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COPYRIGHT 2004 Modern Humanities Research Association
Fuente Ovejuna's foregrounding of religious and folkloric rituals demonstrates the intimate relationship between politics and ritual in the construction of communal identity. The inhabitants of the village apprehend their past, present, and future as contiguous processes and the rituals in which they take part reinforce their notion of community. The Comendador breaks their sense of continuity by disturbing the rituals that they associate with different life cycles, forcing them to revolt. This culminates in the collective torture of the villagers, which, as Foucault has emphasized, is bound up in a relationship of power whose significance is culturally embedded and socially productive.
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Whereas for the most part the immediate goal of torture in our era has been political repression, for the inhabitants of Lope de Vega's Fuente Ovejuna it is inherent in the judicial process. In the play torture is administered by an officer under the direct command of the King and Queen of Spain, Fernando and Isabel. (1) The inhabitants submit to torment and this is officially sanctioned as a highly organized practice, the purpose of which is to gain knowledge or to punish by exemple. Following the murder of the Comendador, the King orders an investigation that is routinely accompanied by torture. The inhabitants of the village both accept and challenge this authority and his way of enforcing and demonstrating his power, by willingly submitting to the torture but heroically disregarding the pain, designed to undermine their integrity. In this way, as this paper will argue, torture is presented as a ritual that is associated not only with power but also with other rituals, including the wedding festival and the giving of gifts. Together, these manifestations contribute to the community's sense of collective identity. These points are foregrounded in the play by cultural and ritualistic practices, which construct a sense of cultural identity that contributes to the collective ethos that is necessary for the process of social ratification. In other words, Lope's play revolves around religious and folkloric rituals that underscore the intimate relationship between politics and ritual in the construction of a communal identity.
My analysis of the play's rituals shows that the inhabitants of the village are a communal grouping because they apprehend their past as a coherent history and see its present and future as contiguous processes. This continuity is sharply interrupted by the Comendador's tyranny, which ultimately provokes the villagers to revolt. His behaviour is presented throughout the play as not simply evil but also, and perhaps more importantly, breaking the flow of time and disrupting the life cycle. His presence and deeds disturb a sense of order and a hierarchical arrangement that the villagers see as 'natural' and wish to preserve. This order, needless to say, depends not only on the maintenance of the social status quo, but also on a binary division of gender roles. Such duality is, however, not based on the association of masculinity with bravado, as is seen by the hesitant attitude of the men until Laurencia calls them to action in Act III. (2)
The central role of the villagers as a group is given expression early in the play when they all welcome the Comendador, presenting themselves as a unified party in the system of exchange that exists between them and their master. This social contract is, however, undermined by the Comendador, as seen in the villagers' welcoming song. The lyrics contain a warning about a Comendador who, for no apparent reason, is presented as a conqueror devoted to 'rendir' lands and 'matar' men:
Sea bien venido el Comendadore de rendir las tierras y matar los hombres [...] venciendo moriscos. (529-32, 537)
Ironically, however, as the audience would be well aware, the Comendador was not returning from fighting against the Moors. Instead, as Victor Dixon notes, they would know that he was returning from a traitorous venture in which he was fighting Christians. (3) Moreover, an association between 'rendir' lands and the abduction and rape of the women of the village is already implicit in those words. Likewise, this surrendering of women also implies the killing of men, who are thereby deprived of their masculinity.
On voicing their concern, the people from the village offer the Comendador gifts of food, pottery, and other goods that their leader, Esteban, describes as 'un pequeno presente' (552). Esteban itemizes the contents of the generous gift as a way of highlighting that the villagers are trying hard to buy peace from their master, even if they show not a little displeasure with his rude manners:
Lo primero traen dos cestas de polidos barros; de gansos viene un ganadillo entero, que sacan por las redes las cabecas, para cantar vuesso valor guerrero. Diez cebones en sal, valientes piecas sin otras menudencias y cezinas; y mas que guantes de ambar, sus cortezas. Cien pares de capones y gallinas, que han dexado viudos a sus gallos en las aldeas que mirais vezinas. [...] De quesos y otras cosas no excusadas no quiero daros cuenta: justo pecho de voluntades que teneis ganadas: y a vos y a vuestra casa, !buen provecho! (555-65, 575-78)
These gifts have an obligation attached to them, for the gift-giving economy thus initiated by the villagers is nothing but an attempt to support the fragile social fabric that the Comendador directly threatens. It is interesting in this context to observe the implications of gift-giving and the reciprocity that is called for in this process. Marcel Mauss's study of the cultural parameters of gift-giving in traditional societies provides an illuminating context in which to place this ritual. Especially relevant are Mauss's remarks on the implicit interdependence of gifts of food: 'The gift is thus something that must be given, that must be received and that is, at the same time, dangerous to accept. The gift itself constitutes an irrevocable link especially when it is a gift of food. The recipient depends upon the temper of the donor, in fact each depends upon the other.' (4)
The sense of community of Fuente Ovejuna is therefore stressed by the food items contained in the gift. This is especially important because the whole society partakes of the production of food, which signifies their communal labour and their triumph over nature. Their collective participation in the production and consumption of food symbolizes the village's labour and struggle to survive, culminating in festivity and...
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