This week when we were reading Cirilo Villaverde’s Cecilia Valdés, I couldn’t help but thinking of the song, “Cecilia,” by Simon & Garfunkel. I made this connection for obvious reasons, but when I thought about the lyrics of the song, I found that some parallels can be drawn between Cecilia Valdés and “Cecilia.” In “Cecilia,” they sing “Celia, you're breaking my heart/
You're shaking my confidence daily.” In the song, Cecilia is a heartbreaker, one who captures the attention of many men, and causes the singer to sing: “Cecilia, I’m down on my knees/I’m begging you please to come home.” Likewise, Cecilia Valdés is a heartbreaker. All of the men at the party in chapters four through six, white men and mulattos alike, are attracted to her. But, I think the connection between these two works can go further, and my following ideas are based off what we discussed in class today.
You're shaking my confidence daily.” In the song, Cecilia is a heartbreaker, one who captures the attention of many men, and causes the singer to sing: “Cecilia, I’m down on my knees/I’m begging you please to come home.” Likewise, Cecilia Valdés is a heartbreaker. All of the men at the party in chapters four through six, white men and mulattos alike, are attracted to her. But, I think the connection between these two works can go further, and my following ideas are based off what we discussed in class today.
In Cecilia Valdés, Cecilia is depicted as superficial, a person who doesn’t have a great personality or a lot of values. In fact, Villaverde describes her by saying that “she had a small mouth and full lips, indicating voluptuousness rather than strength of character.” He then goes on to describe her beautiful appearance, and it seems as though her appearance is the only thing that matters. Later, after Cecilia has grown up and is attending the party, she is described again as a beautiful creature. However, she isn’t really portrayed as more than an object of desire, desired by both white men and colored men. Similarly, in the song “Cecilia,” Cecilia isn’t given much character. She is simply an object that the singer wants to attain, as he begs her “please to come home.”
This objectification of women makes me think more specifically about the situation in Cuba in the nineteenth century. Back then, white men desired mulatto girls like Cecilia. But why? Because they were beautiful? I think it goes beyond that. Because mulatto women were of a different race and therefore of a different social class, it was more acceptable for white men to shamelessly pursue them. Last semester we talked about the concept of “honor.” These lower class mulatto girls wouldn’t have had any honor. Thus, maybe white men thought they would have more luck seducing mulatto women who had no honor to lose, than white, upper class women who did have honor to lose.
First of all I just have to say that I am so happy you put that HIMYM reference in your post! During the discussion today it was all I could think of!! But this idea of women of lower class lacking honor to preserve while women of higher class must maintain their image has been brought up in class before. For example, Socolow's Women of Colonial Latin America discusses this very thoroughly. Women of a higher social class had to maintain an image of innocence and virginity. Higher class women, such as Mercedes, had to preserve their image. However, Cecilia was beautiful and of a lower class. Therefore, men could shamefully pursue her and exploit her. This encourages Cecilia's belief that her outward image will gain her wealth and a higher social standing.
ReplyDeleteI LOVE the HIMYM reference, definitely one of the better references and it is awesome that you tied something so modern to something so old! I like the last paragraph how you dove into where the objectifying of women came from and i think it probably relates to how women are treated now, the whole idea of women as objects. Overall i love the references and you made some great connections!
ReplyDeleteAs like many others, I love the HIMYM connection. I think its great that we can find so many little connections in the things we see and hear today. Your ideas about why Cecilia was pursued the way she was was really helpful. Since we have read the book by Socolow, I have been looking much closer into how women were treated in Latin American countries, and while we saw a lot of examples from other time periods, we don't know much about this more current period. My real question is whether the same values that were applied to women back in colonial society are used in this period. I would have to believe that the expectations of women would have loosened a bit, just like they have sense then, so do women have more freedom to do as they please? Mercedes runs a household and is very active in society, yet she is and has not married (that I remember). Women were not given that much freedom before, yet she has it.
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