로뻬의 『물동이를 인 처녀』에 나타난 강인한 여성상

Abstract

The national Spanish plays in the 17th century, which achieved great success through the development of stories with their various themes and types striking the public fancy, have produced a variety of typical dramatic characters still effective up to now since 400 years ago. One of things that attract our attention is the strong female image, which can be seen as the byproduct of Baroque propensities to prefer senseless, unrealistic and weird objects or phenomena. This thesis tried to put La moza de cántaro of Lope and its heroine Doña María in the pedigree of the strong female image existing in the 17th century Spanish plays, compare her with the strong female images appearing in then other plays in terms of similarities and differences, and establish the distinct characteristics of the heroine Doña María as a strong woman. Other representative dramas showing strong female images in that age are La vengadora de las mujeres and Las bizarrías de Belisa of Lope, and La gallega Mari-Hernández and Antona García of Tirso. There are two similarities between the female characters of the dramas and the heroine Doña María of La moza de cantaro. The first one is love. In most of the then Spanish plays showing a strong female image, love was their motif. Likewise, La moza de cántaro develops the story of love between the leading female character and a galán named Don Juan. The second one is the description of revenge or duel, which is the unique male area. In other words, like other plays, La moza de cántaro also develops the story of revenge and a physical fight around Doña María. Nevertheless, there are distinct characteristics of Doña María of La moza de cántaro. For instance, unlike other female characters, Doña María does not show any outstanding physical strength or martial arts skill, but has unbelievable boldness exceeding men, the disposition which can be used to overcome difficulties. Most strong women dress up like men, whereas she shows herself as a woman in the entire play. Through this comparative analysis, it is possible to set up a new strong female image purely based on reality that only appears in La moza de cántaro.