he is rewarded to travel. On the other hand, Julia is sent into a
nunnery. But actually she is punished by being sent to prison.
In Don Juan, a typically romantic theme of liberty exists, either of an individual or
entire nation. Byron is concerned with constraints of society. He chooses the
character from the Spanish legend. So under this cover, Byron becomes able to
severely satirize the English society. Byrons Don Juan was a hedonist, a person
who strived for pleasure, but the society saw that pursuit of pleasure as sin. So,
the character of Don Juan is kind of a symbol for the struggle for liberty. A libertine is a
person who lacks moral restraints, unscrupulous man, especially a person who ignores or even scorns accepted morals and
forms of behavior sanctified by the larger society. Libertines place value on physical pleasures, meaning those experienced
through the senses