Celestina, like desire, has a way
of seeping into the lives of everyone from street sweepers to kings. Sometimes
her presence is welcome, and others not, but there is no avoiding Celestina. Throughout
the course of the play, Celestina is given a unique description by each member
of the cast. This communicates the
elusive nature of desire, as it can be interpreted in an endless variety of
ways. It affects each person differently, but none truly understand it. Desire
is also fickle, and so each character’s opinion of Celestina changes with their
moods and circumstances.
Initially, Alisa welcomes Celestina
into her home, but several acts later she bans Melibea from seeing her again –
a rather dramatic shift in opinion over the course of a few days. Similarly, Melibea is cold and unwelcoming
towards Celestina in the fifth act, but later when Celestina returns, she praises
her abilities and pleads for her to work her magic. This pattern fits nicely
into the model of desire as being a series of attracting and repelling forces;
to be pushed away from something is to desire it that much more. Melibea goes
through phases of denying her desire for Calisto, then giving in to it, only to
be pushed away again by her mother, father, and Lucrecia. All of this social
foreplay builds her desire for Calisto until she is completely at the mercy of
Celestina and desire.
As soon as Calisto receives news
that Melibea wants to meet, he gives Celestina a chain in reward. The image of
a chain can symbolize restriction and control. Once Calisto knows that Melibea
reciprocates his interest, he gives himself fully to desire and allows it to
control him. It is significant that the gift of the chain is to Celestina, who
signifies desire, instead of Melibea, Calisto’s perceived object of
desire. Although Calisto claims that he
essentially wants to worship Melibea and do only her will, this is not what he
truly desires. He truly wants to be a slave to desire, not to Melibea.
A parallel could be drawn between
Calisto’s chain and Melibea’s girdle in the sense that both gave in to desire
and let it claim control of them. The girdle can be representative of
confinement and restriction, just as the chain and both were given over to
Celestina.
The young lovers meet twice and end
up having sex during the second visit. Obtaining his object of desire only
makes Calisto more confused, and on his walk home he asks himself, “But what is
it I am demanding? What am I asking, crazed, impatient? What never was nor can
be.” (Act XIV, Scene 7, p. 196) At this point, he’s realizing that what he
thought he desired wasn’t what he wanted at all.
As soon as he obtains what he
believes that he desires, he’s overcome with shame, referring to his actions as
a clandestine crime. It is interesting that Celestina dies almost immediately
after Calisto and Melibea have sex. It seems to be indicative of Calisto’s
desire fizzling out as soon as he realizes that sex with Melibea was not what
he truly desired. Once the illusion is shattered, so too is Celestina’s
life.
Elicia and Areusa plot to have
Centurio murder Calisto and his servants in retribution for the deaths of
Parmeno and Sempronio. In the midst of the chaos caused by being startled,
Calisto falls to his death from the garden wall, shattering his skull on the
ground. Melibea is overcome with agony in his death and runs to the tower,
where she confesses her sins to her father before jumping to her death. Melibea
is the only one to have a full confession before her death – the other
characters merely shout “Confession!” Pleberio is given the final word, where
he mourns the death of his daughter. At this point, every character that
understood Calisto and Melibea’s relationship has passed and Pleberio is the only
living character that knows the true story. Furthermore, Pleberio was
remarkably unaffected by Celestina throughout the course of the play, so giving
him the last words seemed peculiar to me.
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