Celestina (Week Two)

The death of Celestina perturbed me a bit. She was the harbinger of death and disaster simply by definition of what she stood for, but it never even occurred to me to think about what might happen without this walking allegory for desire.  

Sempronio and Parmeno were obviously fed up. They had known that she was a greedy opportunist but they had still trusted her enough to make a deal with her. They helped Celestina by introducing her a as this wise, sympathetic women in order to extract money from Calisto while knowing that she was calculating and distrustful. What were they so upset at if they had known what kind of woman she was from the start? Unless, they had been mad at themselves for trusting her.

This scene reminded me of a part of Zizek’s chapter “Courtly Love, or, Women as Thing” that we read a few weeks ago. Zizek explains that at a certain point, when the person is displeased with the other’s role in their “relationship”, they act out in irrational violence. Sempronio and Parmeno may not have desired Celestina, but they did desire the money that she had promised them. They had known from the beginning that they probably weren’t going to get the money, but they kept up the act and killed Celestina when she became a threat to the illusion, proving that the desire for riches can be just as dangerous as lust.  

Celestina died at a pivotal moment in the story. Calisto and Melibea were finally both aware of their mutual feelings for each other. Although, Calisto took some convincing. He was in complete disbelief that Melibea had feelings for him, almost as if he didn’t want to believe it. Which makes sense. He desires Melibea so much that she has become a goddess to him. She is high on a pedestal, untouchable. If his feelings were to become requited, the illusion ends. She is no longer this holy being that he can only drool over. She becomes tangible and ends his suffering, which destroys the idealistic prison of desire that Calisto had created for himself.  

It is almost as if the tight grip of what Calisto thought that he wanted had slowly dissipated with the death of Celestina. But, still, the cycle continued. Sosia was tricked by Areusa  into telling her where and when Calisto was going to meet with Melibea. He divulged all the information because he thought that Areusa fancied him, which he later came to realize was a mistake. Areusa had planned Calisto’s death, which only seemed to heightenher Melibea’s desire for him. So much so that she killed herself.  It was almost as if Areusa had taken Celestina’s place because desire never dies.