Satire and Irony in Don Juan / Treatment of man and woman in Don Juan

George Gordon Lord Byron (1795-1821), in spite of his being a romantic poet, was very much different from other romantic poets in respect of the characteristics of his poetry. Most of them had escaped from the social concerns, i.e. from objectivity into the world of nature and of imagination as well as into subjectivity. But, in Byron, we see an important combination of subjectivity and objectivity, i.e. of personal and social. Unlike others, he was very much satirical to the social faults. From this tendency, Byron wrote his famous ‘mock-epic’, Don Juan, exposing and satirizing hypocrisy and the corruption of high class society, criticizing the poetic tendency of the time. However, to make it effective
he used wit humor, irony, exaggeration etc.

The Narrator of Don Juan

At the very first, a question should be resolved. Are the narrator and Byron same person?” – No. Rather, Byron makes his narrator to be conservative and sometimes unreliable and extra sympathetic to the male and a representative of that society. The conservative narrator suggests Juan’s parents that they would have whipped him “to teach him manners for the time to come.” As unreliable, at the very first tells that he will not digress as a narrator, but later he again and again talks of himself, his liking disliking etc.

Heroism in Don Juan

At the opening of the poem, Byron satirizes the traditional epic heroes and heroism; then suggests his own hero; at last reconstructs the heroes. He does not want a traditional hero of strong personality, working for common interests. But he says – “I want a hero, an uncommon want” who later proves a ‘mischief-making monkey’ and busy with his personal and illegal love-affair. Actually, his purpose is to expose the hypocrisy and corruption of the high class society through his hero. Moreover, Juan’s heroism is shown at the scene of ‘duet between Alfonso and Juan where Juan flies away leaving his only garment. Is it an act of any epic hero? In addition he is compared with Joseph in order to underestimate him.

Treatment of man and woman 

The narrator mentions Seville, Juan’s birth-place, as a pleasant city, ‘famous for oranges and women.’ Here, purchasable oranges are compared to unpurchasable women. So, what is the effect? The effect, it suggests, is that women would play a vital role in the poem as available as oranges.

We should make it clear how Byron has treated men and women, especially women in his poem. Actually we will see the male characters, Don Juan, Don Jose and Don Alfonso are passive in the poem – Don in all the three names means Lord, suggestive of their upper class derivation. On the other hand, the female characters, Donna Inez, Donna Julia and Antonia, Julia’s maid servant – also here Donna, i.e. Lady, suggesting their upper class births – all are very active over the male. So the narrator’s purpose is to impose all the responsibility of the story upon the shoulders of the female. But, Byron’s main purpose is double gain – first, to show them as the prey of society, that is, to satirize the society; and second, to give ironical hint to them.

Satire in Don Juan

There is a satire with explicit irony on Juan’s education governed by his mother – as his father died earlier. He is taught at home by special tutors with selected and expurgated texts directed and censored by his mother, so that he becomes “strictly moral”; and sexuality keeps out of his reach and knowledge. But the irony is, though Juan remains permanently boyish and innocent in sexuality, his latter life is dominated by sexual love, by proving his all education fruitless. So, what is the reason?

The reason is the circumstances and fault of education in contemporary upper class society. The more he is hid from sexuality which is an inherit thing, the more he becomes curious and later turns vicious; because curiosity is very dangerous. Another critical reason becomes clear in stanza 52 where the narrator is very ironical towards Inez, a female guardian, and here he suggests, if he had a boy, he would have sent him to college. So the indication is that under a single parent of an unhappy couple, especially under a mother, the education of a child can not be fruitful.

Byron satirizes the education and marriage of the female through Donna Inez; by using a term, exaggeration. Byron exaggerates Inez by portraying her as “a learned lady, famed for every science known in every Christian language ever named,” her memory as ‘mine’. Is it believable for a woman at that time? This exaggeration reaches anti-climax when the narrator says –

“In short in all things she was fairly what I call

 A prodigy. Her morning dress was dimity.”

Here mentioning both discussions of serious intellectuality and insignificant dress together creates humor. That is, Inez’s education was an irony for the contemporary society. Irony towards Inez becomes satire to the whole society when the narrator says –

“Tis pity learned virgins ever wed

With persons of no sort of education,

Or gentlemen, who, though well-born and bred,

Grow tired of scientific conversation.”

But the questions lies elsewhere – were the women at the time free to learn all and to choose their life partner? So this is the satire by Byron.

Byron’s satire is on another marriage- marriage between Julia, an extra-ordinarily beautiful lady of 23, and Alfonso, almost an old man of 50. Byron describes the marriage and comments on it –

Wedded she was some years and to a man of fifty,

And such husbands are in plenty.

And yet I think instead of such a one

‘Twere better to have two of five and twenty.

This sort of odd marriage containing age distinction is in plenty in the patriarchal society. Because being older the man can easily make the woman rely upon him and prey to him. But after a ‘cold relationship’ between them what is the result? The result is the lady’s extramarital relationship with other people. But if the husband and wife were of same age, this kind of scandal would not happen. So, is Julia as well as the ladies of that society guilty?

Eventually there grows an extramarital physical relationship between Juan and Julia. But, Byron is very much critical and ironical towards Julia.

“That Donna Julia knew the reason why,

But as for Juan, he had no more notion

Than he who never saw the sea of ocean.”

That is, the narrator wants to say that having already been married and being older than Juan, Julia knows all about their passion and attraction to each other. On contrary, this kind of experience is totally unknown to Juan. So all the responsibility of this illicit relationship is for the woman, Julia – to speak clearly all the malpractice happens for the women in the society.

Byron satirizes the society’s 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 sending into prison. So, the society’s treatment of male and female is clear here.

At last, the narrator very simply expresses a letter sent by Julia from nunnery to Juan. But this letter establishes Julia to be a different sort of character who casts our sympathy, as happens for the case of the Duchess in “My Last Duchess”. She writes to Juan –

“They tell me ‘tis decided; you depart.

‘Tis wise, ‘tis well, but not the less a pain.

I have no further claim on your young heart;

Mine was victim and would be again.

My eyeballs burn and throb, but have no tears”

That is, Julia is the victim of the society and again will be; ‘but have no tears’ suggests that she is able to bear her punishment – though she neither accepts nor protests the punishment. Moreover after having lost all of her, she does not regret for what misfortunes she has faced. So, all of this shows her quality of a tragic character – though the narrator treats her negatively – while Juan as a passive character.

Byron uses Don Juan, his hero, as a medium to satirize contemporary poetic trend, especially Wordsworth and Coleridge. Juan goes to nature aloof from society in order to pacify his mental agony with the help of the ‘healing power’ of nature; and becomes almost a metaphysician; but all in vain. Suddenly Julia’s picture appears before his eyes and ends his thinking. (st. 90, 91, 92) Moreover Byron says –

Thou shalt believe in Milton, Dryden, and Pope

Thou shalt not set up Wordsworth, Coleridge Southey”

Because the neo – classical poets have social concerns while the romantic poets escape from social problems.

Byron also attacks on the hypocrisy of the characters – Though Donna Inez teaches her son, Juan, strict morality, she does allow him to mix closely with Julia, wife of Alfonso with a view to taking a revenge on Alfonso, her earlier lover. Donna Julia, though she promises “I will never content” to Juan, at last she surrenders to Juan as an active partner of sexual relationship. Even, at her bedroom she violently pretends to be a chaste woman, when Juan is on the bed.

Byron’s satire is also directed against the emptiness and carelessness of the male members of the society. Don Jose is very careless to his wife and goes where his mind leads, and is a man “with no great love for learning or the learned.” Alfonso is another man who one night entered his wife’s bedroom “with more that half the city at his back” in order to discover her illicit relationship with someone.

Byron also satirizes some social currents. Though Don Jose and Donna Inez lead “an unhappy sort of life”, they give “no outward sings of inward strife.” It is a tendency of the upper class. Then, the hearers of the story of Jose and Inez repeat to others, “some for amusement others for grudges”. Next, the narrator refers the case of Jose and Inez as a ‘scandal monger’ in order to improve their relationship!

In fine, from the light of the above discussion, it has been clear that Byron satirizes the problem of upper class society. Because of the death of Juan’s father and age-distinct marriage of Julia, the story is led to extramarital relationship between Juan and Julia, between the hero and the heroine. So the main theme of the epic is extramarital relationship. Additionally, his treatment of men and women is of course mentionable. Next, he creates a Byronic hero who defers from other epic heroes; he chooses him from the Spanish legend. So under this cover, Byron becomes able to severely satirize the English society. Moreover, Wordsworth, Coleridge and other romantic poets have no responsibility for society rather than they escape from the society.